Is That What People Do? (52 page)

She said, “Please don’t hurt me.”

He said, “Come with me!”

She shook her head and tried to dodge him. He grabbed her as she went past, catching her by the blond curls. She fell, and he felt her head twist in his hands, twist around in a full, impossible circle, so that her body was turned away from him while her pretty blue eyes still stared into his face.

“Never!” she said.

In a spasm of rage and revulsion, Baxter yanked at her head. It came off in his hands. In the neck stump he could see bits of glass winking in a gray matrix.

The mama and papa and baby dolls stopped in mid-motion. Long John Silver collapsed. The broken doll’s blue eyes blinked three times; then she died.

The rest of the toys stopped. The organ faded, the spotlights went out, and the last jungle flower clinked to the floor. In the darkness, a weeping fat man knelt beside a busted doll and wondered what he was going to tell Conabee in the morning.

HOW PRO WRITERS REALLY WRITE—OR TRY TO

Like most authors of science fiction, I was an avid reader first. Back then, as an aspiring writer as well as a fan, I wanted to know how professional writers actually do their jobs. How do they develop their ideas, plot their stories, overcome their difficulties? Now, twenty-five years later, I know a little about it.

Professional writers are extremely individualistic in the ways they approach their task. If you are among a lucky few, it is relatively simple. You get an idea, which in turn suggests a plot and characters. With that much in hand, you go to a typewriter and bash out a story. When it’s done, a few hours later, you correct the grammar and spelling. This editing usually results in a messy-looking manuscript, so you type out the whole thing again. For better or worse, your story is now finished.

That’s pretty much how I went about it early in my career. If anyone asked, I would explain that plotting a story consists merely of giving your hero a serious problem, a limited amount of time in which to solve it, and dire consequences if he fails to do so. You preclude all easy solutions, The hero tries this and that, but all his efforts serve only to sink him into deeper trouble. Time is soon running out and he still hasn’t defeated the villain, rescued the girl, or learned the secret of the alien civilization. He’s on the verge of utter, tragic defeat. Then, at the last moment, you get him out of trouble. How does this happen? In a flash of insight your hero solves his problem by logical means inherent in the situation but overlooked until now. Done properly, your solution makes the reader say, “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” You then bring the story to a swift conclusion—and that’s all there is to it.

This straightforward approach sow me through many stories. Inevitably, however sophistication set in and I began to experience difficulties. I began to view writing as a problem and to look for ways of dealing with that problem.

I looked to my colleagues and their individual methodologies. Lest Del Rey, for example, told me that he wrote out his stories in his head—word, for word, sentence for sentence—before committing them to paper. Months, even years, would be devoted to this mental composition.

Only when he was ready to type out a story would Lester go to his office, which was about the size of a broom closet, though not so pretty. He had built it in the middle of the living room. After cramming himself inside, Lester would be locked in place by a typewriter that unfolded from the wall into his lap. Paper, pencils, cigarettes and ashtray were there, and a circulation fan to keep him from suffocating. It was much like being in an upright coffin, but with the disadvantage that he was not dead.

Philip Klass, better known as William Tenn, had many different work methods back in those days. He developed them in order to cope with a blockage as tenacious and enveloping as a lovestricken boa constrictor. Phil and I used to discuss our writing problems at length. Once we invented a method that would serve two writers. The scheme involved renting a studio and furnishing it with a desk, typewriter, and heavy oaken chair. The chair was to be fitted with a chain and a padlock. According to our scheme, we would take turns in the studio. When it was, say, Phil’s turn to write, I would chain him to the chair, leaving his arms free to type. I would then leave him there, despite his piteous please and entreaties, until he had produced a given amount of cogent prose. At that point I would release him and take his place.

We never did carry out our scheme, probably because of the unlikelihood of finding a chair strong enough to restrain a writer determined to escape work. But we did try something else. We agreed to meet at a diner in Greenwich Village at the end of each day’s work. There we showed each other the pages we had done. If either of us had failed to fulfill his quota for the day, he would pay the other ten dollars.

