HOW AUTHORS WORK
Quick and Slow
The public has shown a deep interest in all details respecting the way
in which writers produce their books; the food they eat, the clothes
they wear, their weaknesses and their hobbies, what pens they use, and
whether they prefer the typewriter or not--all these are items which a
greedy public expects to know. So much is this the case to-day that an
acrid critic recently offered the tart suggestion that a novelist was a
man who wrote a great book, and spent the rest of his time--very
profitably--in telling the world how he came to write it. I do not
intend to pander to the literary news-monger in these pages, but to
reproduce as much as I know of the way in which novelists work, in order
to throw out hints as to how a beginner may perchance better his own
methods. A word of warning, however, is necessary. Do not, for Heaven's
sake, _ape_ anybody. Because Zola darkens his rooms when he writes, that
is no reason why you should go and do likewise; and if John Fiske likes
to sit in a draught, pray save yourself the expense of a doctor's bill
by imitating him. An author's methods are only of service to a novice
when they enable him to improve his own; and it is with this object in
view that I reproduce the following personal notes.
The relative speeds of the writing fraternity are little short of
amazing. Hawthorne was slow in composing. Sometimes he wrote only what
amounted to half-a-dozen pages a week, often only a few lines in the
same space of time, and, alas! he frequently went to his chamber and
took up his pen only to find himself wholly unable to perform any
literary work. Bret Harte has been known to pass days and weeks on a
short story or poem before he was ready to deliver it into the hands of
the printer. Thomas Hardy is said to have spent seven years in writing
"Jude the Obscure." On the other hand, Victor Hugo wrote his "Cromwell"
in three months, and his "Notre Dame de Paris" in four months and a
half. Wilkie Collins, prince among the plotters, was accustomed to
compose at white heat. Speaking of "Heart and Science," he says: "Rest
was impossible. I made a desperate effort, rushed to the sea, went
sailing and fishing, and was writing my book all the time 'in my head,'
as the children say. The one wise course to take was to go back to my
desk and empty my head, and then rest. My nerves are too much shaken for
travelling. An arm-chair and a cigar, and a hundred and fiftieth reading
of the glorious Walter Scott--King, Emperor, and President of
Novelists--there is the regimen that is doing me good." An enterprising
editor, not very long ago, sent out circulars to prominent authors
asking them how much they can do in a day. The reply in most cases was
that the rate of production varied; sometimes the pen or the typewriter
could not keep pace with thought; at other times it was just the
opposite.
It is very necessary at this point to draw a distinction between the
execution of a work, and its development in the mind from birth to full
perfection. When we read that Mr Crockett, or somebody else, produced so
many books in so many years, it does not always mean--if ever--that the
idea and its expression have been a matter of weeks or months. To
_write_ a novel in six weeks is not an impossibility--even a passable
novel; but to sit down and think out a plot, with all its details of
character and event, and to write it out so that in six weeks, or two or
three months, the MS. is on the publisher's desk--well, don't believe
it. No novel worthy of the name was ever produced at that rate.
How many Words a Day?
In nothing do authors differ so much as on the eternal problem of
whether it is right to produce a certain quantity of matter every
day--inspiration or no inspiration. Thomas Hardy has no definite hours
for working, and, although he often uses the night-time for this
purpose, he has a preference for the day-time. Charlotte Bronte had to
choose favourable seasons for literary work--"weeks, sometimes months,
elapsed before she felt that she had anything to add to that portion of
her story which was already written; then some morning she would wake up
and the progress of her tale lay clear and bright before her in distinct
vision, and she set to work to write out what was more present to her
mind at such times than actual life was."[120:A] When writing "Jane
Eyre," and little Jane had been brought to Thornfield, the author's
enthusiasm had grown so great that she could not stop. She went on
incessantly for weeks.
Miss Jane Barlow confesses that she is "a very slow worker; indeed, when
I consider the amount of work which the majority of writers turn out in
a year, I feel that I must be dreadfully lazy. Even in my quiet life
here I find it difficult to get a long, clear space of time for my work,
and the slightest interruption will upset me for hours. It is difficult
to make people understand that it is not so much the time they take up,
as causing me to break the line of thought. It may be that somebody only
comes into the study to speak to me for a minute, but it is quite
enough. I suppose it is very silly to be so sensitive to interruptions,
but I cannot help it. I sometimes say it is as though a box of beads had
been upset, and I had to gather them together again; that is just the
effect of anyone speaking to me when I am at work. I write everything by
hand, and it takes a long time. I am sure I could not use a typewriter,
or dictate; indeed, I never let anybody see what I have written until it
is in print. Sometimes I write a passage over a dozen times before it
comes right, and I always make a second copy of everything, but the
corrections are not very numerous."
