Masques

by J N Williamson

  JNW: Mr. Matheson, some writers confess a heavy debt to their mates. My wife, Mary, has certainly been indispensable to my career. You?

  MATHESON: In many ways. For one, she always believed I would be a success. I cannot tell you how many women—who seem to be supportive and encouraging—actually don’t believe, deep within themselves, that their mate will ever make it as a writer—an actor, composer, whatever. This is, most often, not even deliberate. It is buried in the subconscious. . . . My wife never doubted, for a second, that I would succeed. And that is an immense support for a beginning writer.

  From a more practical standpoint, she ran a house and four children’s lives in the company of a writer—not the easiest task in the world. She accepted what I was and helped me in every possible way to accomplish it; a wondrous thing for a wife to do. Also, with all her other work, she read manuscripts and commented on same—very valuably. Of especial value is the fact that most of what I believe she doesn’t believe and, representing that standpoint, she helped me to avoid overdoing things—(kept me) from becoming a proselytizer instead of a story teller.

  Lately, getting her Master’s Degree in Psychology, she has taken on an entirely new—and extraordinarily valuable—role in my writing. I have never been a master at characterization. I have gotten away with my stories because I felt them strongly and, more often than not, the characters were me or parts of me; so they were, to that degree, realistic. Now I can discuss character and motivation with my wife and it is, hopefully, opening up new vistas of possibility for characters in my stories or scripts to come. Valuable? More valuable, I would say.

  JNW: Tell me, is your work better with deadlines or unsupervised?

  MATHESON: I hate deadlines. I have never really worked to one. Never. I always had my TV assignments done on time when I did series TV. If I hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered, they’d have filmed something else instead. I don’t recall ever having to complete, for instance, a Twilight Zone segment in a special period of time. Or any script. I also discovered . . . writing something fast doesn’t mean much if it isn’t good. If it’s good, they’ll wait. They may kvetch a little but even that doesn’t happen too often. I was supposed to finish an outline for a mini-series by last May. I didn’t finish it until September. No one pressured me about it. Of course, it is so monumental, maybe they were hoping it would go away and they wouldn’t have to make a judgment on it! But they didn’t pressure me. No one ever has.

  In prose, I have done everything on spec. One book I got an advance on; Hell House. If I hadn’t, I probably would never have finished it; my conservative side, you know. I didn’t want to give them back their money. So, I struggled. It took me ten years to finish. Ray Russell said that it reads like it was written by three different writers. He was right! I was three different people during that decade. I kept changing. And my style and approach kept changing. I hated that pressure. I’d rather write on spec.

  Of course, in TV and movies, you don’t do that. So there is the personal, psychological pressure you put on yourself. Not time-wise; quality-wise. Will I do a rotten job they’ll have to pay for, anyway? That disturbs.

  JNW: How does a writer start out today? Is it harder than it was when you began?

  MATHESON: Money is the answer to that. You (hold a job) full-time or part-time until you can afford to quit and write full-time. There is no other answer. I don’t know if it’s any harder . . .

  There are still the book markets. Still the motion picture markets. Still the magazine markets. Still the television markets. And, most importantly, I think, still the same lack of good writers in any market. I am sure that beginning writers are still told, as I was, how many millions of people are trying to write and how impossible it is to make it because of these odds. The fact is that, out of these millions, only a handful can write and, more importantly, will keep writing day after day. Frankly, I don’t know of one good writer who has not “made” it to whatever degree his or her talent—and psychological drive—took him (or her).

  JNW: Is there any sign of receptivity at the network level to the idea of a TZ-type program? And do you believe there’d be writers willing to produce that much, week after week, as you, Rod Serling, Chuck Beaumont, and the others produced?

  MATHESON: There is little reception to the idea of putting a Twilight Zone-type program on TV. Commercial TV, anyway; I don’t know where cable TV is—not very far, from what I hear. If there was reception . . . I’d have been involved with one a long time ago. Dan Curtis and I did two anthology-type films which were both directed toward series. One problem is that “half hour” is now synonymous with comedy on commercial TV. And the Twilight Zone-typo, story works best at a half hour. They have tried some (similar in kind) at an hour—even doing several stories within the hour—but it doesn’t seem to gel. And although there are writers who can do this kind of material, the Twilight Zone-type story is different from the published type of story. Dan Curtis and I, in looking for material for what we hoped would be a series, ran through every copy of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction—which should have been an ideal source. We found few for the simple reason that the structure of the Twilight Zone-type story calls for the immediate introduction of a fantasy notion followed by the working out of same, with a final twist at the end desirable. Most fantasy stories lead up to the fantasy notion, do not start with it instantly. This makes a difference.

  Also—a kind of side track but, perhaps, interesting—Richard Maibaum and I tried to create a series called Galaxy. H. L. Gold was to be the story editor. We planned to use only the “classic” science-fiction stories. In reading through them, we discovered that the science fiction short story world is a rather bleak one. The power of most of the stories comes from the power of hopelessness.

  Maybe cable TV will come up with a series. I doubt if commercial TV will ever come up with a Twilight Zone again.

