Stein on Writing Part 17

Before you begin, I want to caution you not to disimprove what is there. If in doubt about a change, don't make the change. Instead, make a note to yourself for later consideration. I find that when I look at such notes days or weeks later, many of those questionable ideas for revision get discarded.

Your first objective in a general revision is to tighten the ma.n.u.script. I know of only one novelist who writes tight first drafts that need expanding in revision. The others need cutting, lots of it. It is perfectly normal to overwrite in first drafts. The test of a writer's skill is in recognizing on later reading what can be eliminated, and then having the guts to do the cutting.

One of the students in my advanced fiction seminar had a ma.n.u.script acceptable to his agent but not to him. He knew it was too long. He took advantage of his computer. Every time he came to a paragraph he wasn't sure contributed to the book, he marked it and with a block move transferred it to the end, after the last page. When he finished he found that he had transferred dozens of paragraphs and that only one or two, in modified form, deserved a place in the text. It's a useful strategy. I've tried it and it works.

Your second objective is to watch out for the between-the-scenes material, especially the offstage recounting of actions not seen. Try to eliminate as many of these as you can, or make them active and interesting in themselves. If this needs clarification, reread Chapter 3.

If you're not used to extensive revision, you may feel as if you're trying to do too many things at once. I want to a.s.sure you that over time you will be able to do it. In the meantime, do as many as you can and then go back over the ma.n.u.script for the others. Remember, I am trying to keep you from growing "cold" by keeping down the number of your reviews of your work.

In your general revision, cut words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs, pages, or whole scenes that seem not absolutely necessary. Watch for places where your own attention flags. That's usually a sign that something needs to be revised or cut.

If your sentences are all approximately the same length, the effect will be monotonous. Vary the length of sentences. Ideally, follow an especially long sentence with a short, even abrupt sentence. Don't do this all the time. A pattern of short-long-short-long can get almost as monotonous as all long or all short sentences. One of my students writes naturally in a mellifluous cadence. It's her greatest fault. An unbroken mellifluous cadence, lovely for a few sentences, if kept up will put a reader to sleep.

Unless you are consciously trying to slow things down between fast-moving scenes, be relentless in moving the story forward. If you find it bogging down at any point, it could be for many reasons: perhaps too slow a pace, not enough happening. If you don't see an immediate fix, mark the place in the margin and write down what you think might be wrong. Come back to those places later.

If you catch the author talking at any point, or a mix of points of view, mark the section so that you can return to Chapter 13 for guidance.

Are your characters under stress from time to time? Does the stress increase? Keep reminding yourself that fiction deals with the most stressful moments of the characters' lives.

As you go through, cut every unessential adjective and adverb. Cut "very." Cut "poor" for everything but poverty. Make every word count.

If you've said the same thing twice in different words, pick the better one and cut the other. If you find yourself using the same uncommon word twice within a few pages, use your thesaurus to pick a synonym. And in your read-through, mark every cliche for excision.

One of the most common improvements I find in line-editing a writer's ma.n.u.script is changing the order of words, phrases, or independent clauses in a sentence. The simplest instance is where you put the identification of who is speaking. Do you write, George said, "They treating you okay?"

Or: "They treating you okay?" George said.

If there is any chance that the reader won't know who is speaking at that point, the "George said" should come first. If it is clear who is speaking, "George said" can follow what he says or be omitted.

In my own work, I make transpositions hundreds of times in a book-length ma.n.u.script. Sometimes it is to let the emphasis of a sentence fall in a different place. Here's an unedited sentence: Josephine j.a.phet of course knew why her son was a reader in a universe of listeners to rock music.

That puts the emphasis on rock music. I transposed the phrase "her son was a reader" to the end of the sentence, since that was where I wanted the emphasis to fall: Josephine j.a.phet of course knew why, in a universe of listeners to rock music, her son was a reader.

