3. Start off the characters like a bunch of obstacle racers and bring
them to the climax as quickly, but as logically, as possible.
4. Write tersely at first, expanding where advisable--rather than write
voluminously and chop out.
5. Write nothing that won't put at least a grain of weight into the
final wallop.
=Katharine Holland Brown=: The story tells itself as it is being
written: or rather, it is fairly visible as a whole before I begin to
write at all. The climax and ending are usually written first. The rest
is written down in very concise fragments, just as these fragments
present themselves. The story isn't written consecutively the first
time. Only the high lights. Then, of course, it has to be rewritten,
sometimes three or four times; sometimes only once.
=F. R. Buckley=: I combine mapping ahead and letting a character move
the story. Method depends on mode of conception (see above). Roughly
speaking, the average story is planned thus--I conceive either the
beginning, the middle, or the end, to start with. If the end, then I
work backward and decide what shall be the high spot of the middle: and,
from that, backward and figure out just where and with what
attention-gripping incident I can start the story. These three high
points established, I take the main character and start him from the
beginning toward the middle. He decides very largely how he gets
there--his character does, I mean. And when he's reached the middle, I
start him off again in the general direction of the end. I always have
these three high points established before I begin. I write
straightforward; revise little, except for redundancies and literals,
except in the case of long stories and complicated shorts. Then I go
very carefully over the thing for errors of fact or probability: _e.
g._, I examine each situation to see whether it could have been resolved
in any simpler way than I have resolved it; whether I have made my
characters make a wide detour when they could, and would, have cut
across lots, as it were. Since, however, the character of the hero or
principal character dictates the minutiæ of action, I rarely (have never
done so yet) find a mistake of this kind. This is the great advantage of
having a strong character to dictate action, of course.
=Prosper Buranelli=: I have everything but small details in my mind when
I begin writing.
=Thompson Burtis=: My stories are all mapped out in advance--the exact
ending is in sight. Even some of the dialogue is in mind when I start. I
write straightaway as a whole. I revise very little. Most rewritten
pages are the result of my believing that the original page, after the
inked-in corrections, was too messy. Due to the completeness with which
I have blocked out the story in advance, there is no necessity for me to
do any important revision. I may occasionally overlook some important
point in the story and have to put it in, but in no case have I ever
made a radical change in a character or description after the first
draft. What you get from me is the story as I originally wrote it, with
perhaps one or two pages rewritten to make them neater.
=George M. A. Cain=: Advance mapping with me is of the vaguest
character. Everything shapes itself toward or from the situation
originally conceived. I write straightaway, but very rarely without a
clear notion of a possible ending, having found that to do otherwise is
to introduce useless or troublesome incidents and make heavy revisions
necessary. My greatest difficulty is in getting a story started to suit
me. Here is done almost all my revising, and I frequently write a dozen
beginnings before suiting myself. Once started, I write straight on,
unless I find, in the development of my hitherto vague ideas of the
plot, that I can get my results better by change. In that case, I simply
chuck out whatever I wish to replace, or insert the needed new incident.
I have rarely found that I improved a story by revising it as a whole.
Unless I am trying to please a new editor by nice copy, I usually submit
the first and only complete draught of the story, with an occasional
alteration of a word in pencil. Typing is the bane of my existence.
=Robert V. Carr=: Blind groper. Feeling my way through a strange
country.
=George L. Catton=: It all depends on the length whether I map it out
first or not. If it is one of those little fellows, the ones that I am
best at, the story is all "there" waiting to be written down,
start--finish. If it is a long one I let it write itself. That is, I get
the best start I can think of and go ahead. Then when I reach the right
starting-place I begin all over again. Occasionally, in a long story,
the ending, in a general and vague way, may be in sight, but it very
seldom ends as I planned at the start--something better turns up before
I get to the end. I write it straightaway as a whole, go back often and
make revisions, and often rewrite the whole thing after it is all
finished.
=Robert W. Chambers=: Map it out in advance. Write it straightaway as a
whole. Ending clearly in mind from the start. Revise murderously.
=Roy P. Churchill=: I have a working plan to begin with, end in view,
characters named, setting selected; then write straight along as a
whole. Often the working plan is radically changed, but never abandoned
completely. The plan is not detailed painstakingly, but left open on
purpose to change as the feel of the story develops. Revision with me is
a second writing of the story, nothing less. This is where I proportion
the coloring of the story and get the tones blended.
=Carl Clausen=: I always have the ending in mind. I write slowly, revise
very little.
=Courtney Ryley Cooper=: My story is as clear as a bell before I ever
start to write, characters outlined, action ready, ending clear and
often I write the finish of my story first. I revise very little--when I
have to revise I am worried to death about the yarn as I feel there is
something fundamentally wrong about it that I can't put my finger on. My
story is usually _written_ in my head before I ever touch a finger to
the typewriter. I often will spend six months _framing_ a story. The
actual writing of it is the smallest part of the job.