  JNW: In the two-part Twilight Zone Magazine interview (September, October 1981), referring to the film version of your novel Bid Time Return, you said you “believe that there literally is no audience for that type of picture anymore.” Do you wish to clarify that?

  MATHESON: I over-simplified. What I should have added is that the typical theatrical audience is not open to films like Somewhere in Time. Even that might have been ameliorated had they released the film in a very slow way—one theatre in each city—and allowed it to build its audience. There were people who were sorry they missed it but it was gone before they knew it was around. That there is an audience for it was proven when the film was shown on cable TV. It was, for a while, the hit of the Z channel here in L.A. People watched it again and again. It was a special Christmas Day presentation. Also, the film sold well in cassettes. So I have to alter my stance somewhat. A mass theatrical audience for the film? No. But an audience? Yes.

  JNW: Does the atmosphere hostile to such films have anything to do with an obsessive emphasis on “relevant” issues?

  MATHESON: Relevant issues? Bloody “law and order” films? Teenage “crotch” films? Inane comedies? Gory horror films? Not much relevance there.

  When they try to make something like The Right Stuff it pretty much fails at the box office. A pity and a crying shame. No, look to television for relevance, generally speaking.

  JNW: Television?

  MATHESON: Glossy and superficial more often than not. But at least they’re trying. Take away Silkwood and Testament and what relevance is there in films today? And did they make a lot of money? They did not.

  JNW: Richard, you said that your first published story, that jewel “Born of Man and Woman,” was taken partly because “it had a mutation in it,” and became sf. Do you regard yourself in any manner as an “sf writer,” as a fantasy/horror writer, or simply as a professional writer?

  MATHESON: I think I have written some genuine science fiction. Not in the scientific sense, although the research I did for I Am Legend has a lot of sound material in it. . . . I think a story like �
�The Test” is genuine science fiction because it deals with a problem existing in our world which I carried into the near future and tried to resolve, as it might be resolved in a governmental (and awful) way. To me, science fiction takes an already established fact or facts and extrapolates them into the future—or the present, for that matter. Which is why a western on Mars is still a western, not sf.

  I am a story teller. That is how I regard myself. I have written terror stories when I was moved to do so . . . western stories . . . suspense stories. Murder stories. A war novel. A love story. And, of late, I am trying to write things which I hope might be helpful to mankind in some way. A professional writer? I guess. The first agent I ever had said that I wanted to write like an amateur and be paid like a professional. Maybe he was partly right. Maybe I cherish a kind of amateur status. Not in the area of craft, of course; I value craft very highly and try to practice it as carefully as I can. But if “professional” means “looking to the market first” I guess I will live and die an amateur.

  JNW: Then Steve King was right, in Danse Macabre, that you have little interest in “hard science fiction”?

  MATHESON: None at all. I find science fascinating but I have no desire (and little ability) to combine it with fiction.

  JNW: Do you think some magazines draw too fine a line between fantasy, sf and horror?

  MATHESON: I think the line between science fiction and fantasy is definite. One extrapolates the known; or should. The other deals with the unknown . . . Horror and terror are different in my mind. Terror affects the mind. Horror affects the stomach.

  JNW: King also suggests that certain writers are basically conservative.

  MATHESON: I think, if we are talking about terror or horror—which I assume that Stephen is referring to—I agree. That is one reason I have chosen to back off from the genre. Very little in the way of morality is ever mentioned in this genre . . . the basic function of which seems to be to scare the wits out of people.

  Perhaps I might use the example of the third sequence from Twilight Zone—The Movie. It was based on Jerome Bixby’s story called, I believe, “It’s a Good Life.” This is a genuine terror story in that it begins in terror, takes place in terror and ends in terror. No change. No attempt to change. On those terms, it works extremely well.

  I tried to make two basic changes in my approach to the story. One was the purely story-telling device of not beginning in terror but beginning on a more normal level and edging into terror. My second basic change was to try not to end in terror but to veer, however possible, into some kind of positive direction. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to remain firmly fixed . . . and give the viewers a little parting chill. I’ve done it, I know how, it’s not that difficult when you have the right elements. I chose to try and take a frightening situation and see if there was any resolution to it, however slight. Clearly, it didn’t work out to anyone’s satisfaction but I’m not sorry I tried it. I think it was a step forward. So the step becomes a stumble? Better that than never trying at all.

  JNW: I’ve offered the opinion that pre-Ira Levin writers of horrific fantasy were less inclined to preachment, to attribute blame to a literal source of evil—that sometimes there was more attention to sheer story.

  MATHESON: I think that almost the reverse is true. Early terror and horror fiction abounded in blame to literal sources of evil. I think Ira Levin was going back to a literary tradition, not deviating from it. I think that writers today are more likely to find “evil” in ourselves rather than in outside agencies. We are, after all, living in the age of psychiatry. It seems to me that fantasy writers today are more likely to ascribe terrors and horrors to that which goes on inside the human psyche. Of course, they haven’t given up on the Devil or demons or possessing spirits, et al. But, if nothing else, I think they are trying to blend it with the dark regions of the human psyche rather than ascribing blame to outside agencies exclusively, which fantasy/terror/horror writers did habitually in the old days.

