Writing Popular Fiction Read online

  WRITING POPULAR FICTION

  BY DEAN R. KOONTZ

  WRITER'S DIGEST • CINCINNATI

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Podkayne of Mars is copyright 1963, by Robert A. Heinlein, and is published in hardcovers by G.P. Putnams Sons. The Puppet Masters is copyright 1951, by Robert A. Heinlein, and is published in hardcovers by Doubleday and Company, Inc. The sections from these works appearing in this book are reprinted by permission of the author and his agent Lurton Blassingame. Quotations from Thorns, Nightwings, and The Masks of Time are copyright 1967, 1968, and 1969 by Robert Silver-berg, and are reprinted by permission of the author and his agent Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc. Big Planet is copyright 1957 by Jack Vance and is quoted by permission of the author. Don't Lie to Me is copyright 1972 by Tucker Coe, published in hardcovers by Random House, and is quoted by permission of the author and his agent Henry Morrison. Legacy of Terror, Demon Child are copyright 1971 by Deanna Dwyer and are quoted by permission of the author. The Haunted Earth is copyright 1973 by Dean R. Koontz. The appearance of the original sample chapter and outline, from which it was sold, is by permission of Lancer Books.

  Design: Fred Lieberman

  Second printing, 1974.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-92664

  ISBN 0-911654-21-6

  Writer's Digest 9933 Alliance Rd., Cincinnati, Ohio 45242

  Copyright © 1972 by Dean R. Koontz. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

  To

  Lynne Ellinwood, whose suggestions made this

  a much better book than it might have been,

  And to

  Robert Hoskins,

  who taught me most

  of what I'm now teaching,

  with apologies

  for beating him to the punch

  with this book

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  This book can be valuable to the new writer. It provides insights into category fiction, offers suggestions not to be found elsewhere, and ought to save you time and rejection slips on the way to a sound, professional writing career. I will be pleased to hear from anyone who, having read the book, feels he's gained from it. However, spare me letters that say:

  -"You forgot to mention theme!" I didn't forget. I neglected it on purpose. The theme, the "meaning" of a story, is not something you can sit down and plan out ahead of time. Or, anyhow, it shouldn't be. Theme should grow from your characters and your plot, naturally, almost subconsciously. If you sit down to deliver a Great Message to the reader, above all else, then you are an essayist, not a novelist.

  -"Some of these writers whose books you recommend are not really that terribly good." I know. For the most part, I've tried to point you to the best people in each field. But, occasionally, a mediocre writer achieves such stunning success that he must be mentioned in the discussion of his genre. If, out of the hundreds of books I recommend, I steer you to a couple of bums, please realize that you can learn something from those bums, if only the taste of a large part of that genre's readership.

  -"You list seven science fiction plot types, but I have found an eighth!" Okay. But it may be the only one of its kind; and with enough thought and enough familiarity with the field-Western, suspense, science fiction or whatever-you probably will find it fits into my list just fine.

  -"You don't show us how to make writing easy!" I know I don't. It's hard work, and it's frustrating, and it's lonely. I'm writing this to inform you, not deceive you. So set to work, and good luck!

  CONTENTS

  1 Hammer, Nails, and Wood

  2 Science Fiction and Fantasy

  3 Suspense

  4 Mysteries

  5 Gothic-Romance

  6 Westerns

  7 Erotica

  8 The Most Important Chapter in This Book

  9 Other Questions

  10 Practicalities: Questions and Answers

  11 Marketing Category Fiction: Questions and Answers

  CHAPTER ONE Hammer, Nails, and Wood

  Basically, there are two general kinds of modern fiction: category and "mainstream." The first includes those stories we can easily apply labels to-science fiction, fantasy, mystery, suspense, Gothic, Western, erotica-and is called category fiction chiefly for the convenience of publishers, editors, reviewers, and booksellers, who must categorize novels to differentiate areas of interest for potential readers. The second, mainstream fiction, is anything which does not comfortably fit into one of the above categories. Some mainstream writers include Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and, more recently, R. F. Delderfield (God Is an Englishman), Herman Wouk (The Winds of War), N. Scott Momaday (House Made of Dawn), and William Goldman (Boys and Girls Together, Soldier in the Rain).

  For the new writer who has not yet chosen a creative area in which to work, category fiction (also called genre fiction) may seem to hold little appeal. For decades, college literature courses-caught up in the Realism and Naturalism which dominated American fiction until the early I960's-have ignored the best craftsmen of category fiction, often concentrating on mainstream authors with far less talent. The "better" critics in the many little literary magazines and the mass market reviewers from Time and Newsweek also have traditionally looked down their noses at category fiction. Recently, of course, the New York Times Book Review section of the Sunday New York Times has shown interest in genre writing, and many colleges have introduced courses on science fiction. Still, for the main part, critics and educators seem to think that immortality lies only with the mainstream novel, while all else is ephemeral.