In another scene, Ed j.a.phet is in school, outside the room where his father has just finished teaching and is trying to get away from a student pestering him with questions after cla.s.s. Ed shows his impatience this way: Your old man teaching in your school was bad enough. Depending on him for a ride home was the pits. Come on, Dad, move it.

The thought was improved by transposing the last of the three sentences to the beginning of the paragraph, so that it read: Come on, Dad, move it. Your old man teaching in your school was bad enough. Depending on him for a ride home was the pits.

After a fight, a boy is lying in the snow, badly hurt. See if you can spot the glitch in this sentence: The other cop slid out of the car, knelt beside Urek, fingers feeling for a pulse in the neck.

Because readers will undoubtedly have had experience with a pulse being taken at the wrist, they may suppose that immediately on reading the word "pulse." Immediately, they read "in the neck" and have to change their first view. That kind of glitch can momentarily disturb the reading experience. To avoid it, I simply transposed a few words: The other cop slid out of the car, knelt beside Urek, fingers feeling the neck for a pulse.

It pays to transpose sentences for clarity. In the following example, a woman who is not always articulate, on the phone to a lawyer expresses her concern about what will happen to her if her husband is convicted: "If Paul goes to jail, I won't have anywhere. I can't pay the mortgage on my own. He listens to you. Please come over."

In my opinion, the phrase "I won't have anywhere" is not immediately comprehensible in its present location. Transposed, it works well: "If Paul goes to jail, I can't pay the mortgage on my own. I won't have anywhere. He listens to you. Please come over."

"Purple prose" means writing that is overblown. It turns off editors and readers almost immediately. Here are some dreadful examples of purple prose: The cry of a soul in torment, swept by a tide of anger and outrage. Terror plucked at her taut nerves. Jagged laughter tore at her throat.

Ghastly red spatterings, viscous red-streaked gobbets of his brains. Fierce rending triumph.

Enough? n.o.body writes that way? These are all from the bestseller Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley's sequel to Gone With the Wind.

A phrase need not be "purple" or "flowery" to be conspicuous, by which I mean that every time you pa.s.s it, it jumps off the page and pleases you. When you "love" certain images or sentences, they are frequently so conspicuous as to interfere with the story. If they are, save them in a special box that you'll look into five years from now, and thank me for having asked you to remove them from your ma.n.u.script, though it may have hurt at the time.

Root out sentimentality, which is an excess of response to a stimulus. It makes writing "flowery." Your job is to stimulate emotions in the reader. An excessive response turns off the reader, just as it does people in life: "Why Fred, I am so excited to see you I just can't bear it."

That kind of gus.h.i.+ng is just as incredible in fiction as it is in life. Underplay to evoke emotion in the reader: I looked at her eyes. They were dry.

Given the right context, that would evoke more emotion than something overblown like "She was ready to cry her heart out."

As you read through, look for imprecision, when the word you used is not exactly the word you needed. Consult a dictionary. Consult a thesaurus.

Until you are in the habit of making sure that there is something visual on every page, while reviewing the draft put a small V in the lower right corner of every page that has something visual on it. This provides a discipline as you develop the experience of reading with an editor's eye. If a page has nothing visual, mark NV and return to it later to introduce a visual element. If you have two or more consecutive pages with nothing visual, you may have a larger problem that needs remedying, perhaps too much narrative summary where an immediate scene is needed.

In dialogue sequences, if your characters usually speak in complete sentences, fix it so they don't. Have you used enough dialogue? Remember that one of the virtues of dialogue is that it makes scenes visible. If your dialogue sufficiently confrontational? If any dialogue runs longer than three sentences, break it up with an interjection from another character or a thought or action. Check to see that responses in dialogue are oblique, at least from time to time. If any exchange of dialogue seems weak or wrong in comparison to other dialogue exchanges, mark it for later improvement or excision.