=Arthur Crabb=: I certainly do map out in advance. No hard and fast
rules can be laid down. It is undoubtedly true that every writer may do
one thing with one story and one with another. I think that most of mine
are thought out completely before I start; any changes after the first
draft are minor.
=Mary Stewart Cutting=: I do map it out in advance but not in detail. I
write it straightaway as a whole. The middle part of a story is the
least definite and has to be worked out. The ending is so clearly in
mind when I begin that I have to write the last sentence of the story. A
story, to me, is like a musical theme. It has to end on the same keynote
on which it was begun. But if my mind vividly depicts some part of the
story not in the proper sequence, I write it out in full as I see it and
interpolate it where it belongs. I revise after the first writing, I
revise before the final typewriting--mostly as regards minor sentences.
But sometimes after it has gone to typewriter my mind will see where
sentences should be inserted, usually to make the action clearer.
=Elmer Davis=: If I mapped it out in advance, I would sell more.
Starting (usually) with a character in a situation, I map out six or
eight chapters. By that time old Native Indolence is getting in its
heavy work; the ideas are coming hard, bright thoughts and lines for the
early chapters slip away while I am trying to think out and diagram the
catastrophe; so I fall to writing, always easier than thinking. Write
till I get stuck; then sit down and think some more; which of course
usually entails considerable revision of the earlier chapters. Not much
of the latter part.
=William Harper Dean=: Most frequently I have the ending in mind and
work definitely to develop plot sequence which will enable me logically
and directly to reach that end. I do not map out--such a practise would
throw too many restrictions about the sweep of my imagination; I want
full elasticity to that. Revise? Ah, there's the whole story! I revise
and rebuild, strengthening here, eliminating there. Recently I started
out with an idea for a short story and when I finished revising and
rebuilding I had written a serial which sold at once for a most
satisfactory price.
=Harris Dickson=: After I get some crude idea of a story I put down on a
big sheet everything I can think of, generally without logical
arrangement. This may be developed in a sort of scenario form. From this
No. 2 sheet I begin to write, in longhand, in shorthand or a
combination. You will note that sheets 1, 2 and 3 show progressive
stages of the same material. The value of the big sheet, to me, lies in
the fact that I can _visualize an entire_ story at one glance, without
having to search through a mass of tiny scraps. And it is so easy to
rewrite in one column while looking at the other.
When I get my material pretty well in hand it is dictated to a
dictaphone, from which the typist gives it back, with lines far apart
and a wide margin. This is then scratched up, rearranged, and
redictated.
Frequently a story pretty well tells itself, and sometimes the ending is
clearly in mind. Sometimes not. Sometimes one kind makes the better
yarn, sometimes the other. I've done a good story in three days, and
struggled for three months over a bad one.
=Captain Dingle=: The story is pictured as a whole, with one ending
clearly in view before a word is written. I do not--can not--plan a
story or map it out; it has to write itself or it fails; and sometimes
the ending I saw first has to give place to one more fitting to the
developed story. I do not revise, except to correct noted errors of
spelling and grammar (which are apt to slip anyhow, since I know damn
little about 'em). Whenever I have revised a story it has proved a
failure. The stuff, such as it is, must come spontaneously.
=Louis Dodge=: In the main I see my story to the end before I write
it--or at least I try to do this. But largely I let the development--the
secondary episodes--suggest themselves, or grow, as they will. I go
straight through with a manuscript, and then I revise and revise and
revise. I mean I write it entirely two or three or more times. This,
perhaps, shows a lack of clear-mindedness, or of definite theories; but
it is the best I can do.
=Phyllis Duganne=: I used to let stories tell themselves as I wrote
them, but I've come to the conclusion that it saves more time to sit
down with a pencil and paper and make a row of nice neat Roman numerals
and letters and letters in parentheses, and make a diagram of the plot.
That's mainly because, once I start writing, I can write on and on
without getting anywhere in my story, and wasting loads of time and good
paper. I write it as a whole with the general idea of the ending clearly
in mind; I never know precisely where or how the tale will end.
Sometimes I think I do, but the characters are likely to be ornery and
not do at all what I wanted them to do. And if I make them follow a
rigid plan, the story doesn't sound true. Revising depends. Sometimes
hardly at all; sometimes I find that I have gone off on a tangent and
have to cut out pages. Most frequently I find that I have to go through
a story, individualizing and characterizing my people more. I know what
they are like, but frequently I find on reading the story that I have
kept most of my knowledge to myself.
