Techniques of the Selling Writer

by Swain, Dwight V.

  Why?

  A story is the record of how somebody deals with danger.

  Until your focal character makes up his mind to fight the danger, rather than to run from it, you have no story.

  The thing that hooks your reader, in the opening, is curiosity.

  The thing that holds him the rest of the way, straight through to the final paragraph, is suspense.

  Curiosity is the element, on page one, that makes your reader wonder: What’s this leading up to?

  So, what is it leading up to?

  The fact that there’s going to be a fight.

  What’s the fight about?

  It concerns your character’s efforts to achieve a goal—to attain or retain something in the face of danger.

  Enter the story question: Will your focal character win, or won’t he?

  Enter suspense also.

  Suspense is reaction. It’s a feeling your story develops in a reader. You compound it of hope plus fear—the fear that something will or won’t happen.

  To have suspense, you must have uncertainty of outcome.

  That’s where your story question comes in. As noted earlier, it’s always the same: Will St. George succeed in slaying the dragon—or won’t he?

  Will Sam beat Ed’s time with Suzy—or won’t he?

  Will Joe convince Mr. Rice he’s the man for the job—or won’t he?

  Will the sergeant make it through the enemy lines—or won’t he?

  Will Ellen get her husband off the bottle—or won’t she?

  The key ingredient each time is doubt; uncertainty of outcome.

  That doubt, that uncertainty, is what ties your reader to your story.

  In other words, you open your story with curiosity-arousing devices, designed to establish (1) that your focal character has a goal, and (2) that this goal is somehow threatened.

  After which, suspense takes over: Does your focal character win or lose; achieve his goal or miss it?

  The issue is the moment of commitment. True suspense comes only when you establish the story question. And the story question moves into focus only when your character, desiring, looks danger full in the face and then takes up the challenge that the situation offers.

  Implicitly or explicitly, he must say, “I’ll fight!” before your story can begin.

  As soon as he says it, the beginning automatically ends, and we move into the story proper . . . the body of the central conflict.

  This is the moment when your reader adds suspense-involvement to mere interest. Until now, there’s always been the chance that Sam will let Ed have Suzy without a struggle; that Joe will shuffle dully away to a job on the section gang when Mr. Rice turns him down; that the sergeant will surrender; that Ellen, despairing, will join her husband in alcohol’s embrace.

  With commitment, however, your focal character takes his stand beside the feudist who cries, “I’ll die before “I’ll run!” Talk’s done. Hesitation’s over. Now, his decision’s made. And whether that decision is intelligent or foolish, he has no choice, in your reader’s eyes, but to fish or cut bait.

  Whereupon, instinctively, said reader grips book or magazine a little tighter and frames his private version of the story question: “Will this guy win—or won’t he?”

  I can’t overemphasize how important this matter of commitment is. An amazing number of potentially good stories bog down just because the central character refuses to come to grips with the issues. Consequently, Character himself seems passive, the beginning gives an effect of dragging on forever, and the reader is denied all possibility of the vital “Will-he-or-won’t-he?” involvement that glues him to the story.

  So: Do let your hero decide to fight!

  Closely related to this is the matter of peripheral versus mainline action in beginning a story . . . starting with an immediately intriguing side issue instead of attacking the central problem.

  It should be obvious by now, I trust, that you have wide latitude in selecting the curiosity-bait to hook your reader. But if you choose a side issue on which to open, you need to bear in mind that you must establish a clear and perceptible relationship between this peripheral material and your main story issue. Starting with an introductory scene in which your focal character dallies with a seductive blonde will only prove infuriating to your reader, if said blonde plays no vital role in the body of your story.

  In the same way, your hero’s decision to commit himself must center squarely on the core of the story, rather than something extraneous.

  Thus, in order to get a mystery off the ground fast, you might begin with the murder of your focal character’s sister. He promptly commits himself to avenge her.

  Later, however, it develops that his wife is suspect, and the rest of the story centers on his efforts to clear her.

  Result: a confused, diffuse, unsatisfactory story. If the vengeance motif is to dominate, then it should dominate all the way. If wife-clearing is the issue, then set up your situation so your hero commits himself to it at the start, leaving vengeance subordinated or eliminated.

  Finally, bear in mind that suspense is compounded of hope as well as fear.

  In other words, your reader must care what happens. Otherwise he won’t worry; and worry is the big product that a writer sells.

  You can’t care if the character himself shows no signs of caring. Feeling, remember, is largely a matter of shared reaction.

  Neither can you care about something obviously trivial and unimportant.

  What’s most important—for all of us?

  Happiness.

  Whatever your character desires and/or whatever endangers that desire must, potentially, affect his future happiness. The transient or inconsequential just aren’t good enough. They don’t provide sufficient motivation to make him commit himself to fight.

