=E. S. Pladwell=: Always mapped out in advance. Mentally, not on paper.
Sometimes I drive for a hundred miles, thinking as the motor purrs. I
write a story on the accordeon system--write everything in sequence and
then condense. _The ending must be clearly in mind._ This is my one
rule. If I know where I am going, it makes little difference what road I
take.
=Lucia Mead Priest=: There is no hard and fast method of working for me.
I should judge by this last winter's action that my mind does a vast
amount of milling before my thoughts are concrete enough for a
writing-pad. Usually I draft, sketchily. I have a skeleton plan of what
I hope to do.
I live much in what I am trying to create. A thought--an action, a
phrase or a word will pop out at me and I write it down. But as a rule I
write the story straightaway as a whole even though I make patchwork of
it later.
=Eugene Manlove Rhodes=: Map it out in advance. Either in pieces or
straightaway. Ending clearly in mind from the start. Revise endlessly.
=Frank C. Robertson=: Having the genesis of the story as above, I
usually map out the rest of it in my mind in a general way, leading
characters, an inciting motive, a crisis and a climax. I may do this in
ten minutes or I may stew over it for that many days; then I begin to
write it out as completely as I can. I never attempt to block out a
story in outline on paper. This, I read, is all wrong; but if I make a
skeleton draft of a story, a skeleton it remains until the end. It seems
to tie me down, and the story lacks the buoyancy that comes from
spontaneous thinking as I go along, with the characters living their own
lives, so to speak. I know my characters and my setting, so I have no
fear of the story becoming inconsistent. However, the ending is usually
in my mind when I start and the characters go logically to it. When the
first draft is finished I let it cool off while I write something else,
and then I go over it again, pruning and padding as the case demands and
changing the structure when needed. The more I write the more I find
that it pays to revise, and now a story usually gets three or four
rewritings. Before I began to sell any it only got one.
=Ruth Sawyer=: My stories are pretty well mapped out before I start
writing. But there is always a time in the process of writing when the
character or plot, whichever dominates, gets a firmer control of the
story than I do; and for this reason the story is quite likely to end
differently than I originally intended.
=Chester L. Saxby=: I used to write on little definite plot and seek the
development as I went. That, I have come to find, is a poor way to get
results and usually makes for wandering and uncertainty in the writing.
One does not hold a reader's mind by maundering. The blind can't lead
the blind. One does not even tell a story that way, but rather potters.
I get the plot idea strongly in mind and lay in the detail that will
give the most vivid _feeling_ of the point that otherwise will be merely
seen, not felt at all. That's character stuff. I do not outline; I can
not hold myself down to that. Often the story takes a turn of its own,
but I believe that changed plot development is in my mind, too, or it
would not come out. I revise very little. It is hard for me to revise on
my own criticism. An editor is indispensable for that purpose. He can
actually jerk you out of a warped perspective into which you've
hypnotised yourself past comprehending.
=Barry Scobee=: Really, no. I must have the ending, the climax, the
conclusion--usually one and the same thing, with me--clearly in mind
before I start to write. Once or twice I have written the last page of
my story before any other part.
I get an idea, a situation or condition and look it over or let it
browse in my mind a month or a year, or three years, and when I wish to
use it I figure out what the logical, or illogical, ending would
naturally be, and that is my situation. I must have it before I begin to
write. I must know what my destination is before I start on the journey,
but I do not need to know what all I shall see on the trip. That
develops as I write.
Having the conclusion in mind, I write the title--and seldom change it
afterward--then begin on my story. I have written the first three or
four hundred words of stories as many as fifteen times, and usually
three or four times. By then I am launched and I go ahead rapidly--one
thousand eight hundred words in four hours or so. Sometimes I get
checked up. It is because interest is lagging, due to my getting in
stuff that doesn't properly support that conclusion I have in mind, or
something of that sort. Then I go back to the point where it seems to
have got started wrong and write, and write, perhaps, until I get on the
right track again. It may be that the mistake is because I am getting
out of character, or dwelling too long on an insignificant phase.