=J. Allan Dunn=: Here is a hard question, how does the story grow? When
it comes into your mind it has various stages of completion. Preferably
I would let my story tell itself. No matter how carefully I may have
outlined, gone over and over each next chapter, the thing amplifies when
one sits down at the typewriter. The characters change, the situations
demand things not thought of, you see a better way, the yeast ferments
and rises unevenly. Seldom is my ending clearly in mind. An editor
desiring certain breaks for serial publication will cause me to plan
more carefully. Sometimes certain parts of a story obtrude themselves
but not to such an extent with me as to make me break the straightaway
development of the tale in due order. I may reach them with delight,
look forward to them, find them in the forefront of my mind whenever I
think of the yarn outside of working hours.
And what are working hours? You carry your story as a cow packs its cud.
At least, I do. And I go over and over and over it, consciously and
subconsciously. I take my next chapter to bed with me and automatically
employ every spare minute, on the street even, to revolving the next
phase of the plot. Sometimes details will blur, but the main plot
extends itself far ahead. I like to try to plan a story with a purpose,
but I decidedly prefer to try so to create my characters that they are
alive and have certain wills of their own. As a rule I revise
once--direct on the typed copy. And most of the errors are in typing. If
I polish too much I am apt to overdo it, I find.
=Walter A. Dyer=: Partly answered above. I find it necessary to have
some fairly clear conception of the destination of my story movement, or
I find I have gone off at half-cock and the result is disappointing. The
details, as a rule, come as I write. I try to have a telling ending in
mind. Then I write the thing straight through and try to brace up the
weak spots in revision. I sometimes have to change important portions of
the story to get it right, but usually it is a matter of polishing. Each
story seems to present its own particular problem as to the matter of
revision. I have no rule.
=Walter Prichard Eaton=: I always like to know, before I write, around
just where I am going and coming out. It is almost essential to me.
Otherwise I would write far too much. Often the story in detail,
sometimes in actual plot, etc., changes itself as I go along. Then I
have to stop and look ahead and see a new finish.
=E. O. Foster=: Owing to newspaper training, I mull over a story in my
mind until I have it fairly complete before I begin to write. Then I
write the story with the beginning of the plot and ending clearly in my
mind, after which by means of "inserts" and "adds" I enlarge it.
=Arthur O. Friel=: I let the story tell itself. Straightaway as a whole.
Ending not clearly in mind. Revise comparatively little. Sometimes I
rewrite a section, but usually not. My main revision is with the idea of
compression and compactness.
In writing, I don't lay out my story and get it all nicely framed up
before starting to write. I start with a general idea which comes to me
from God-knows-where, and soon I'm marching along with my characters
without any very clear idea of where we're all going to wind up. We get
into swamps and cut our way through the bush and clamber up on to a hill
and maybe find something on the other side; one thing leads to another,
and eventually we make a good finish. Then we review our course, see
where we went up a box-canyon which got us nowhere, and delete that
place from the record of our trip; that's our "revision."
This, of course, is all wrong from the view-point of folks who love to
systematize everything; but it's my way of traveling through a story,
and I get there just the same. I have tried, on a number of occasions in
the past, to make my characters and events fit a more-or-less definite
idea of mine as to what they were to do, but it didn't work; they just
took matters into their own hands and did all kinds of things I never
meant them to, and all I could do was to trail along; and, darn 'em,
they made a far better yarn of it than I'd ever have made if I'd clubbed
them into submission. So now I've learned to let them do as they will,
after I've brought them together in a certain place and started them on
their way.
=J. U. Giesy=: Taking the germ, the "seed" of mental possibilities, I,
as it were, plant it and proceed to cultivate it many times for months,
letting it grow subconsciously, save for intervals when I water it by
objective examination and conscious reviewing. In this way I "rough it
in"--gain a general outline of the plot and action from first to last,
with the ending always indicated at least. I then write it, filling in
details on the main framework as I go along.
=George Gilbert=: Never map out, unless a little on novelettes and
serials. Ending always in view. Never revise plot; sometimes revise
diction materially, always some.
=Kenneth Gilbert=: All the mapping in advance is done in my mind, and I
write the story straightaway. Of course, the tale develops and fills out
as I write. I write carefully, and I find that I have but little
revising to do; usually none at all. Newspaper training, whereby the
first draft must be the last, may account for this care in preparing the
manuscript. I always have a good general idea of the ending in my mind
before I begin, and I have never been able to understand how others can
go along without knowing what the next paragraph will be, unless they
are willing to rewrite the story several times. I have always proceeded
on the assumption that a good short story is "a dramatic tale
objectively told." How may it be "objectively told" without the object
in mind?
=Holworthy Hall=: I plan a story in advance only in so far as the
development of the main situation is concerned. The ending, however,
_must_ be clearly in mind. I usually take as much time to write the
first two paragraphs as to write all the rest of the first draft.