  And that’s more than enough about desire and danger and decision. More than enough about the beginning of your story, too. It’s time we moved on . . . on into consideration of solutions to the problems you encounter as you write the middle scenes.

  How to develop middle segments

  “A middle,” says Aristotle, “is that which follows something, as some other thing follows it.”

  You already know how to write the middle segment of your story. You mastered the essential techniques when, in Chapter 4, you learned to manipulate search and struggle, sequel and scene.

  The middle consists of a series of sequels and scenes linked together; nothing more. Your focal character searches till he finds a goal that suits him . . . then struggles to attain it. When further difficulties assail him, the process is repeated.

  Beginning starts a fight between desire and danger. End brings a knockout punch to resolve the conflict, one way or the other.

  Middle lies between the two. It’s the body of your story . . . that portion which details the ebb and flow of battle. Starting with establishment of the story question, it carries your focal character forward to that climactic moment of decision which marks the beginning of your story’s end.

  How do you develop the middle?

  Life, it has been said, facetiously and otherwise, is a series of adjustments.

  So is a story.

  Change is what forces you to adjust.

  Some changes wreak more havoc than do others. Some adjustments are easier to make than others.

  In all probability, I’ll regroup easily if the problem is merely that, for today, okra has been crossed off the café menu.

  Accepting the fact that my wife is dead may take considerably more doing.

  Conviction for a murder I didn’t commit could very well push me past the breaking point.

  In each case, faced with a change, you try to figure out what to do next. That is, you search for a goal—a substitute for okra . . . activities to help fill the lonely hours a loved one’s departure leaves . . . revenge for the perjury that put you behind bars.

  Then, once you’ve decided, you do your best to follow the course you�
�ve chosen. You strive to reach your destination.

  Again, change intervenes. Again, you adjust via search and striving.

  This routine is repeated as many times as space will allow.

  And there you have the pattern and dynamics of the middle. There’s no point to belaboring them further.

  There are, however, a few specific rules-of-thumb that may help you . . . a don’t, four do’s, and a don’t, chosen to pinpoint some of the errors that trap too many writers:

  a. Don’t stand still.

  The difference between the end of your story and its beginning lies in the amount of information reader and hero have at their disposal.

  Thus, a love story might open as a girl first becomes aware that a particular boy exists.

  Sixteen—or 316—pages later, she pledges herself to be his.

  Between page one and page sixteen, or what have you, Girl acquires certain data. In consequence of certain events and drives and conflicts, she learns various things about Boy: the kind of person he is; how he reacts; how she herself reacts to his reactions.

  Pleased with what she finds, she behaves in a manner appropriate to love-story resolution in that particular market.

  This lengthy process of story development represents change for Girl—change from one state of affairs to another, and from one state of mind to another.

  Which is as it should be. Change in a story must take place well-nigh continuously.

  Why?

  Because each change moves your story closer to its conclusion.

  If it doesn’t, it’s the wrong change.

  No story unit—not even a paragraph—ought to begin and end with the state of affairs and state of mind of each person involved exactly the same. Even the falling of a leaf should, implicitly or explicitly, bring into focus the subtle variation of feeling tone that it engenders. Always, there must be some new fragment of fact or thought implied or stated; some fresh development, some growth of insight, some hint of fluctuation in relationship. Maybe Girl finds her rival’s earring in Boy’s pocket. Maybe Boy notes irritably that Girl wears too much lipstick. Maybe there’s sullenness in a glance, or tenderness, or precisely the right or wrong words spoken. Maybe the sun’s just warm enough, or a rainstorm strands Boy and Girl in the mountains. But whatever the time or place or circumstance—count on it, something happens. One way or another, great or small, a change takes place to help or hinder.

  Why must this be so?

  Partly, because your story needs to drive ahead, straight toward its conclusion.

  Even more so, because your reader needs these facts, these insights, in order properly to share your focal character’s experience.

  Most of all, because without such change your story grows static, and hence boring.

  When that happens, your reader quits reading. And that’s a luxury you can’t afford.

  A static scene or story may even bore you, its author. When that happens, it becomes hard to write.

  Why?

  Because the only thing any writer really has to write about is change. When there isn’t any change worth noting, your unconscious instinctively recognizes it and goes on strike.—After all, how long can anyone sit staring fixedly at a still life?

  In fact, whenever a given yarn bogs down, it might be worth your while to ask yourself three questions:

  (1) Where’s this scene and story going?

  It does have a goal, doesn’t it?

  (2) What change will help it get there?

  In what respect might this situation be different? Could day be night? Could apartment be office? Could Character A be present or absent? Could the money be found instead of lost?

  (3) How will each character react to such a change?

  Will it please him? Upset him? Force him to change his plans or attitudes?

  Remember: The difference between the end of your story and its beginning lies in the fact that reader and hero have gained information in the course of events recounted.