Mr William Black was also a slow producer: "I am building up a book
months before I write the first chapter; before I can put pen to paper I
have to realise all the chief incidents and characters. I have to live
with my characters, so to speak; otherwise, I am afraid they would
never appear living people to my readers. This is my work during the
summer; the only time I am free from the novel that-is-to-be is when I
am grouse-shooting or salmon-fishing. At other times I am haunted by the
characters and the scenes in which they take part, so that, for the sake
of his peace of mind, my method is not to be recommended to the young
novelist. When I come to the writing, I have to immure myself in perfect
quietude; my study is at the top of the house, and on the two or three
days a week I am writing, Mrs Black guards me from interruption. . . .
Of course, now and again, I have had to read a good deal preparatory to
writing. Before beginning 'Sunrise,' for instance, I went through the
history of secret societies in Europe."
Charles Reade and Anthony Trollope
"Charles Reade's habit of working was unique. When he had decided on a
new work, he plotted out the scheme, situations, facts, and characters
on three large sheets of pasteboard. Then he set to work, using very
large foolscap to write on, working rapidly, but with frequent
references to his storehouse of facts in the scrap-books which were
ready at his hand. The genial novelist was a great reader of newspapers.
Anything that struck him as interesting, or any fact which tended to
support one of his humanitarian theories, was cut out, pasted in a large
folio scrap-book, and carefully indexed. Facts of any sort were his
hobby. From the scrap-books thus collected with great care, he used to
'elaborate' the questions treated of in his novels."
Anthony Trollope is one of the few men who have taken their readers into
their full confidence about book production. The quotation I am about to
make is rather long, but it is too detailed to be shortened:
"When I have commenced a new book I have always prepared a diary,
divided into weeks, and carried it on for the period which I have
allowed myself for the completion of the work. In this I have entered
day by day the number of pages I have written, so that if at any time I
have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the record of that idleness
has been there staring me in the face, and demanding of me increased
labour, so that the deficiency might be supplied. According to the
circumstances of the time, whether any other business might be then
heavy or light, or whether the book which I was writing was, or was not,
wanted with speed, I have allotted myself so many pages a week. The
average number has been about forty. It has been placed as low as
twenty, and has risen to one hundred and twelve. And as a page is an
ambiguous term, my page has been made to contain two hundred and fifty
words, and as words, if not watched, will have a tendency to straggle, I
have had every word counted as I went."[124:A]
Under the title of "A Walk in the Wood," Trollope thus describes his
method of plot-making, and the difficulty the novelist experiences in
making the "tricksy Ariel" of the imagination do his bidding. "I have
to confess that my incidents are fabricated to fit my story as it goes
on, and not my story to fit my incidents. I wrote a novel once in which
a lady forged a will, but I had not myself decided that she had forged
it till the chapter before that in which she confesses her guilt. In
another, a lady is made to steal her own diamonds, a grand _tour de
force_, as I thought, but the brilliant idea struck me only when I was
writing the page in which the theft is described. I once heard an
unknown critic abuse my workmanship because a certain lady had been made
to appear too frequently in my pages. I went home and killed her
immediately. I say this to show that the process of thinking to which I
am alluding has not generally been applied to any great effort of
construction. It has expended itself on the minute ramifications of
tale-telling: how this young lady should be made to behave herself with
that young gentleman; how this mother or that father would be affected
by the ill conduct or the good of a son or a daughter; how these words
or those other would be most appropriate or true to nature if used on
some special occasion. Such plottings as these with a fabricator of
fiction are infinite in number, but not one of them can be done fitly
without thinking. My little effort will miss its wished-for result
unless I be true to nature; and to be true to nature, I must think what
nature would produce. Where shall I go to find my thoughts with the
greatest ease and most perfect freedom?