Anyhow, I am developing a hunch as to when the story interest is
beginning to lag.
Then when I have written through--the copy pencilled and scribbled until
I can scarcely read it myself--I clean copy. There I exercise great
care, then send it to the editors. The revising and plot arrangement and
the like are all accomplished in that first slow-going piece of work. In
clean copying I do just what is signified--clean up the manuscript.
=R. T. M. Scott=: I usually let the story tell itself. Sometimes I map
it out in advance but, if I follow the map, I have a devil of a time to
sell the story. I write the story straightaway. The quicker I write the
quicker it sells. When I begin I seldom have the slightest idea of the
ending. I have almost come to the conclusion that it is better to write
a new story than to revise--except when I receive an editorial request
for certain changes.
=Robert Simpson=: Nowadays, when I am reasonably satisfied that I have a
story to write, I try to map it out roughly before going ahead. As a
rule, however, I have more trouble with the first paragraph than any
other part of the story or book. For the greater part the story proper
writes itself, and I write straight through from beginning to end,
revising, chapter by chapter, as I go along. In some instances I have to
go back and revise bits of the earlier chapters, nearly always with a
view to boiling them down. Only the roughest conception of the ending is
in mind when I begin, but I always have an eye on the possible climax at
almost every paragraph. Revision is at once the curse and the blessing
of my writing life. I don't like it, yet I get more satisfaction out of
it than from any other angle of writing. In a recent story of mine a
certain dramatic "moment" occupied nearly three pages. When I finished
revising the "moment"--and it cost me a day and a half to do it--it
looked more like a moment and consisted of just three lines. I can still
exult over that little bit of revision; but I always begin the job by
threatening to use an ax on the typewriter or murdering my family or
something.
=Arthur D. Howden Smith=: Always map it out in advance, but sometimes
alter plot as I go along. Always revise and finish a chapter definitely
before I go to the next.
=Theodore Seixas Solomons=: I map it out in advance, mentally only;
later recording the mentally conceived synopsis of plot and action
development, or only recording a part. In respect to this main
development--the general architecture of the fictional structure--this
is prearranged, cold-bloodedly, though I am hot-blooded and interested
enough and enjoy enough the coming to me of the lines of plot. But I
record them mentally or on paper and thenceforward follow them
cold-bloodedly. But the detail, the filling in, and sometimes much of
the general action, especially in longer stories and novels, is a matter
of creation and determination as I proceed with the writing. Sometimes I
change considerably, but never radically, the structure lines at certain
critical junctures in a long story. I write it straightaway, as a whole,
unless I happen (rarely) to find my mind going ahead and interesting
itself creatively in some important future part of the story, possibly
my main, or a minor, crisis. Then I do not hesitate to skip ahead and
write it while it's hot.
The end is not clearly in mind in these mental and written synopses (the
latter, by the way, are usually brief; even for a novel, referring to
plot and story movement alone, rarely exceed a thousand words). But the
_theme_ end always is. I know in the larger, better sense how my story
is to end simply because it has formed itself to me from nearly the
beginning of the plotting as a single entity--à la text work
insistences. It can't change at the end organically without making of
the whole a monstrosity.
Ordinarily I have a rotten memory, even for my own cogitations. But
fictionally I possess a jewel. It works this way. I have Mr.