In your general revision, catch the places where a character "muttered," "screamed," and the like instead of "said." Subst.i.tute "he said" and "she said" for language that tells the reader how the lines are spoken. That's the dialogue's job.

Can you now see why I suggested you perform triage on major matters before your general read-through? If you are new to the process, you'll want to make a checklist of all the things I've suggested catching during general revision. If you find that you just can't do everything in one pa.s.s, save some things for a second pa.s.s later on. In time, if you do a good job of triage, you'll be able to handle most remaining matters in one reading.

Does that mean you're finished? You are never finished rewriting until you receive galley proofs. You will still make essential revisions, but professionals try to do all the revising they can before the book is set in type (the cost of "author's alterations" beyond a minimum is borne by the author). When you've completed triage and then a general revision, you still have work to do. You may want to ask yourself, if you were to bring a strong scene forward, would that provoke the reader's curiosity more than the scene that presently starts the book? Having revised the ma.n.u.script, all of it will be fresh in your mind, which will make it easier to identify a strong, curiosity-arousing scene that might be brought forward.

You might consider at this stage whether the ending of your book is a high point of satisfaction for the reader. If not, is there another scene or circ.u.mstance that might make a better ending?

After finis.h.i.+ng your revision, let the ma.n.u.script lie fallow for several days or longer. Don't rush to show it to a friend or family member. Let it cool down. Go on with other work, then come back to the ma.n.u.script and read it with your changes. As you become more expert at revision, you will be a better judge of your work than laymen who love you and don't know anything about craft.

For your next read-through, work with a clean ma.n.u.script in which the changes you've made are not visible as changes. (One of the great advantages of working on a computer!) This time, as you read, watch for anything that momentarily makes you see words on the page and takes you out of experiencing the story. You are aiming for the reader's total immersion. You should be able to spot these flaws after you have made the kind of changes I've suggested.

If all this checking seems excessive, ask yourself would you fly in a plane in which the experienced pilot felt so c.o.c.ksure that he didn't actually perform the checklist that makes flying safer for all of us?

If you're of a mind to ask, "Stein, do you do all this revision yourself?" I'll report that The Best Revenge, a novel of mine I've quoted many times in this book, was turned in to my publisher in its eleventh draft. It was accepted without a single change. Then, on my own recognizance, I did two more drafts.

How many times in the course of a lifetime do we wish we could relive some conversation or event, do it differently? Revision provides that opportunity. First drafts of nonfiction can be flawed in organization, quality control, interest, and language. Lucky for us writers, this is the one place in life where we get a reprieve.

Perhaps if we did get a second chance in life, we'd blunder right back in and muck things up again. That's what can happen in revision unless we have a plan of action. I will attempt to provide a plan here.

Att.i.tude is important. If you review what you've written and exclaim, "Oh my G.o.d, this is awful!" you'll only dispirit yourself. The experienced writer knows his first draft will be flawed, that he will get a chance to employ his editorial skills in fixing it. During my decades of editing, I met only one professional writer who believed that his first drafts were graced with perfection. And who is to argue with a man's religion, as long as he takes his ma.n.u.script somewhere else?

Just as in revising fiction, the nonfiction writer is in danger of growing cold on his ma.n.u.script quickly if he starts revising at the top of page one and goes through paragraph by paragraph to the end. To avoid growing cold, I advocate fixing major things before starting on a page-by-page, front-to-back revision. This will confer two advantages. If you fix the larger problems first, you will in all likelihood make some first-draft infelicities in the new material that you will then catch on your subsequent page-by-page revision. In addition, by working on specific problems, you will not have grown cold on the ma.n.u.script when you tackle the read-through.

A good way to begin is to personify your subject matter in an incident involving an individual. Sometimes the germ of such an anecdote is buried elsewhere in the draft. If so, examine it to see if it has the potential of being made stronger than your present opening.