Ordinarily I complete a first draft in a day or two--and a revision in
_ten_ days; but the time taken in revision is generally for style, and
not for treatment. That is because, in the first draft, the sequence
must be right, or I make it right before going ahead. I ought to say
here that by a "day" I mean a working day of ten to sixteen hours.
=Richard Matthews Hallet=: I have to have a pretty definite scheme, a
sequence of events with a denouement very clearly in mind, before doing
much writing. This probably comes from being a cripple in the art. Scott
certainly didn't. He wrote _The Bride of Lammermoor_ when he was so
nearly out of his head with pain that when the proofs came in he read
them, he asserts, as if they were the work of another hand altogether.
William de Morgan, to give a late instance, said he let the story drip
off his pen-point. If I did this, it would drool, not drip.
I revise a great deal, three or four times, often, of next door to
complete rewriting. Too much probably. Take a warning from Balzac's
_Unknown Masterpiece_.
=William H. Hamby=: If the story is based on character, I let it work
itself out. If it is to be a plot story made up largely of action, I
outline it ahead.
=Joseph Mills Hanson=: I usually map a story in advance and write it
straightaway as a whole, but revise it a great deal after finishing and
on reading it over, chiefly to improve the style and polish it up. I
have the ending pretty well in mind at the start, though it often
changes considerably in detail by the time I reach it.
=E. E. Harriman=: I start my central character out and make him live the
story. Follow him all the way through and get so darned anxious about
him that I can hardly knock off work to eat. The end is oftenest clearly
defined before I begin, but at times turns out differently, as the
gaul-darned central figure takes the story out of my hands and does as
he pleases. I revise from one to four times.
=Nevil G. Henshaw=: I generally have the story pretty well in mind
before I start it, and write it straight through to the preconceived
climax. Details, of course, shift about throughout, often changing the
story materially, but usually the ending is clearly in my mind. I make
one draft in ink very slowly and carefully, correcting as I go, and then
do the final revising when typing on a visible machine. I always cut,
but seldom if ever add.
=Joseph Hergesheimer=: It is planned wholly emotionally and partly in
detail, and written straightaway. I revise interminably.
=Robert Hichens=: I do not map a book out in advance, except to some
extent in my head. I have the end in my mind when I begin. This, I
consider, is essential. I write straight on from the beginning to the
end. Naturally I have to revise some passages. I usually write slowly
and carefully and try to set down my exact meaning as I write, therefore
I do not have to revise very much.
=R. de S. Horn=: I invariably map my story out in advance, although I
don't always go to the trouble of writing out the plot diagramatically.
Generally I have had the story in the back of my head for weeks or
months. It starts with the story germ, and at odd times I find myself
thinking about it unconsciously. Ideas, incidents and complications
begin to collect around it and before I know it almost I feel that I
have got a complete story. Then I sit down and write it at a single
sitting if possible, without trying to exercise any great amount of word
selection or any other consideration of technique. What I'm after in
this first script is to get my story or rather expanded plot down on
paper where I can look it over. I write in longhand and don't worry
about fine considerations of sentence or paragraph structure. The ending
is always in my mind before I begin, though I frequently change it
before I am through with the final draft. But at any rate I have an
ending which at that time seems to me to be the desirable ending. I find
that in this first draft I usually write about three thousand or four
thousand words.
Then I revise--and revise--and revise. I study my characters, dialogues,
incidents, everything, with a view toward the demands of unity and
consistency and, most of all, dramatic effect. I type my second draft
because I find it necessary to be able to read exactly at the same rate
as the reader if I am going to get my reader's impressions and
reactions. I finish one revision, type it and start another one. My
story mounts up to six, seven, nine thousand words. I sail into it,
looking for non-essentials. I cut it down to five thousand or so. Then
in my final drafts I bring it to the proper length; it is always easier
to write in than to cut out. My revisions number as high as a dozen
sometimes. In fact the enthusiasm with which I started the first draft
has greatly abated before I finish and I grow very tired of the thing;
so much so that I sometimes set the thing away to cool before making my
final draft. But I believe that it is this cold critical attitude toward
the end that really does more for the story than anything else. In other
words I believe that the story-writing ability is mainly the ability to
recognize some germ as having the story possibility, then the
imagination to expand it, and lastly the will to work at it until it is
improved to the readable state. Germ recognition ten per cent.,
imagination ten per cent. and hard work eighty per cent.
=Clyde B. Hough=: I do map out my stories ahead. One of the first things
that I must have after the plot germ has reached maturity is the climax.
After that, and of second importance only, is the title. All that I need
to know then is the high lights, the points along the way on which the
story makes its various turns. Then I sit down and write the beginning,
say the first typewritten page, three or four times. Next I dictate
straightaway from the title to the climax, creating the minor situations
and the action as I go. Thus you see the ending is clearly in mind when
I begin. "To what extent do I revise?" Always twice. Mostly three times
and often four. The first revision is devoted strictly to cutting,
compressing.