Plot-germ--the odd character confronting some appropriate situation, or
the situation or incidents without any special character, and I say to
myself, now how shall I get the story out of this embryo that I know is
in it? Then plot material is drawn into my mind from somewhere in the
fancy and squared and fitted into and around my foundation and
ascertained by my critical faculties to be appropriate or inappropriate,
more or less. An idea comes and goes--useless. Another comes and looks
propitious, but not unless something else, provisionally retained, can
be modified to suit it. A lot of material comes on to the lot, one way,
one time or another, and some is hustled off, some immediately purchased
and marked, and some left to one side, or, tentatively permitted to stay
where it _may_ finally lodge, _if_ other things fit into it, later. Now
all this would be rather cumbersome, complicated, and altogether
impossible to such a poor memory as mine if it were not for what seems
to be my peculiar faculty for retaining a grasp of what I have conceived
directly in proportion to its degree of promise of utility. My memory
doesn't let go of any plot or incident--nor of any detail matter,
either--that is cognized as utilizable, in other words, that is either
outright purchased and designed surely for use, or that has been
tentatively held, in the thought that before I get my problem worked out
these, or some of them, may be the very things needed in the structure.
Though I make notes, more or less, as I say, I find I seldom have to
refer to them. I always do as a precaution, but it almost invariably
transpires that I have forgotten nothing.
In this preconstruction of a model for the story that is to be written I
concern myself, however, only with essentials. I do not inhibit the flow
into my mind of little bits of almost-text--detail, expressions,
description and the like. I receive these as a listener might,
approvingly or disapprovingly, and I usually retain them (but not so
surely as true plot material). But my main creative business, which is
the only thing I attempt to spur, is in finding, out of the trial
suggestions of my fancy, the right main timbers for the structure that
satisfies the possibilities of the foundation plot-germ, grown now into
something like a theme or fiction thesis. Thus the ghost of the story is
born, the better part of it, the complete theme and spirit of it. Then
I'm ready to write it--when I feel like it, which is usually soon after
the conception, though I can go weeks or months without losing anything
of what I have prefigured. The discarded material has mostly vanished,
to be recalled with difficulty or not at all. The material that had been
more promising, and yet discarded, remains, in proportion to the degree
of suitability it had shown. The really suitable--and adopted--remains
forever clear in my mind. Seemingly, with the recognition by my critical
or creative judgment of that suitability, I have, as it were, nailed
them into the structure, and thenceforward they remain, visually almost!
Therefore I can not forget them, for I can almost see them.
As to revision, it is a process that takes usually twice the time that
the original consumed, and, in the case of a short story, probably three
times.
=Raymond S. Spears=: I have written half a million words to get eighty
thousand words completed. Revision is generally according to my wife's
ideas, or, if I don't agree at first, we work over till both are
satisfied.
I have written a seventy-thousand-word serial without knowing what the
next paragraph would contain till more than half-way through. This, I
know, is wretched and time-wasting practise--but once in a dozen times
this method brings my best stories.
=Norman Springer=: I always map the story out in advance and write
straightaway from beginning to a definite ending. Sometimes, though,
when half-way through the yarn, a new complication, or a better ending
is thought of and the whole story is changed. But there is always a
definite end in view.
Revision. I hate it, and do it--sometimes. Not nearly to the extent that
I should. I write very slowly and previse. That is, I carefully think
over each situation and think out each paragraph before I write it down.
=Julian Street=: I map it out. Talk it out, and make notes on outline.
The more sharply I have it outlined in my mind, the less trouble I am
likely to have in execution. Revision, with me, consists chiefly in
polishing, eliminating awkwardness of phrase, undesirable repetitions of
the same word, and cutting.
=T. S. Stribling=: No, I don't exactly map it out, "I" don't seem to
have much to do with it. I simply sit around and presently an incident
will bob up, or a character or a scene or a bit of scenery and, if the
thing strikes me as funny or pathetic or containing human interest, I
sort of accept it mentally. If I am afraid of losing it I make a note of
it--and I usually do lose the note, but not the incident. Then I stick
about and wait for more characters, more incidents, more of everything.
All this time I have a theme I want all these incidents and characters
to illustrate, and naturally I want all my bits arranged in a climax.
And the things apparently arrange themselves. I am sure none of my
readers can ever be so surprised at what turns up in my stories as I
myself. It is so much more exciting than reading a novel that I almost
never read one.
No, the ending is not clearly in mind. I have a vague notion of what I
want--I know the mood I want to leave my reader in and usually when I
get him in that mood I just quit writing.