Also ask yourself if your opening is sufficiently visual to be seen by the reader. You may recall that in Chapter 3, "Welcome to the Twentieth Century," I explained the differences among the three main components of fiction-description, narrative summary, and immediate scene-and pointed out that understanding the differences could be of immediate help to a nonfiction writer also. Most important, the nonfiction writer who learns to use immediate scenes wherever he can will also find a dramatic improvement in the readability of his work. The ideal place for your first immediate scene is on page one.

Before you settle on a beginning, ask yourself if it provokes sufficient curiosity in the reader. How soon after your beginning will the reader comes upon the "engine" of your article or book, the place at which the reader decides not to stop reading?

If you are writing an article, does it make one point after another on a plateau, or does it build toward a climax? If it is a book, does the end of most chapters point toward the next?

Have you summarized material that would make interesting visual pa.s.sages if you converted the summaries to events the reader could see? If there are summaries you cannot or don't want to convert to scenes, can you shorten them in order to avoid losing the reader's attention? If you want to "jump-cut," the reader will go along with you.

Have you created occasional suspenseful interest by raising a question and withholding the answer for a while? Can you recall any place where this might be done now?

Does your work have reverberations of other times or places, of important events or influential people? The most mundane subjects can be given a lift by the use of resonance. There are a number of reference books that go through history, period by period or year by year, giving you the highlights of the time, its influential people, and significant political and cultural events. Browsing through one of these books can sometimes provide you with a few relevant facts that will lend resonance to your work. You can refresh your recollection of other sources of resonance in Chapter 31.

Have you consciously tried to create stress for the reader, some delicious tension? Would it help to look at Chapter 10, on tension for fiction writers, to see if it sparks any ideas for tension in your work? Some of the suggestions can be adapted for nonfiction quite easily.

If you were the editor of your ma.n.u.script and it was written by someone else, what would you choose as the weakest part? Look at that section now and see if you can eliminate it. If you can't cut it entirely, can you condense it? Is there anything you can add to the beginning of that section that would arouse the reader's curiosity? Consider your most memorable pa.s.sage. What makes it so good? Does that provide a clue as to what you might do with your weakest part?

Surprise: If you've cut or changed the weakest part, you have a new weakest part. In retrospect, do you know why it is weak? Can you improve it? Can you cut it and st.i.tch together what comes immediately before and immediately after?

When you've considered those questions and fixed whatever needed fixing, it may be time for a focused reading, by which I mean a reading of your ma.n.u.script in which you read not as a reader but as a hunter for specific errors and omissions as if on a.s.signment to do so. If you wrote the ma.n.u.script on computer, I suggest working with a clean hard copy of your ma.n.u.script. It will seem fresher to you, and faults you may not have noticed before will be suddenly apparent.

Is there something visible on every page? If you are reviewing what you wrote in hard copy, pencil a V in a lower corner of every page that has something visual, and on pages without a V, see if you can create something visual, even if it is a leaf falling from a tree.

Have you eliminated most adjectives and adverbs, and the unnecessary words we call flab? Go after them as an editor, not as the writer.

Cut every cliche you come across. Say it new or say it straight.

Can you spot any similes or metaphors that show signs of strain and should now be cut?

If you've never done this before, you may find it difficult to look for all these things at the same time. If so, you may need to check the following list every once in a while until you are used to the process: * Add something visible.

* Cut most adjectives and adverbs.

* Cut cliches.

* Replace or cut similes and metaphors that don't work.

As you work along as an editor, do you see any places where the author might have padded the ma.n.u.script with unnecessary digressions, overly extensive patches of description, or anything else that strikes you as filler? You always strengthen text when you remove the padding.

As to the last, an anecdote. At a New York party long ago, a nonfiction writer whom I knew by reputation but had not met came up to me, well into his cups, and asked could he come see me with a ma.n.u.script he had kept secret from everyone. One hears things like that at parties. They seldom mature into appointments. This writer phoned for an appointment and showed up with a large sc.r.a.pbook under his arm. What was the "secret" ma.n.u.script with which he had intrigued me?

