CHAPTER 10

You and Fiction

A story is a larger life, created and

shared with others by a writer.

So now you know how to write and sell a story: the tricks, the techniques,

the devices, the rules-of-thumb.

True, you still have plenty to learn. The creation of commercial fiction

involves all sorts of twists and subtleties. A writer can work at his craft for

twenty years, yet continue to discover something new each day.

But such fringe fragments are largely a matter of individual touch, and

best assimilated through experience. Theyll come with time and work.

More important, now, is a different question: Where do you go from

here?

That depends on you, of course: your tastes, your talents, your

ambitions; above all, the depth of your inner need to write and sell.

And that brings us to a crucial issue: Just what is the nature of the need

to write, precisely? Why does one man go on and on; another not?

The answer, put briefly, is this: The writer is a man who seeks a larger

world.

When he finds it, he passes it along to others.

Believe me, this can be a vital matter to you. Once you truly understand

it and its implications, your most irksome problems will be resolved.

Shall we move to the attack?

* * *

The true function of any teacher is to prepare his students to face the

future and strike out on their own.

To that end, and whether he plans it so or not, he ponders said students

as much as they ponder him.

YOU AND FICTION 305

My own chosen pondering-place is the University of Oklahoma, and

the Professional Writing program in which I teach. It provides me with

student writers to observe, and the fact of their talent is demonstrated by

the success that theyve achieved: more than three hundred books

published; literally thousands of magazine stories and articles sold. Men

and women like Neal Barrett, Jr., science-fiction specialist; Jack M.

Bickham, now with more than a dozen novels to his credit; Bob Bristow,

major contributor in the mens field; Martha Corson, top confessioneer; Al

Dewlen, whose Twilight of Honor was a Book of the Month Club selection

and MGM film; Lawrence V. Fisher, with Die a Little Every Day for

Random House and Mystery Guild; Fred Grove, winner of Western

Writers of America awards; Elizabeth Land Kaderli, author of assorted

fact books; Harold Keith, whose Rifles for Watie claimed a Newbery

Medal; Leonard Sandershis latest novel is The Wooden Horseshoe, at

Doubleday; the late Mary Agnes Thompson, one of whose short stories

ended up as an Elvis Presley movie; Mary Lyle Weeks, another leading

confession writer now moving into the hardback novel field, and Jeanne

Williams, author of prize-winning books for young people, are among

those with whom Ive had the pleasure of working personally, at one time

or another.

What do I find when I look back along the road that these writers and

hundreds of others like them have followed, as they went through courses

with me and various of my colleagues: Foster-Harris, Helen Reagan Smith

(in the Universitys Extension Division), and the late Walter S. Campbell?

Typically, the beginning student (and in specialized professional

courses such as ours, beginning student often means a man or woman far

past usual college age) is eager to write, but has deficiencies and knows it.

He cant make words or readers behave the way he wants them to. So, he

comes to course or book to learn his craft.

The skills he needs are things that can be taught.

We teach them to him.

Very soon, however, Writer learns that tools and tricks alone just arent

enough.

Why not?

Suppose an accident occurs at a busy intersection, in the presence of a

dozen witnesses.

If the police are very lucky, they may locate one person upon whose

account of the wreck they can depend. The others catch part of the action

306 TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER

only, or become confused, or simply see things that didnt happen.

Would-be writers, too, reflect a kind of private blindness. Give five of

them the self-same training and raw materials, and it may be your good

fortune to have one produce a story thats worth the reading.

Thus, whether you deal with writer or with witness, the individual is the

vital factor.

Why?

Because each person sees things differently.

Further, a different type of seeing is needed in each case.

The man the police want as an accident witness is one who sees facts:

the World That Is; what actually took place, without distortion or

interpretation.

This kind of seeing constitutes a talent. To observe accurately takes

experience and training and a special kind of person.