I write every story three times, once with a pencil, twice with a
typewriter. My pencil draft doesn't make any sense at all, my first
typed copy is the story roughly told with endless unnecessary
ramifications, my third copy I send to the editors.
=Booth Tarkington=: The answer differs with every story.
=W. C. Tuttle=: I have never mapped out a story in my life.
I do not bother about plots nor situations. A typewriter and some paper
seem to be all I require, and I let the story tell itself. When my lead
character gets bothersome enough to worry me I know he is ready to tell
me the story.
=Lucille Van Slyke=: I start with character every time on a story, but I
never let the story tell itself. Nor do I ever write in pieces, as you
call it, on a short story. In working in book-length or serial-length
things I work in chapter lengths at a time. Ending is so clearly in mind
when I begin to write that it sometimes very much hampers me; I have a
petulant feeling that I wish I didn't know so positively how it ends. I
mean that I resent having to build up a plausible reason for an ending
that is so clear for me that it's inevitable whether logical or not! I
revise much too much--short stories I write not less than four and
sometimes as many as twenty times. And every time I am less satisfied.
Always find myself wishing I could give my situation or plot to somebody
who knew how to write--the idealized story of my beginning seems so many
miles ahead of what I can get on paper.
=Atreus von Schrader=: I have found by cruel experience that unless I
have my entire story clearly in mind I am apt to make a mess of it;
chiefly because some character in the yarn picks it up and runs away
with it. I write what amounts to a very rough copy of the whole piece,
from which I rewrite the finished copy. I have heard of many writers who
never revise, their tales springing full-fledged and polished from their
minds. Can this, if true, be explained as resulting from an unusually
clear connection between their conscious and subconscious mentalities?
=T. Von Ziekursch=: I simply can not map out a story in advance. The
whole thing seems to start in a haze and work nearer until it bursts out
full and ready. I can not write them fast enough, it is always so clear.
In four or five hours a five-thousand-word story is written. Only once
has it been necessary to revise anything other than the punctuation, and
that story was a failure.
=Henry Kitchell Webster=: I must see my objective, in general terms,
before I can begin a story, but I am careful not to commit myself to any
predetermined mechanical devices. These must spring, seriatim, out of
the situations which the characters themselves create. I am obliged,
sometimes, to do a great deal of revising with an ax, but I don't do
much of it with the smaller implements.
=G. A. Wells=: My chief pleasure is walking. I find greater satisfaction
in taking the roads and paths as I come to them than in having
previously fixed upon a route and destination. The same way with a
story. I let it choose its own route, though I do dictate the general
direction. I think most stories tell themselves anyhow. If the
characters and situations do not occur logically, automatically, the
writer should not force them. At least not too much. It is one of the
rules of mechanics never to try to force a nut on a bolt. It strips the
threads. Forcing characters and events in a story strips it of
spontaneity. When I read a good story I am satisfied that the writer
merely recorded what happened instead of making things happen himself.
Unless one has a good memory, however, it is a good rule in the longer
stretches to have some plan of work. At least the principal characters
and the events should be set down on paper. New ideas are occurring and
being incorporated all the time during building. While writing a long
story--fifty thousand words or more, say--if new characters and
incidents don't pop up it is a sure sign that the story is not moving
properly.
At present I have on hand six stories that I have been writing over a
period of about three years. They run from fifty to eighty thousand
words. They are all complete in the first draft, though none of them has
ever been submitted for the reason that I am not satisfied with them
yet. One of these stories in particular was planned carefully from start
to finish and a detailed synopsis made. When I had written about thirty
thousand words of it an eccentric old gentleman popped in and demanded a
part. And the funny part of it is that he "belongs." I don't understand
how I planned the story without him in the beginning.
Therefore I would say that it is essential that a plot be kept elastic.
It should be like a pot of vegetable soup simmering on the back of the
stove--one never knows when one may find an extra potato or a lump of
meat to add.