The writer published regularly in a magazine that paid him a generous monthly advance against his articles. The advance, much like an account at a company store, was paid down at so much per published word. The sc.r.a.pbook contained his articles in the magazine. In each he had bracketed in color the many sections of padding that he had added in order to produce more published words and thereby to decrease his indebtedness. He was now interested in publis.h.i.+ng a book of his pieces minus the padding. For reasons lost to time, I no longer remember why this project did not proceed, but its lesson about padding remained in my mind, as I hope it now will in yours.

Now that you've fixed the larger problems and hunted and killed the smaller ones, take some time away from the ma.n.u.script and then read it as a reader, not an editor. But keep an editorial pencil handy, just in case.

BOOK DOCTORS.

Some decades back if your work was talented and thought to be eventually publishable, your book could be bought and an editor a.s.signed to work with you on any necessary revision. As bottom-line management took over most publis.h.i.+ng houses, detailed and especially prolonged editing was viewed as not cost-effective, and agents were expected to submit ma.n.u.scripts that were as final as possible. That change occasioned the development of a new profession, book doctors, mainly individuals who are experienced editors or writers or both who evaluate and work on ma.n.u.scripts, helping the authors bring them up to speed. That help does not come cheap, but the hourly rates are a lot lower than, say, lawyers charge. Many book doctors charge by the a.s.signment, whether it's an evaluation, a long memo of recommendations, or actual line-editing of an entire ma.n.u.script. Some book doctors advertise in Writer's Digest, some do not advertise anywhere. I can only refer writers to the small number of book doctors whose work I know. Readers of this book can obtain a list of them, with addresses and phone numbers, by phoning (914) 762-1255 during business hours eastern time and asking that the Book Doctor List be sent to you. It's free.

DICTIONARIES.

If you've come this far, you know that the quality of a written work is in large measure dependent on the precision with which words are used. The more words I learn, the more I use a dictionary. Over the years I have become increasingly impatient with writers for whom the approximate word will do. The serious writer is addicted to the precise meaning of words in his own work and admires le mot juste in the work of others. For him, the approximate word is never satisfactory, and he delights in the tools that enable him to be as precise as possible.

I suggest keeping at least two dictionaries handy while you work, a desk dictionary for convenience, and a larger dictionary on a stand or on top of a chest-high bookcase for easy turning of the pages. Page-turning ease is not a light matter. Many writers will use any excuse not to lift a heavy tome and riffle through its pages. (I refuse to use the two-volume Oxford unabridged dictionary I own because of the inconvenience of tracking its minuscule type with a magnifying gla.s.s.) I no longer need to resort to my Webster Unabridged because of the excellence of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which I now use more often than any other, not only for my writing but also to look up all the medical jargon physicians use to communicate with each other in reports that their victims are not supposed to see.

LITERARY AGENTS.

The most comprehensive listing of agents with useful commentary can be found in a large-format paperback book, Literary Agents of North America, available from Author Aid a.s.sociates, 340 East 52 Street, New York, NY 10022, Phone (212) Plaza 9-4213. The Fifth Edition is $33, plus $7.50 for priority mail delivery in the U.S. They accept checks or money orders but not credit cards. An extensive listing of agents can be found in the Literary Market Place, the huge annual directory better known as the LMP, published by R. R. Bowker. The Writer's Handbook, edited by Sylvia K. Burack and published by The Writer, Inc., has a smaller listing. Several other paperback books on the market contain evaluative material on a number of literary agents, but some of the important agencies decline to be listed. A free copy of the brochure "How to Get a Literary Agent to Represent Your Work" by Sol Stein is available by sending a business-size (#10) stamped and self-addressed envelope to free agent booklet, The WritePro Corporation, 43 South Highland Avenue, Ossining, NY 10562.

SOFTWARE.