  This is not the case at all. Many writers who have gained some immortality, from Homer to Poe to Twain, have been category writers, men who knew how to tell a good story. Homer wrote adventure fantasy. Edgar Allen Poe wrote fantasies and mysteries. Mark Twain put most of his efforts into adventure-suspense and occasional fantasy. Undeniably, each of these men produced work that has more than a good story; but this only shows that there is no law that restricts meaning and relevance to the mainstream author. Today, for every reader who knows the mainstream author Henry James, a thousand know Twain and five thousand know Poe. The most-translated author of this century is Edgar Rice Burroughs. He is also the best-selling worldwide. Most of us would say that his stories are not what we would strive to create-too little characterization, too much melodrama-but we must admit that through Tarzan and John Carter and other characters, Burroughs has achieved that conditional immortality which is every writer's hope.

  John D. MacDonald, Ross MacDonald, Daphne Du Maurier, Alistair MacLean, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Raymond Chandler are a few category writers whose works have not only sold millions of copies, but who have at last begun to receive the critics' praise. To be known and remembered, a writer's work must first be read, and it is a fact that the majority of readers will more willingly buy a well-told mystery, fast-paced suspense, or mind-boggling science fiction novel than a slice-of-life view of the Average Man. And they will do this on a continuing patronage basis. You can confirm this by looking at the best-seller list, which is nearly always 80% category fiction, or by studying Publisher's Weekly's yearly compilation of published titles, wherein the totals for category fiction regularly outstrip those for uncategorizable novels.

  Since genre fiction is more widely read than mainstream, the writer's market for category work is larger than for mainstream. Publishers, like any businessmen, operate within the law of supply and demand.

  The inexpensive paperback book has become the most rewarding form of
publication for the average category writer. Though paperback distribution is inefficient and the major problem of the industry, good profits are possible because the total production costs of any paperback book average between eight and ten cents a copy, leaving a comfortable mark-up for publisher, distributor, and retailer, despite returns and inefficiency. Every year, for the past decade, the number of new paperback titles has increased. Most paperback fiction is category work; and about half are paperback originals, never before published in hard covers. This is, clearly, a rich field for the new writer.

  This is not to imply that category fiction has a difficult time in clothbound book markets. Indeed, more than half the hardcover fiction published today is category fiction. While most mainstream novels do not break even, hardcover category novels-whether overtly labeled as genre fiction or labeled only by inference in the jacket copy-usually show at least a marginal profit from the first edition.

  In the following chapters, we will examine the major categories of modern fiction. Once a writer has mastered a genre, he should be able to turn his hand to another category with at least some success. Both Gothic and erotic novels have strict frames which are surprisingly alike. Writing a science fiction novel, once you understand the ground rules, is not that much different from writing mystery novels. Adventure-suspense is, in many ways, quite similar to fantasy.

  Every writer has one or two kinds of stories he most e-n-joys reading and writing. I prefer suspense and science fiction, the first for its readability and no-nonsense prose, the second for its color and wealth of ideas. But there are times when publishers-especially paperback publishers whose buying trends are influenced by an unusually finicky market-are overstocked in a particular category and are not buying. Maybe Gothics are booming, and editors are buying heavily. But mysteries have currently lost favor with readers, forcing publishers to temporarily cut back on their monthly mystery issues. It happens. All the time. Of course, the Biggest Name Writers continue to sell their books despite an overall slump in their field, but the new or average writer can find himself locked out, with work he cannot sell. This is when you should be able to turn your energies into other fields and still earn enough to keep bread on the table.

  In other words, you should write so well, handle words so easily, that you can genuinely be called a "professional."

  With that goal in mind, let's look, first, at what makes category fiction so different from mainstream. Basically, genre stories require five elements which don't always appear in mainstream work:

  ONE: A STRONG PLOT

  In category fiction, there is no substitute for the age-old story formula: the hero (or heroine) has a serious problem; he attempts to solve it but plunges deeper into danger; his stumbling blocks, growing logically from his efforts to find a solution, become increasingly monumental; at last, forced by the harsh circumstances to learn something about himself or the world around him, to learn a Truth of which he was previously unaware, he solves his problem-or loses magnificently.

  One of Donald E. Westlake's early suspense novels, Killing Time, while flawed in other ways, is a prime example of the well-used story formula. The story concerns a private detective, Tim Smith, who is the only professional investigator in a small, New York State town, Winston. Smith is in tight with the town's business and government elite, because he has enough "dirt" in his files, on each of them, to make them want to be friends rather than enemies. Because he knows them all so well, he's on the city payroll for services he never renders, and he gets a cut of the backroom pie. Smith justifies this because he feels the present Winston power elite is far more desirable a group than any other that could replace it, that despite all their flaws, these men do get things done. When a crusading non-profit organization-Citizens for Clean Government-comes to Winston to scour away its corruption, Smith will not help the crusaders, for he believes they'd only be opening the door to new wolves, by getting rid of the old. Still, one of Smith's powerful friends is afraid Smith will spill what he keeps in his files, and an attempt is made on Smith's life. Now, we have the hero, and the hero has his problem: how to find out who panicked, and how to keep that nameless man from killing him. As the book progresses, and as Smith makes several attempts to discover the would-be killer's identity, the attempts on his own life become more violent and more difficult to escape. Smith becomes a man without friends on either side of the issue; his stumbling blocks become more and more monumental. At last, when his apartment is destroyed by a hand grenade and a bomb is placed in his car, he decides to face the truth about himself: he has always cooperated with Winston's power elite because he cherishes power and money himself, not because, as he always pretended, he thought his friends were tamer wolves than others that might replace them. Facing this in himself, he is able to act more ruthlessly than before; he becomes a less admirable man, but a more honest one and a more formidable one.