It seemed foolproof, but we soon ran into a difficulty. Neither of us was willing to let the other actually read his rough, unfinished copy. We got around this by presenting our pages upside down. But this procedure made it impossible to tell if we had really written new copy that day or if we were showing pages from years ago. It became a point of honor for each of us to present new copy that the other could not read. We did this for about a week, then
 
spontaneously and joyously reverted to our former practice of just talking about writing.

As the years passed, my own blockage became wider, deeper and blacker. I thought I knew what my trouble was, however. My trouble was my wife. As soon as I did something about her, I reasoned, everything would be okay. Two divorces later, I knew it was not my wife.

The trouble, I next decided, was New York. How could I possible work in such a place? What I needed was sunshine, a sparkling sea, olive trees, and solitude. So I moved to the island of Ibiza. There I rented a three-hundred-year-old farmhouse on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean. The house lacked electricity, but it did have four rooms, any one of which I could use as my office. First, I tried to work in the beautiful, bright rooms upstairs. Alas, I couldn’t concentrate on my writing here because I spent too much time admiring the splendid view from the window. So, I moved downstairs to a room that had only one narrow window, with bars over it in case of attack by pirates. Formerly a storage place for potatoes, the room was dark and dank. There was nothing to divert my attention. But I couldn’t work here either. There was no electricity and my kerosene lamp gave off too much smoke.

At last I saw what the real trouble was. It stemmed from my working indoors. Henceforth, I would toil outdoors, as it was meant to be. So I set up on the beach—only to be frustrated again, this time by the heat of a searing sun and by the ceaseless onshore breeze blowing sand into my typewriter. I tried composing under a shady tree, but the flies drove me away. When I tried to do my writing in a café, the waiters were too noisy.

I gave up on Ibiza and moved to London, firmly convinced that my problem was a shortage of self-discipline. I began to search in earnest for ways of doing by artifice what once I had done naturally. Here, in no particular order, are a few of the methods I have utilized.
 

When I am blocked, my tendency is to avoid writing. That’s quite predictable. But the less I write, the less I feel capable of writing. A sense of oppression increases as my output dwindles, and I begin to dread writing anything at all. How to break this vicious cycle? The hard truth is that it can only be done by writing. I must practice my craft regularly if I am to maintain any facility at it. I need to produce a flow of words. How am I to achieve that flow when I am blocked?

To solve this dilemma, at one juncture I set myself to type five thousand words a day. Type, now write. Wordage was my only requirement. The substance of what I wrote did not matter. It could be anything, even gibberish, even lists of disconnected words, even my name over and over again. All that mattered was to produce daily wordage in quantity.

Perhaps that sounds simple. It was not, I assure you. The first day went well enough. By the second, however, I had exhausted my ready stock of banalities. I found myself creating something like this:

“Ah, yes, here we are at last, getting near the bottom of the page. One more sentence, just a few more words…that’s it, go baby, go, do those words…Ah, page done. That’s page 19, and now we are at the top of page 20—the last page of the day—or night, since it is now 3:30 in the bloody morning and I have been at this for what feels like a hundred years. But only one page to go, the last, and then I can put aside this insane nonsense and do something else, anything else, anything in the whole world except this. This, this, this. Damn, still three-quarters of a page to go. Oh words, wherefore art thou, words, now that I need you? Come quickly to my fingers and release me from this horror, horror, horror…Oh, God I am losing my mind, mind, mind…but wait, is it possible? Yes, here it is, the end of the page coming up. Oh, welcome, kindly end of page, and now I am finished, finished, finished!”

After a few days of this, I realized I was working very hard and not getting paid for it. Since I was turning out five thousand words a day anyway, and since I was getting tired of typing long meandering streams of meaningless verbiage, I asked myself why I shouldn’t write a story.

And I did just that. I sat down and wrote a story. And it was easy!