What the writer needs, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite: the

ability to see more than the facts; to look beyond them; to hypothesize

about them; to draw conclusions from them.

Above all, he must use his facts as stimuli to feeling: emotionalize

them; give them a unique private life.

This, too, is a talent.

Why does one would-be writer see more than do his fellows?

Because one has it in him to be a writer. The others only wish they did.

Andnow were back to where we startedthis is because the true

writer seeks a larger world.

How so?

Because the World That Is can never be quite large enough to suit the

writer. Hemmed in by reality, he feels restive, no matter how ideal his

situation may appear to another eye. A rut gilded, to him, still remains a

rut.

And just as each character in a story draws motive force from his need

to make up for something that he lacks, so the writer is driven by his need

to escape the limits of a too-small world, the World That Is. Its in his

blood to range farther than life can ever let him go. The impossible

intrigues him. So do the unattainable, the forbidden, the disastrous. Like

the man who reads his stories, he wants to know what its like to love, to

hate, to thrill, to fear, to laugh, to cry, to soar, to grieve, to kill, to die, from

inside the skins of a hundred different people.

Nor is it enough for him just to know. He must play God too; guide the

YOU AND FICTION 307

hand of fate; somehow mold and control the forces that shape destiny.

These things cant be. The writer realizes it.

But that only sharpens his desire and whets his craving; for his need to

reach out strikes deeper than the wildest dreams of other men.

And the writer can reach out, through the agency of his own

imagination.

He does so.

Then, because the things he finds in the larger world that he creates so

fascinate him, he yearns to pass them on to others.

He does that too, through the medium of the written word.

Do I make this plain? The writers inner need is dual.

On the one hand, hes driven by his desire to live life in a larger world.

On the other, he feels a compulsion to share that world . . . to display it

for others to admire.

Both these drives must coexist inside you, nagging and harassing, if

youre to be a writer.

I stress this because its so seldom understood. Too often, the would-be

writer thinks that what he wants is fame or money or independence. He

equates a taste for reading or a knack with words for talent.

Now none of these beliefs are wholly false. But neither are they wholly

true. They evade the issue, for convenience sake or lack of insight or

unwillingness to accept the fact of difference, as the case may be.

Actually, what a writer seeks is a way of life, and that way constitutes

its own reward. The criterion is never art for arts sake . . . always, it is art

for selfs sake. You write because you like toneed to, have towrite;

there is no other valid reason.

Once let a writer recognize this; once let him understand his own

dynamics, and uncertainty and self-doubt fade. You learn to face the fact

that if your inner need is great enough, youll write. If other needs surpass

itif your drives to adventure or security or love or recognition or family

duties strike deeperthen you can turn away with no regrets. You wont

have to kid yourself about fame or money or independencethose are

bonuses for special skill and talent; fringe benefits. Convenient and

desirable though they may be, on a basic level theyre only status symbols;

societys stamp of approval to mark your success in your chosen field.

More important by far is your own self-satisfaction. Build larger worlds

of your private choosing; find the right readers to admire them, and youll

live content despite an income that would never rouse jealousy in a used-

308 TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER

car salesman. Deny yourself your Worlds of If, your readers, and you can

be miserable even with a Rolls-Royce and a Bel Air estate.

* * *

What is a story?

A story is so many things

Its experience translated into literary process.

Its words strung onto paper.

Its a succession of motivations and reactions.

Its a chain of scenes and sequels.

Its a double-barreled attack upon your readers.

Its movement through the eternal now, from past to future.

Its people given life on paper.

Its the triumph of ego over fear of failure.

Its merchandise that goes hunting for a buyer.

Its new life, shared with readers by a writer.

A story is all these things and more. So much, much more . . .

For a story, in the last analysis, is you, transferred to print and paper.

You: unique and individual. You, writer, who through your talent range a

larger world than others, and thus give life new meaning to all who choose

to read.

You: writer.

Attain that status, and you win fulfillment enough for any man!