  JNW: By “pre-Ira Levin writers” of horror, I meant those immediately preceding him, and William Peter Blatty, but I didn’t make myself clear. But speaking of demonic forces, I’ve lost a friend because, according to his faith, my work in occult and horror seemed to him a Meddling in Things which Don’t

  Concern Me. Yet they do concern me, Richard. Do you think writers who use the Satanic concept as part of storylines are assisting some force or forces of evil?

  MATHESON: No . . . I think the centering of blame for any kind of evil in the world on outside agencies is a mistake, however. Let me add, quickly, that, from a story-telling point of view, it is often enjoyable to read or see such stories. But actually to blame any of mankind’s woes on outside agencies is pointless, I think. There is only one cause of “evil” in the world. Mankind. I find these endless discussions of the “problem” of evil to be a waste of time. I mean, in the sense of trying to find someone to lay the blame on other than ourselves. I don’t think God (whoever or whatever He/She/It may be) is sitting around in the clouds either interceding or ignoring us.

  We were given, by some machinery, one hell of a planet to live on. Wherever we came from originally (and I have various thoughts on that), we are here, now. It’s our world. However we got it, it was in fine shape when we did. We’re the ones (and I mean mankind, going back to whenever mankind started on Earth) who goofed. We screwed up. We made the evil: the hatred and the greed, the wars and pollution and horrors. We designed and built the bombs and the missiles. Not God. Not the Devil. Any attempt to remove ourselves from the responsibility for the world and what it is today is escapism.

  Of course, the mass population of the earth is rather helpless now, bound in by an anti-progressive system of haves and have nots. But this system wasn’t invented by God or Satan. Mankind invented it and allowed it to flourish. It’s our world. Now we have to lie in it, incinerated, or discover what really matters, and make a difference.

  JNW: Then our stories have neither harmed nor helped any church, synagogue, or other religious institution?

  MATHESON: I doubt if our stories have made any appreciable dent in any religious institution. Unless, it is to help them foster the notion that outside agencies are responsible for evil, and that, to deal with these outside agencies, we must turn to the church.

  I don’t believe this. I believe that each man and woman must turn to himself/herself. Anything any man or woman does to lift responsibility from his or her own shoulders and give to an institution which, in time, invariably abuses that power, is a dreadful mistake.

  I don’t want to sound too harsh . . . I think that religious institutions do have the positive effect of organizing human thought toward the end of spiritual awareness. Some of them do it well. Some of them don’t. But in the end, each man and woman will have to come to this awareness personally. I believe this.

  We can’t count on tour guides to get us to paradise. We have to get there on our own.

  Writing As a Career: The Matheson Viewpoint

  JNW: More talented youngsters turn to film instead of the printed page. How awful is this, Mr. Matheson?

  MATHESON: I think film—and especially television and, hopefully, cable TV—is the media of our time. Do you doubt that, if Dickens were alive today, he would be the biggest miniseries writer in the world?

  People (once attended the theatre) because there was nothing else, and they wanted diversion. When books . . . and magazines were printed, they read because it was the media of the time and they wanted diversion. They kept going to the theatre, too, of course! But I suspect a lot more stayed at home and read . . .

  Then the camera was invented and the theatre and books were, in a sense, doomed. Not entirely. They never will be. But can it be denied that major city theatre is dying? . . .

  Films took over from books. People went en masse. Every week; it was a family habit. Then television came along and people could stay home again, and be diverted. Now they don’t even have to
think, as they did when they read the books and magazines. And therein lies the problem: TV reaches—can reach—one hundred million people in one night. The thing is, what is allowed to reach them is rarely that worthwhile.

  JNW: You like writing scripts, then.

  MATHESON: I have been very frustrated by the majority of what I wrote in script form, how it all turned out, I mean. Very frustrated. I am . . . not alone in this. Virtually every script writer feels the same way. I have had, actually, far more satisfaction from television (scripts), commercials and all.

  If I can say the things I want to say in television—mostly through long form programs, although possibly from series—I will choose television. If I can’t say what I want to say, then I will have to start writing books again. We keep trying to talk, us writers. Make someone listen.

  JNW: What was most challenging to you in 1960? And today?

  MATHESON: What was challenging in 1960 was to try and make a successful living out of writing without giving up what I enjoyed writing. What is challenging today is to try and make a successful living out of writing, and say things which are important to me. A much bigger challenge. Not, I hope, an ill-fated one.

  JNW: On the lighter side, in On Becoming a Novelist, the late John Gardner made a list of a typical writer’s characteristics: Irreverent wit; strong visual memory; criminal cunning and childishness; a lack of sensible focus. Richard, is there anything about you, or me, different than what makes non-writers tick?

  MATHESON: I think writers are possessed of constantly functioning doppelgangers. No matter what happens in their personal lives—and I mean no matter what—their creative doppelganger stands aside, and observes; comments; takes down ideas and schemes from a distance. It is, at once, a terrible and wonderful gift.