Generally I write straightaway from start to finish, though there are
exceptions. More often than not the end of a story is vague when I
begin. I would rather have it so and let the story work itself out to
arrive in a neighborhood near that which was vaguely conceived. I began
a story only last night and have no idea what it's to be. My imagination
pictured a cowboy riding into a small town, whistling. He came to that
town for a purpose, but he hasn't told me yet what it is. I am letting
him go his own gait and he is.
Revision never hurt a story. "Revise, revise, revise" is one of the best
rules ever offered writers. I don't follow it as I should because I
haven't the patience for it. I nearly always revise twice from the first
draft, however, and at times as much as eight revisions follow the first
draft. I have a story in my desk that must have been revised at least
fifty times. The first draft ran about ten thousand words. It now stands
at about thirty-five hundred words. This story is not intended for sale,
though I may eventually sell it if I can. I am writing it simply for my
own pleasure and practise in revision. I hope to bring it down to two
thousand words. The work I have put in on it has done me good.
I once tried an experiment. I took my time and wrote the first draft of
a story in manuscript. It sold the first time out. I have tried to
duplicate that performance several times since and failed each time.
=William Wells=: I have a very good idea of what the outline and main
incidents of the story are to be before I set down a word and write the
climax first, then build up to it. I sketch out scenes and incidents in
skeleton form, but in no regular order, then arrange them to make a
connected whole, start at the beginning and write the story, filling in
and rounding out as I go along.
Most of the story comes to me as I write. That is, when I sit down I
haven't the slightest idea of just what words I shall use or of many of
the scenes or incidents; they just appear. And I revise to beat the
band, two or three times.
=Ben Ames Williams=: Save in one or two rare cases, I have always
outlined my stories in advance. The exceptions were novelettes in which
I knew in a general way what I wanted to do--a trend of character--and
let this trend develop as I went along. I write from the beginning to
the end. The end is usually as clearly in mind as though it were already
written, before I begin to write. I revise until I can no longer
discover ways to improve the story.
=Honore Willsie=: I block the whole story out to the end before I begin
the actual writing. Then I write it straight through, long hand, let it
rest for a while, write it through long hand again and turn it over to a
stenographer. I do very little revising. The story is too clearly
planned before I begin to need much of that.
=H. C. Witwer=: I always map a story out very carefully in advance,
having all my ingredients well in hand. I never let the story "write
itself." I write it straightaway, as a whole, with the climax always in
mind when I start. Revise once. Revising being cutting anywhere from two
thousand to five thousand words out of what must be a short story, i.
e., five to six thousand words. That's my greatest trouble, cutting 'em.
When I first began to write fiction in 1915 I had a great deal of
difficulty stretching a story out to four thousand words. Now my first
draft will run anywhere from ten thousand to twelve thousand words!
=William Almon Wolff=: To some extent I map out a story--sometimes. I
can't follow a rigidly prepared scenario, though; all sorts of things
happen, in the writing, to upset such plans as I do have. I write a
story whole, always.
As to revision my method is, I suppose, wasteful and inefficient, but I
have no choice. I really can't separate first writing and revision,
because they go on together. I begin by writing as if there were to be
no revision--good paper, carbon, everything. Understand--I _know_ I'm
going to revise, but if I admit that, if I try to economize by using
cheap paper, or to save the trouble of making a carbon, I can't write a
line. Well, I go on until I say to myself--"This won't do!" Then I start
over--usually from the beginning. I may have done two or six or a dozen
pages; it doesn't matter. And I may do that twenty times.
As a result what is, technically, my first draft, is a pretty thoroughly
revised story. As a rule all except the last page or two will have been
written from three to six or seven times. And then, very often, I
rewrite the whole story, from the start, although some pages won't be
changed at all and on some there will be only a few trivial changes.
=Edgar Young=: Map it out ahead, seeing the climax very clearly,
although many details that come up now and then make changes necessary
and often help and sometimes cause a man to quit a story.