=Emerson Hough=: I see it clear in advance and revise but little.
=A. S. M. Hutchinson=: I start with the character, and he or she, and
the friends they assemble, do the rest.
Straightaway from the first word to the last.
What I would call the ultimate goal is, when I start, at the end of a
long passage. It is the characters' business (they having suggested it)
somehow to get there.
My second novel I rewrote almost entirely. Normally, I revise scarcely
at all.
=Inez Haynes Irwin=: I map out a story as carefully as possible in
advance. The beginning and ending and the thread of the psychological
development are ordinarily perfectly clear when I start. It is the
middle or developing portion which is most difficult for me to write. It
is difficult because it is always vague in my mind. I work my stories
out on paper and make several versions. I write my first ten pages three
or four times and the whole story at least twice before it goes to the
stenographer.
=Will Irwin=: I can not begin writing on a story until I see its
framework pretty clearly in mind. Getting that framework ready involves
several days of beating my brains in agony. Recently I have found it
helpful to try to write out from time to time a synopsis. Especially
must I see the end--know toward what I am working. The incidents which
develop the situation, I invent as I write. Usually, I begin at the
beginning and write straight through. However, I sometimes find after a
few days that I have begun in the wrong place. That happened to my
latest story. Having finished a scene with which I intended originally
to lead off, I realized that I had begun too far along in the action.
Getting in the background of previous events made the writing awkward,
clogged the action. I went back therefore and began with a previous
event. Then I patched these two fragments together, and proceeded to the
next scene. As concerns the main structure and method of a story,
usually I revise very little. When the first draft is finished, I spend
two or three days in "tightening up" the English and enriching the
conversations and descriptions. I am impatient of rewriting--probably a
lingering trace of old newspaper habits. However, I am married to a
fiction writer, who reads my first drafts. Quoting "Merton of the
Movies," "she is more than a wife, she is a pal and, I may add, my
severest critic." Once or twice, when I have told my story awkwardly,
she has sent me back to my desk to write it all over again from another
angle of approach.
=Charles Tenney Jackson=: As for "mapping out a story in advance," that
is done as far as may be. A very good thing, indeed, but not
indispensable. Very often the ending is not in sight. And I revise but
little. I start a story with a lead pencil, write a few hundred words,
and invariably turn to the typewriter to go on with it. That first
hurried dig may be ignored entirely thereafter, but the thread of this
beginning is in my mind all through. Very often I set down the
incidents, numbering them in order as they seem to fit in, and this
stamps the scheme in mind for work, although I rarely turn to it. In
fact, the yarn goes on to succeeding impressions, keeping always the
first idea that was its genesis.
=Frederick J. Jackson=: Do I map it out in advance? Often. Just as often
I don't. If I map out a story in advance, have a regular skeleton laid
out, the story is apt to be stilted. I'd rather have just a hazy idea of
what I'm leading up to, or, better still, a definite climax, nothing
more.
When I can just ramble on and write snappy stuff that interests myself
it will be a good yarn. If it interests me, it will interest the editor.
I'm rather cold-blooded about my own stuff. I have a jaundiced eye when
I look at it. I like a story about a character like "Mr. Conway."
I never write a story in pieces to be joined together. Always
straightaway. Make one continuous first draft--slow work at times--and
then copy it over. Typing over my original draft is about the total
extent of my revision, except for a word here and there.
About the ending clearly in mind. I wrote about a dozen stories--most of
them had the same plot--the old "perfect crime" that proves decidedly
imperfect--and in every one of these I always had the ending clearly in
mind. That's all I had to work on. I'd build up a story to fit the
climax. A different method here from that which I usually employ.
=Mary Johnston=: I usually see it in advance, see the whole more or less
completely. I do not mean, of course, in full detail. Usually it is
written straight through from beginning to end. The type of ending is in
mind from the first. Not necessarily the detail. In revision I excise a
good deal.
=John Joseph=: The story begins always with a character; then a plot is
conceived to "fit" that character. After the main plot is outlined
(always mentally) situations or episodes, and dialogue to fit, are
studied out in the rough. The typewriter now comes into play and the
story is written "straightaway," with the ending always in sight. It
runs to five thousand words perhaps. Frequently I roll the paper back
and write between the lines. I pay some attention to phraseology, but am
not particular. At page ten, perhaps, an idea comes which belongs on
page five, so I turn back and jot it down between the lines with a
pencil. When the first draft is finished there are always several pages
that are a perfect mess of scribbling between the lines, so I rewrite
these pages and renumber on through to the end. I have then perhaps a
six-thousand-word story. I begin then at page one and rewrite the entire
story, paying pretty careful attention to the phrasing. This copy will
be nearly as badly scribbled and double-lined as the first, so it has
all to be written again. This time very careful attention is paid to
phrasing. Certain episodes may be rewritten many times, independently.