"I have found that I can best command my thoughts on foot, and can do so
with the most perfect mastery when wandering through a wood. To be alone
is, of course, essential. Companionship requires conversation, for
which, indeed, the spot is most fit; but conversation is not now the
object in view. I have found it best even to reject the society of a
dog, who, if he be a dog of manners, will make some attempt at talking;
and, though he should be silent, the sight of him provokes words and
caresses and sport. It is best to be away from cottages, away from
children, away as far as may be from chance wanderers. So much easier
is it to speak than to think, that any slightest temptation suffices to
carry away the idler from the harder to the lighter work. An old woman
with a bundle of sticks becomes an agreeable companion, or a little girl
picking wild fruit. Even when quite alone, when all the surroundings
seem to be fitted for thought, the thinker will still find a difficulty
in thinking. It is easy to lose an hour in maundering over the past, and
to waste the good things which have been provided, in remembering
instead of creating!"
The Mission of Fancy
"It is not for rules of construction that the writer is seeking, as he
roams listlessly or walks rapidly through the trees. These have come to
him from much observation, from the writings of others, from that which
we call study, in which imagination has but little immediate concern. It
is the fitting of the rules to the characters which he has created, the
filling in with living touches and true colours those daubs and blotches
on his canvas which have been easily scribbled with a rough hand, that
the true work consists. It is here that he requires that his fancy
should be undisturbed, that the trees should overshadow him, that the
birds should comfort him, that the green and yellow mosses should be in
unison with him, that the very air should be good to him. The rules are
there fixed--fixed as far as his judgment can fix them--and are no
longer a difficulty to him. The first coarse outlines of his story he
has found to be a matter almost indifferent to him. It is with these
little plottings that he has to contend. It is for them that he must
catch his Ariel and bind him fast, and yet so bind him that not a thread
shall touch the easy action of his wings. Every little scene must be
arranged so that--if it may be possible--the proper words may be spoken,
and the fitting effect produced."
Fancies of another Type
Most authors indulge in little eccentricities when working, and, if the
time should ever come that your name is brought before the public
notice, it would be advisable to develop some whimsical habit so as to
be prepared for the interviewer, who is sure to ask whether you have
one. To push your pen through your hair during creative moments would be
a good plan; it would reveal a line of baldness where you had furrowed
the hair off, and afford ocular proof to all and sundry that you
possessed a genuine eccentricity. Or if you prefer a habit still more
_bizarre_, you might put a hammock in a tree, and always write your most
exciting scenes during a rain-storm, and under the shelter of a dripping
umbrella.
The fact is, every penman has his little peculiarities when at work, but
they should be kept as private property. Of course, there are authors
who revel in publicity, and others again have intimate details wormed
out of them. The fact remains, however, that these details are
interesting, because they are personal; and they are occasionally
helpful, because they enable one writer to compare notes with others. We
have all heard of the methodical habits of Kant. When thinking out his
deep thoughts, he always placed himself so that his eyes might fall on a
certain old tower. This old tower became so necessary to his thoughts,
that when some poplar trees grew up and hid it from his sight, he found
himself unable to think at all, until, at his earnest request, the trees
were cropped and the tower was brought into sight again.
George Eliot was very susceptible as to her surroundings. When about to
write, she dressed herself with great care, and arranged her
harmoniously-furnished room in perfect order.[130:A] Hawthorne had a
habit of cutting some article while composing. He is said to have taken
a garment from his wife's sewing-basket, and cut it into pieces without
being conscious of the act. Thus an entire table and the arms of a
rocking-chair were whittled away in this manner.
Upon Ibsen's writing-table is a small tray containing a number of
grotesque figures--a wooden bear, a tiny devil, two or three cats (one
of them playing a fiddle), and some rabbits. Ibsen has said: "I never
write a single line of any of my dramas without having that tray and its
occupants before me on my table. I could not write without them. But why
I use them is my own secret."
Ouida writes in the early morning. She gets up at five o'clock, and
before she begins, works herself up into a sort of literary trance.
Maurice Jokai always uses violet ink, to which he is so accustomed that
he becomes perplexed when compelled, outside of his own house, to resort
to ink of another colour. He claims that thoughts are not forthcoming
when he writes with any other ink. One of the corners of his
writing-desk holds a miniature library, consisting of neatly-bound
note-books which contain the outline of his novels as they originated in
his mind. When he has once begun a romance, he keeps right on until it
is completed.
Some of our Younger Writers
Mr Zangwill has no particular method of working; he works in spasms.