While I have taught writers at universities on the coasts and in the Middle West of the United States, the advent of the computer and its almost universal use by writers have enabled me to clone myself in several computer programs. As a result, writers in thirty-eight countries are now able to plug me into an ear, as it were, while they write and revise their work. In these quasi-interactive programs, I function not only as teacher but also as editor, guiding the user step by step. Those programs, thanks to supportive reviews in over a hundred newspapers and magazines and to distribution by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Literary Guild, have reached a great many writers I have not had the opportunity of meeting in person.

All the programs have a two-minute, automatic installation process, come with their own built-in word processor, and save everything you write automatically so that you can concentrate on your writing and not on computing.

The first, an award-winning program called WritePro, is a tutorial program to which I direct beginners, though it has been used successfully by experienced and published writers. The author of some nineteen novels said in a review that he used the program to remind himself of all the things he didn't know he'd forgotten. I want to call your special attention to two things. You cannot get writer's block while using WritePro, a great help to beginners. Steve Ba.s.s, who is president of the Pasadena, California, IBM Users Group as well as a journalist who reviews software, wrote that his "absolute favorite" function was the Flab Editor, a copyrighted computer software invention that enables the user to strengthen his writing by highlighting individual unnecessary words on a page under guidance, and with a keystroke make them disappear so the writer can see how much stronger the text is without them. The words can be brought back at will or deleted with a keystroke. The Flab Editor is in WritePro's Lesson 5, but the technology is usable in all WritePro lessons.

You can obtain a free WritePro lesson by phoning 1-800-755-1124, 9-4 eastern time weekdays, or by writing to The WritePro Corporation, 43 South Highland Avenue, Ossining NY 10562. They charge only the nominal s.h.i.+pping and handling cost. The lesson on disk, with the manual, is free if you tell them you own Stein On Writing. Be sure to specify whether you want the DOS, Windows, or the Macintosh version. The people at the same number and address can also provide you with further information about the lessons. If you wish to purchase the lessons, tell the order taker you own this book and you will receive the highest available discount.

FictionMaster, also selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club, enables writers to improve their characters, plot, and dialogue by transferring chapters from their ma.n.u.scripts to the program and editing them under my instruction. FictionMaster can also be used as an interactive tutorial on most of the subjects in this book; you master a technique by using it in your own work. Though FictionMaster is the most advanced program of its kind available anywhere and is used by published writers, it is designed so that a smart beginner can use it also. Phone 1-800-755-1124 and ask to receive all of the FictionMaster menus, which will give you a clear idea of the areas covered. They are free.

FirstAid for Writers also enables the user to transfer his own writing into the program, fix anything in need of fixing with my advice, and transfer it back out to his word processor. In addition to its four modules for fiction, FirstAid for Writers contains a complete module for non-fiction that is used by journalists and nonfiction book and article writers. You can obtain a free schematic map of the more than sixty subjects included in this program from the WritePro office.

TAPES (AUDIO AND VIDEO).

An audiotape that writers find useful is "Dialogue for Writers." It contains the essence of the twelve-week course on dialogue that I gave at the University of California at Irvine.

Another audiotape, "What Every Author Should Know About Publis.h.i.+ng," is based on my one-day crash course on "Publis.h.i.+ng for Authors" given at the University of California.

If you identify yourself as a reader of this book, you can receive a free copy of either tape with the purchase of any WritePro computer program.

A two-ca.s.sette video ent.i.tled "Stein on Writing" (no connection to this book, though the t.i.tle is the same) was produced by Mayo Entertainment in Los Angeles in 1992. The first ca.s.sette allows you to be a fly on the wall and eavesdrop on one-on-one conversations with more than a dozen of the writers in my advanced fiction seminar, each focusing on a different writing problem. The second ca.s.sette enables you to visit the Santa Barbara Writers Conference of 1992 and hear the entire presentation I gave to an audience of about 370 writers that year. To obtain the two-ca.s.sette video, call or write to Mayo Entertainment, 1818 Thayer, Los Angeles, CA 90025, (310) 475-3333. The price is $39.95 plus $5 s.h.i.+pping and handling.