(A recent page was written fifteen times--and then it didn't suit me.)
With the third draft the story is complete except for a more careful
typing and an occasional minor change.
=Lloyd Kohler=: Until recently I always mapped a piece, as a carpenter
puts up a house. Then, when I was sure that I had the whole story well
in mind, the actual writing was begun. This, in my mind, is the only
reasonable way for the beginner to proceed, who has his hands full
without worrying along as to how it will all end. It should be
understood that I only plan the main trend of the story--the
situations--in advance; the smaller details, most of the conversation,
etc., must be left for the actual writing of the story. The reason for
this is easily seen: If everything, even the smaller details, were
figured out in advance the result would likely be a fearfully dull
story--Heaven knows it's hard enough to keep a breath of real life in
them, anyway.
But although I'm strong for mapping a story out in advance, I'll confess
that there are even drawbacks to this method. The writer who said that
he wrote the first word of a story and trusted to the Lord for the next
withheld, consciously or not, the real reason for his use of this
method. The reason, or at least one of the reasons, was that the fellow
who writes half or two-thirds of a story without knowing what the end
will be has at least the big advantage that he can be assured his
interest in his story is not going to flag before it is finished. And as
long as the writer's first enthusiasm in a story can be kept fresh and
vigorous, the story will not likely be dull. I want to admit, right
here, that regardless of the good points, the author who is bold enough
to follow this method is flirting with danger.
I always start at the beginning of a story and plug away until the last
word is written. May the Lord help me if I ever attempt to write a story
in pieces to be finally joined together--it's hard enough to keep
something akin to artistic proportion without doing the thing up in bits
and then splicing the pieces.
Now the ending of the story is different. Although I know, generally
speaking, how the story is going to end before it is ever begun, I
rarely know just _exactly_ what the ending is going to be until it is
reached. That sounds like a paradox, but it isn't, and I know you'll
understand what I'm getting at.
I don't do a great deal of revising--even though I am well aware that I
am far from being a master hand at fiction writing. I believe that there
is a danger of revising being carried so far as to take the life out of
a story. Personally, I'd much rather see a few grammatical mistakes than
a dreadfully dull story.
=Harold Lamb=: Usually the story is thought out fully in advance (and as
often changed from beginning to end in the telling). The telling of it
is straightaway, with an ending tucked away somewhere in the back of the
brain.
As to revision, very, very little, except of wording and often an
accident altered after story is finished.
=Sinclair Lewis=: Map it out in advance. Straightaway as a whole. I
revise enormously--five or six times with great care.
=Hapsburg Liebe=: I try to map it out in advance, but I never write it
as it has been mapped out, unless I'm working to one of those darned
mechanical things called a surprise climax--and even then I often have
to change everything but the climax. Usually I begin to write when I
have my situation. When I've finished this, the rest is apt to come
naturally. A lot of my stories have fallen flat at the end, however,
with this method. But if I mull the story over in my head too long
before I begin to write it, it _dies_. How much do I revise? In the case
of any of my best stories, I know the thing by memory when it is
finished. I revise that much--over and over and over. I've wondered if I
wasn't in too big a hurry in the first writing; it sets, perhaps, like
cement.
=Romaine H. Lowdermilk=: I map out in advance. The ending is in sight.
But...! The map constantly changes as I go along. The ending advances or
retreats or dissolves and changes completely as new angles creep in. But
I must have the map and the definite goal before I start. I can, and
sometimes do, "let the story tell itself as I write," but the result is
appalling. I must set a goal and make each paragraph and each incident
carry the action along toward that definite end. I do, sometimes, write
the last two pages, and a few pages here and there in the body, or work
out a choice incident, or one that presents the most difficulties in the
way of brief expression, before beginning. It is like collecting
material. I get it together and fit it in where it seems best suited.
Anyway, when I get the whole thing down on paper, all jumbled as it may
be, I rewrite--on the typewriter--trying to use my brain as I go along,
and then view the result. Usually I mark, cut and interline every page,
using a system of proof-reading all my own, then--rewrite. I do this
three or four times. Then comes the final draft. How careful I am to get
this exactly right! No erasures, no vague sentences, no misspelling, no
"wrong" words. Then, when it is done I read it over. Alas! There is a
mistake on every page and gross writing everywhere. I check, mark and
interline that lovely last copy until it looks like all the rest. Then I
flop the carbon copy over and make a new draft using the backs of the
second sheets for the carbon so as to preserve both versions in case an
editor suggests changes. And I usually find the first version the
better! Upon reading this final and hard-boiled edition I am no better
satisfied with it than with any of the others and could go on cutting
and revising forever, but I call it quits and lay it in the laps of the
gods of the editorial offices. Most of my stories so far have been sent
back for some change before final acceptance. I certainly do appreciate
that and I take great pleasure in the revising. For then, and then only,
do I know how the story is striking the editors and, when I know that, I
can revise like a bear-cat. At last I am on solid ground, whereas before
I have been groping on quicksand. I like to revise and when I know
exactly what an editor wants I have always been able to deliver the
goods. It is not only inspirational, but I work with a surety I do not
feel when fighting along with the preliminaries.
=Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.=: Lord, yes--I have to map it out in advance. Then
there's a rough draft. This may be pretty fully written out in parts,
and other parts be sketchy, which have to be filled out later. There may
be pieces--merely notes--which are later joined into the whole. The
ending is nearly always in my mind when I begin--at least _some_ ending,
though this may be later changed as the actual writing develops the
story. I revise and revise and revise.
=Rose Macaulay=: I map it roughly out in advance, altering as I go
along.
=Crittenden Marriot=: I revise as I write; that is, I go back from any
place and rework till I catch up again. Finally, I go over the whole
thing _once_, have it typed and go over it again.
=Homer I. McEldowney=: I map out my story before I actually begin
writing--doping out a skeleton, complete, and with the conclusion
determined. Then when I write, I write it as a whole. My revision is of
diction and mechanical make-up, not plot.
=Ray McGillivray=: With slight modifications--usually the requirements
of taste or demand of the market I wish to please--I have the struggle,
main developing incidents, plan for character portrayal, and the climax
in mind--or in a note-book--before I begin. A few times I have started
with a situation and handful of characters, giving both factors free
rein in naming their own destiny. Invariably such a story shoots off at
a tangent--and is laid to rest, after much travel, in an old steamer
trunk, my potter's field for rejects.
=Helen Topping Miller=: My stories work themselves out. Sometimes I know
what the denouement is to be, oftener it works itself out very
differently from what I had intended. I write the story as a whole, and
very seldom revise my original version very much.
=Anne Shannon Monroe=: The story is pretty well in my mind from
beginning to end before I begin to write it, but it always follows out
little by-paths in coming to its end, of which I had no knowledge: I am
as interested as any reader could be to see how it is going to work its
way through. I follow the story, try to keep up with it, but never
dictate to it, never interfere. After it's well started my hands are
off. I revise four and five times,--sometimes more: the longer I write,
the more I revise.
=L. M. Montgomery=: I map everything out in advance. When I have
developed plot, characters and incidents in my mind I write out a
"skeleton" of the story or book. In the case of a book, I divide it into
so many "sections"--usually eight or nine--representing the outstanding
periods in the story. In each section I write down what characters are
necessary, what they do, what their setting is, and quite a bit of what
they say. When the skeleton is complete I begin the actual writing, and
so thoroughly have I become saturated with the story during the making
of the skeleton that I feel as if I were merely describing and setting
down something that I have actually seen happening, and the clothing of
the dry bones with flesh goes on rapidly and easily. This does not,
however, prevent changes taking place as I write. Sometimes an incident
I had thought was going to be very minor assumes major proportions or
_vice versa_. Sometimes, too, characters grow or dwindle contrary to my
first intentions. But on the whole I follow my plan pretty closely and
the ending is very often written out quite fully in the last "section"
before a single word of the first chapter is written. I revise very
extensively and the "notes" with which my completed manuscript is
peppered are surely and swiftly bringing down my typist's gray hairs
with sorrow to the grave. But these revisions deal only with
descriptions and conversation. Characters, plot and incidents are never
changed.
=Frederick Moore=: I map it out in advance, but I rarely follow the
first planning. However, the ending is most vital--and it is only now
and then that I use the end I started with; for instance, I once plotted
a short story which I expected would not run more than three thousand
words--and wound up with a novel a year later which totaled one hundred
thousand words. I revise to the extent that I feel a story is never
done. I had eight drafts of the novel referred to above by the time I
thought it fit to submit to an editor. Six drafts on a short story gets
the job into workmanlike condition--but the editor sees only the few
pages of complete story.
=Talbot Mundy=: I hardly ever map out in advance. My right hand hardly
ever knows what the left is doing. But I'm not convinced that this is
good. Just as an artist usually maps out his canvas in advance, without
actually seeing the finished picture, so I believe that it will usually
pay the writer to fix at least certain definite landmarks for his
guidance.
Order is heaven's first law.