Could it be that I had the master key to writing at last? I wrote another story. This was not so easy, but it was not unduly difficult, either. So there I was with two complete stories on paper, and each had taken only a day to wrap up. I thought proudly of these stories for a year afterward. I’ve never employed this technique to get anything else written, but I know it works. Someday, when I’m feeling desperate enough, I’ll probably rely on it again. Meanwhile, however, I’m still seeking a less agonizing method.

Wordage, after all, is not the sole consideration. Writing a story can be a strange and fearsome business. You want so badly to get it just right. You try so hard and judge yourself so severely that you may succeed only in confusing yourself. Perhaps you’ve written many thousands of words and you’re sorely dissatisfied with them. It’s all chaos and you can’t seem to get on an orderly course. That was my next problem. Wordage, yes, but also an unwillingness, a fear of submitting myself to the tortures of actually turning out a story.

My solution, typically enough was to try to sidestep the problem. Since there seemed to be no way of writing a story without plunging myself into utter despair, I decided I would not write a story. Instead, I would write a
simulation
of a story.

My simulations are the same length as a story, and they are made up of narration, dialogue, exposition , and all the other elements of a proper story. The difference is that in a proper story the words you choose are vitally important; in a simulation they are of no importance whatever. When I write a simulation, it doesn’t matter if my images are trite and my dialogue leaden. It isn’t a story, remember, but only something like a story. It’s a formal exercise rather than a piece of careful creation. I never consciously attempt to work into a simulation the beauty, precision, humor, and pathos that a proper story must contain.

Using this method has taught me that I have a certain gift for self-deception. Curious to relate, I’ve discovered that—except for a few rough spots here and there—my simulated stories are very much like the real ones I’ve written.

What this obviously means is that I can only write as I write, no matter how hard I try. Trying too hard, in fact, has an adverse effect on my performance. The whole purpose of simulation is to work rapidly with a certain lightness of touch, as one would do a watercolor rather than an oil painting. This method does work. But there are a couple of obstructive thoughts I have to watch out for. The first is, “Hell, this is going badly; I’d better start again.” The other is, “Hey, this is going well; I’d better tighten up and make it really good.” Both of these judgments are counterproductive.

Thinking, not writing, is sometimes the problem. Various ideas must be regarded from different angles before I can begin writing. Critical decisions must be formulated. Alternatives must be weighed. Bits of data need to be juggled, fitted into place, discarded, or altered. Such problems are elusive. They refuse to solidify. I make some notes, or go for a long walk, or discuss it with my wife, but nothing seems to help much. It’s all so nebulous and unclear. There are too many things to consider at once, and no means of arranging my data. At times like this, it can be helpful to make a
diagram
. Here’s the sort of diagram I find useful. You pencil a key word in the corner of a sheet of paper and draw a circle around it. Then you draw radiating lines from it and write, as succinctly as possible, the various considerations associated with the idea. The resulting diagram sums up your knowledge on the subject. The entire question and all of its ramifications can be taken in at a glance, enabling you to see what you have and, equally important, what you don’t have. Hookups between parts of the diagram will suggest themselves. Pertinent areas can be enclosed or connected. Different colors can be used for emphasis. New data can easily be added. Areas of special significance can be removed as the bases of new diagrams or sub-daigrams.

Working with diagrams is fun. At first I made mine with an ordinary fountain pen. Then I switched to colored Pentels. For greater efficiency, I worked out a set of color-coded symbols, which was well worth the time it took. I also experimented with different modes of lettering to improve clarity.

My diagrams grew larger and more complex, whereupon I switched to larger sheets of paper. After that, I got into colored inks. The commercial brands weren’t quite right, so I began to mix my own. But the system still lacked something. It was becoming too mechanical and lackluster.
 
So I began to illustrate my diagrams, first with little sketches, then with line and wash drawings, and finally with watercolors. My skill as an illustrator left something to be desired, so I began looking for a good art course. Unfortunately, I had to drop the whole thing and get some salable writing done. Still, it was not a total waste. When a market opens up for fancy diagrams, I’ll be all set.