THESAURUS.

Most writers use computers now. A day doesn't go by in which I fail to use two different on-line thesauruses, marvels of convenience and speed. A thesaurus does not provide as many words with precisely the same meaning as it does words with similar meanings. The thesaurus that came with my most frequently used word processor is racy and inexact, producing distant cousins of the word I'm looking up. Which is good. That online thesaurus often surprises me with a word that I would not have thought of on my own and that gets me thinking in a different direction. I also keep memory-resident The American Heritage Thesaurus, which is scholarly and prissy. Checking the two thesauruses against each other is fun and a stimulant to the imagination.

For example, a student of mine had a story in which the word "harlot" was overused. My prissy thesaurus came up with the synonym "prost.i.tute" and that's all. My other online thesaurus came up with no fewer than twenty-one "synonyms"-some near misses and some pretty far off-that enabled my student to add color as well as diversity to her text: seductress, temptress, coquette, flirt, nymphomaniac, siren, tart, tease, vamp, wanton woman, prost.i.tute, wh.o.r.e, call girl, hooker, hussy, s.l.u.t, streetwalker, tart, tramp, trollop, wench.

The book I favor for synonyms is a paperback called The Synonym Finder by J. I. Rodale, published by Warner Books, which is organized alphabetically. You don't have to look a word up in the back to find out what section up front you might find its relatives in.

WRITERS' CONFERENCES.

My students consistently tell me that they find writers' conferences beneficial for learning, networking, and meeting other writers. The fact that writers keep coming back to the same conferences year after year attests to that. Writers enjoy the camaraderie of other writers as much as they do the instruction they receive in workshops. If you are relatively inexperienced in the commercial side of writing, writers' conferences are also a good place to hear agents and editors talk, and to meet them. Lists of writers' conferences are available in the Literary Market Place, published by R. R. Bowker, and The Writer's Handbook, edited by Sylvia K. Burack and published by The Writer, Inc., and in some issues of writers' magazines. A few of the conferences ask to see several pages of your work ahead of time. It's a good idea to talk to another writer who's been to that conference before applying. The conference administration might supply you with the name of someone living in your area who has attended the conference previously. You might want to get your name on the mailing list of conferences that interest you, since the most popular conferences fill up within a few weeks of sending out their annual announcements.

Whatever the effect this book might have on your writing, I trust that it will have made you into a more perceptive reader for the rest of your days.

I hope you will have occasion to benefit from the techniques that I've been pa.s.sing on to writers for nearly four decades. In time, some of these techniques will improve your chances of successful publication, or if you're already publis.h.i.+ng, will enhance your work. Hemingway said, "We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master." We know that's not literally true. Many of Hemingway's stories and some of his novels are masterly. He meant we can always learn more. You can return to this book like an old friend for guidance and support whenever you feel the need.

In the course of reading this book, you may have come to the correct conclusion that a writer is a manipulator for whom the end justifies the means, a teller of white lies, a deceiver, all to a good end. He is also a shaper of the destinies of the characters he brings to life, a creator of golden idols he hopes some readers will wors.h.i.+p. Hence the form of the following advice.

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR WRITERS.

1. Thou shalt not sprinkle characters into a preconceived plot lest thou produce hackwork. In the beginning was the character, then the word, and from the character's words is brought forth action.

2. Thou shalt imbue thy heroes with faults and thy villains with charm, for it is the faults of the hero that bring forth his life, just as the charm of the villain is the honey with which he lures the innocent.

3. Thy characters shall steal, kill, dishonor their parents, bear false witness, and covet their neighbor's house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, and a.s.s, for reader's crave such actions and yawn when thy characters are meek, innocent, forgiving, and peaceable.