  Information is the fruit of change.

  So, incorporate appropriate change into every unit.

  b. Do maintain unity.

  You the writer need some sort of yardstick to help you decide what to put into your story and what to leave out.

  Where middle is concerned, this yardstick is the story question . . . the issue, whether desire will defeat danger: Will your focal character attain his goal, or won’t he?

  Back to Aristotle: “. . . a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible difference is not an organic part of the whole.”

  Anything that helps or hinders your focal character’s efforts should go into your story. Anything that doesn’t, shouldn’t.

  That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? So where do the problems arise?

  They grow out of the fact that, in order to achieve his story goal, your character must first attain a whole series of scene goals.

  Thus, Montmorency’s objective in your story may be to win election as state senator. But to do this he must, en route, gain support of key people in precinct, county, and state organizations . . . raise campaign funds . . . overcome his wife’s fears and the antagonism of his employer . . . defeat a host of other would-be candidates for the office, at all levels.

  Short of a novel, you obviously can’t cover all this ground. But you will develop certain selected bits—the ones which you consider most important—as scenes.

  Now the situation set forth in each scene must be sufficiently different from the rest that your reader’s interest is held firm. To go over and over the same ground isn’t unity; it’s disaster.

  Precisely at this point, trouble gallops across the horizon. For as you lay out individual scenes, repeatedly you’ll find yourself tempted to write in characters and locales and actions that pop out of nowhere to intrigue you. Like, here’s this gorgeous gal—or this glamorous ski resort—or this wild wisecrack—or this wonderful ironic thing where the honeymooners’ plane crashes right there on the runway—

  The only difficulty is, these items have little or no bearing on your focal character’s goal and efforts, and the story question.

  When that’s the case—leave it out! No matter how superficially appealing an incident may be, forget it unless it ties tight to the story question. Or, if it’s so overwhelming that you can’t leave it alone—then pace the floor till you find a way to forge some sort of bond between it and the crucial issues.

  As a corollary to the above, certain scenes must be included, even though you have no yen to write them. Again, it’s because they have a vital bearing on the story question. If your hero’s whole future depends upon his freeing himself from a given girl, and then you play the bit offstage, covering with his casual remark that he “got rid of her, all right,” your reader’s thwarted anticipations very well may flame into open anger.

  So there’s the heart of this particular do: Include whatever influences the outcome of the story question. Leave out those things that don’t.

  Not to do so will destroy the unity of your story.

  c. Do build to a climax.

  In practical terms, “build to a climax” means “increase pressure on your focal character.”

  Which is to say, “increase tension and excitement for your reader.”

  To that end, see to it that the changes you introduce constitute complications.

  What is a complication?

  A complication is a new development that makes your focal character’s situation worse.

  What makes your character’s situation worse?

  Anything that endangers his chances of attaining his story goal.

  The way this works out, ordinarily, is that your focal character picks an immediate goal which, he believes, will move him a step closer to his story goal. Then, he takes action to attain that immediate goal.

  These efforts bring him up against opposition. Conflict follows, complete with assorted strainings and strivings and maneuverings.

  Finally, the fight
comes to a climax. And then—

  Disaster.

  What I’m describing is, obviously, a scene.

  It’s also a complication.

  Why?

  Because your focal character hasn’t just failed to win. Rather, his efforts have thrown him farther than ever behind the eight-ball. The new external development we label as disaster pulls the rug out from under him totally. In effect, he now must adjust to a whole new situation . . . one worse than the one he confronted at the scene’s beginning.

  Thus, determined to keep mysterious prowlers away from his home, your hero supplements the six-foot chain-link fence with a particularly savage dog.

  This upsets his wife. Her idea is to move.

  While they’re still arguing the point, there’s an animal scream of anguish outside. Hero rushes into the yard.

  There’s the dog—chopped in half with a machete.

  Note how this affects your hero’s situation. Before, he stood infuriated and adamant. Now, he sees living—pardon me, dead—proof that neither fence nor dog can protect him and his family from their hidden foe.

  Further, said foe assumes new dimensions of the hideous. If this menace can somehow get inside the fence and kill a dog and then vanish—well, how can anyone be safe, and how far may foe go?

  Or, here’s a girl eager to impress—and thus arouse personal interest on the part of—her handsome junior-executive boss. To this end, she demonstrates super-efficiency and gives all sorts of little extra services.

  Whereupon, fat old senior-executive lecher orders her transferred to his office—and she knows that if she refuses to accept the assignment, she’ll have to leave the company and so lose all contact with her chosen guy.

  Or, widowed mother tries to tie teen-age son to her with the traditional silver cord . . . talks him out of taking a job in another town because, she claims, she so desperately needs the financial help that comes of his living at home.

  At which point, he signs to go to Saudi Arabia with an oil company, so that he can provide her with more cash.