I write the story straightaway as a whole. The end is never in view (or
almost never) when I first begin. But I am beginning to believe that
(for me at any rate) that is an important formula--Visualize the end of
the story first. It is certainly a prime essential of drama to provide a
clear view of the main character just at the close; and I think that
principle underlies story-writing. The writer should have in mind
throughout a clear view of his main character as he will be at the
story's end. The point had not occurred to me until I commenced this
answer; but the more I study it the more strongly it convinces. That,
and _be concrete_ all through the piece.
=Kathleen Norris=: I map it out completely in advance, even to the
words, and write it almost as rapidly as I could read it. My hard work
is done while walking alone, or while playing patience, over which game
the whole story unrolls in orderly sequence, as a rule. But frequently
after beginning a story I find a better way to do it, and I have
destroyed as much as sixty thousand words and then gone back to my
solitaire and planned it afresh.
=Anne O'Hagan=: I map it out more or less before I begin to write. Not
on paper, but in my mind. That is, I have a pretty clearly defined
notion of what I believe the outcome of the experiences they will
undergo will have upon my chief characters. I never write a story in
pieces to be joined together, although once or twice, when I have laid
aside a story because it wouldn't live at all, I have found after a time
that I needed either an introductory chapter or an interjected one to
make my characters real. I do a good deal of revision, more in verbal
detail than in arrangement.
=Grant Overton=: I do not map the story out in advance. I let it tell
itself as I write it. I write it, beginning at the beginning and work it
out to the end. The end may not be at all in mind when I begin. I do all
my work, practically, on the first draft and revise only once and then
_very_ lightly. I aim to get it right the first time, even if that means
going slowly.
=Sir Gilbert Parker=: Character, then plot, then as a whole, and the end
is always in my mind from the first. Constant revision.
=Hugh Pendexter=: Often; but never follow the outlined plot, as it is
impossible for me to vision what will emanate from the result of the
first dialogue or incident. In book-lengths I have my background
thoroughly in mind, decide on the time of the story and have for
stimulus of the action something pivotal in the history of our country.
I write, say, fifty thousand words, then rewrite to eliminate and
interpolate according to the need of late developments; then finish in
one or two installments, and rewrite. The ending usually is the moment
when the accumulation of conditional causes causes the hinge to turn, in
other words, the big climax. Revise very little. The story unfolds in
clear-cut pictures that are as real to me as if I were seeing the
incidents take place. Therefore, aside from correcting mechanical
errors, it has to go as written.
=Clay Perry=: In general I make an effort to map out the story so that
it has at least one big incident, one big character, and usually begin
to write to see what will happen to them. I write it straightaway.
Sometimes the ending is clearly in mind, sometimes not; if the
characters develop strongly, often they furnish the ending, even when I
have one in mind, and often different from the one I had in mind. I
revise always, once, sometimes twice, and have revised four and five
times.
=Michael J. Phillips=: I find I have answered most of this in the above.
I can't start with a character or a situation and wander. I have to see
it through, except that perhaps in a long story the characters rather
take the bits in their teeth and give me a ride. New incidents are
interjected that way in a long story; in a short one, almost never.
I revise like this. I write the story without searching too closely for
the right word or phrase, preferring to go over it afterward and correct
and fit and cut. I read the whole thing in the rough draft, then revise
carefully. Then write for the editor, and revise that somewhat,
occasionally to the extent of rewriting a page or two. Usually,
rewriting is cold potatoes to me--that is, after the story is finished
and ready and has been turned down, and some one, an editor or other,
suggests I do something to it. I haven't any luck with rewriting. I want
to go on with something else. That is a closed incident, more or less,
like a yesterday's newspaper story. I note that a good many unsuccessful
writers carefully write one thing, and then agonize over it, polishing
and shining it and changing it and anxiously trying to reach and satisfy
all objections, possible and impossible.
Thus they waste a lot of time, use up a lot of creative faculty on a
dead horse, and get nowhere in the end. I feel that there was a good
idea in the story, but I can evolve as good a one or better to-morrow;
and if I can't, I have no place in the writing game. Ideas are the
bricks with which we build. If you have but one idea, or one idea a
year, we won't get many houses constructed.
I don't write in pieces to be joined together. I start and go right
through to the finish. I know the opening sentence, perhaps the whole
opening paragraph almost word for word, and the closing paragraph before
I touch the typewriter.
=Walter B. Pitkin=: I have to map a story well in advance--though some
of the minor details shape themselves as I sketch in the first draft. I
have never written in pieces and joined these together. And I simply can
not imagine how anybody can pick up a pen and start writing without
knowing where he is headed. (I know a few authors who do this though.)
I revise every story at least twice, clean through. And I deliberately
avoid trying to make my first draft a piece of good writing. I treat a
first draft precisely as a painter treats his canvas and his
subject-matter at the first blocking in; it is nothing but a rough
shaping-up of the major features. All the minor details are ignored for
the sake of the deeper structure.