Regular hours, he says, may be possible to a writer of pure romance, but
if you are writing of the life about you, such regularity is
impossible.[132:A] Coulson Kernahan works in the morning and in the
evening, but never in the afternoon. He always reserves the afternoon
for walking, cycling, and exercise generally. He is unable to work
regularly; some days indeed pass without doing a stroke.[132:B] Anthony
Hope is found at his desk every morning, but if the inspiration does not
come, he never forces himself to write. Sometimes it will come after
waiting several hours, and sometimes it will seem to have come when it
hasn't, which means that next morning he has to tear up what was
written the day before and start afresh.[133:A] Before Robert Barr
publishes a novel he spends years in thinking the thing out. In this way
ten years were spent over "The Mutable Many," and two more years in
writing it.[133:B] When Max Pemberton has a book in the making he just
sits down and writes away at it when in the mood. "I find," he says,
"that I can always work best in the morning. One's brain is fresher and
one's ideas come more readily. If I work at night I find that I have to
undo a great deal of it in the morning. In working late at night I have
done so under the impression that I have accomplished some really fine
work, only to rise in the morning and, after looking at it, feel that
one ought to shed tears over such stuff."[133:C] H. G. Wells, as might
be expected, has a way of his own. "In the morning I merely revise
proofs and type-written copy, and write letters, and, in fact, any work
that does not require the exercise of much imagination. If it is fine, I
either have a walk or a ride on the cycle. We also have a tandem, and
sometimes my wife and I take the double machine out; and then after
lunch we have tea about half-past three in the afternoon. It is after
this cup of tea that I do my work. The afternoon is the best time of the
day for me, and I nearly always work on until eight o'clock, when we
have dinner. If I am working at something in which I feel keenly
interested, I work on from nine o'clock until after midnight, but it is
on the afternoon work that my output mainly depends."[134:A]
Curious Methods
In another interview Mr Wells said, "I write and re-write. If you want
to get an effect, it seems to me that the first thing you have to do is
to write the thing down as it comes into your mind" ("slush," Mr Wells
calls it), "and so get some idea of the shape of it. In this preliminary
process, no doubt, one can write a good many thousand words a day,
perhaps seven or eight thousand. But when all that is finished, it will
take you seven or eight solid days to pick it to pieces again, and knock
it straight.
"The 'slush' effort of 'The Invisible Man' came to more than 100,000
words; the final outcome of it amounts to 55,000. My first tendency was
to make it much shorter still.
"I used to feel a great deal ashamed of this method. I thought it simply
showed incapacity, and inability to hit the right nail on the head. The
process is like this:
"(1) Worry and confusion.
"(2) Testing the idea, and trying to settle the question. Is
the idea any good?
"(3) Throwing the idea away; getting another; finally
returning, perhaps, to the first.
"(4) The next thing is possibly a bad start.
"(5) Grappling with the idea with the feeling that it has to
be done.
"(6) Then the slush work, which I've already described.
"(7) Reading this over, and taking out what you think is
essential, and re-writing the essential part of it.
"(8) After it has been type-written, you cut it about, so that
it has to be re-typed.
"(9) The result of your labour finds its way into print, and
you take hold of the first opportunity to go over the whole
thing again."[136:A]
Contrasted with the pleasant humour of the above is the gravity of Ian
Maclaren. "Although the stories I have written may seem very simple,
they are very laboriously done. This kind of short story cannot be done
quickly. There is no plot, no incident, and one has to depend entirely
upon character and slight touches, curiously arranged and bound
together, to produce the effect. . . . Each of the 'Bonnie Brier Bush'
stories went through these processes:--(1) Slowly drafted arrangement;
(2) draft revised before writing; (3) written; (4) manuscript revised;
(5) first proof corrected; (6) revise corrected; (7) having been
published in a periodical, revised for book; (8) first proof corrected;
(9) second proof corrected."[137:A]
* * * * *
Enough. These personal notes will teach the novice that every man must
make and follow his own plan of work. Experience is the best guide and
the wisest teacher.
FOOTNOTES:
[120:A] Erichsen: "Methods of Authors."
[124:A] "Autobiography," vol. ii.
[130:A] Erichsen: "Methods of Authors."
[132:A] Interview in _The Young Man_, by Percy L. Parker.
[132:B] Interview in _The Young Man_, by A. H. Lawrence.
[133:A] Interview in _The Young Man_, by Sarah A. Tooley.
[133:B] _Ibid._
[133:C] Interview in _The Young Man_, by A. H. Lawrence.
[134:A] Interview in _The Young Man_, by A. H. Lawrence.
[136:A] Interview in _To-Day_, for September 11th, 1897, by A. H.
Lawrence.
[137:A] Interview in _The Christian Commonwealth_ for September 24th,
1896.