  Because it does require a formula, many writers mistakenly assume that category fiction is limited in scope and artistic merit. Not so. This same plot formula can be applied to any number of respected mainstream works, like Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Generally speaking, the plot in a category novel must contain fewer muted, psychological story developments of the Hemingway sort-that is, developments which, for pages and pages, deal solely with a character's changing attitudes-and more overt, physical action. But the latitude for individual creativity is broad indeed.

  TWO: A HERO OR HEROINE

  The anti-hero has a place in category fiction-but only if he is presented as being admirable. His moral values may be the opposite of what we think of as "right," so long as he is true to the values he has set for himself and so long as we can sympathize with him as a character. There is no room, however, for the loser, the weak-kneed or spineless hero. The name of the game is Escape. Your average reader wants to pick up your novel and be carried away from nagging spouse, overdue mortgage, and the morbid things he has seen on the television news that night. He wants to be entertained and to participate in somebody's triumphs for a few brief hours. He does not especially want to share someone's failures; there are enough failures in his

  Hammer, Nails, and Wood own daily life. A category novel, therefore, centers around a very colorful, strong central character, usually male but not necessarily so, usually a "good guy" but not necessarily so. The hero is permitted character flaws to give him a depth of personality, but he should eventually triumph over these. Several good examples of flawed heroes who learn the nature of their flaws and come to terms with them are Ben Chase in my own novel Chase (under the pseudonym K. R. Dwyer); John Graves in Binary by John Lange; and Hell Tanner in Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley.

  THREE: CLEAR, BELIEVABLE MOTIVATION

  The hero and the villain must have obvious objectives and goals: the winning of love or wealth, the preservation of life, etc. Of course, motivation is also essential in mainstream fiction, but it is often deep psychological motivation which the reader only sees through a distorted lens and must fathom for himself. Category fiction must never leave the reader in doubt about a character's motivations. Good characterization is a requirement, but the story is not to be sacrificed for the sake of a character study that runs for pages at a time.

  Any set of character motivations, when examined, fits into one of seven slots: love, curiosity, self-preservation, greed, self-discovery, duty, revenge. Before going on to the fourth requirement of genre fiction, let's take a look at the uses and pitfalls of each of these motivations.

  Love. Such a universal emotion is adaptable to any genre, though a writer must be careful not to let cliché situations lead him into unbelievable character conflicts. For instance, it is generally too much to accept that a hero would die for love. Orwell's 1984 is good for a point here. Though Winston loves Julia, he is prey to the "thought police" in their campaign to make him deny her. They find his own weakness: rats. When Winston is faced with being bitten by starving rodents, he shouts, "Do it to her!" They have broken h
im. A hero might risk his life and sanity for love, but only with a high chance for success; otherwise, the risk seems foolhardy.

  Love is a primary motivation in my own novel Dark of the Woods (science fiction); in Gerald A. Browne's best-selling 11 Harrowhouse (suspense); in Brian Garfield's Gun Down (Western); in Dance with the Devil by Deanna Dwyer (Gothic.)

  Curiosity. Curiosity is often used as a character motivation in the mystery story, science fiction, fantasy, and the Gothic romance. We humans are curious creatures. Without curiosity, we might still be sitting in caves, scratching our fleas and eating raw meat. Curiosity is responsible for every discovery since man tamed fire, yet, as with love, it is not motive enough to sustain a character for a full novel. There is a point at which-after he has been beaten and threatened enough-a realistic character motivated only by curiosity will call it quits. In that case, the next source of motivation nicely complements curiosity.

  Self-preservation. When we nose into affairs meant to be kept secret, we court emotional and physical disaster. A genre novel hero courts it more than most. His curiosity often propels him into a fight for his life, usually against the corrupt forces toward whom his inquisitiveness was first directed. A warning: Don't force your character to endure such extended peaks of punishment that the reader's suspension of disbelief is destroyed. In real life, a man will only endure so much pain and exhaustion before surrendering. If you must, for excitement, put your protagonist to horrendous affliction, give him a goal to supplement self-preservation and thereby add believability to his stamina. If his life and the life of the woman he loves depends on his staying one step ahead of the enemy, you'll have more leeway in making him surmount the largest obstacles.

  Greed. This is usually not a hero's motivation, though it can be if-as in the suspense novels of Dan Marlowe and Donald E. Westlake-the hero is a bandit. It is excellent motivation for antagonists if it is supplemented with other motives to keep it from seeming cartoon-like.