| Foreword |
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xv | |
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| Introduction |
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1 | (6) |
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| PART ONE The Business Facts |
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7 | (46) |
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You, Writer: Your Place in the Writing Business |
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8 | (8) |
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How most writers break in, and how you can |
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The question of art, and preservation of your literary self-respect |
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Should you write the kind of material you don't like to write? |
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Should you write one type of script or many types? |
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Personal qualities necessary for successful writing |
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How much formal education do you need? |
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How much ``cultural background'' and travel experience? |
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Why writers use pen names |
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Should you use a pen name? |
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The way most classics are written |
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Off on the Right Foot: Getting to Know the Market |
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16 | (6) |
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The major field open to you |
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Why you might as well try for hardcover publication |
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Decline of the modest-sale paperback |
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Rise of paperback quality |
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Why you can make more money from a hardcover sale |
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Rise of the combined hard/soft deal |
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But what about all that paperback money? |
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The Current Situation: What Editors Buy |
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22 | (4) |
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Types of material most in demand |
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Types of material least in demand |
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The absence of taboos in book publishing |
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Exceptions: the bad-taste and triteness taboos |
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The trend toward realistic themes and characters |
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Should you use a portion-and-outline? |
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The Inside Story: Behind Editorial Doors |
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26 | (9) |
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What happens to your story when it enters an editorial office? |
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The rush and unrush piles of manuscripts, and the percentages bought from each |
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Why many major publishers no longer consider unsolicited manuscripts |
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What are the main reasons for acceptance and rejection? |
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Should an introductory letter accompany your script? |
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Personal letters and rejection slips from editors and what each really means |
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How many editors must okay a script for purchase before a contract goes out? |
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How long must you wait for a report? |
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Inspiration, Perspiration, Desperation: Working Habits |
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35 | (9) |
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The psychological side of the writing business |
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How to make sure you get sufficient writing done |
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Schedules, and what they can do for you and to you |
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Writers who should use schedules, and writers who shouldn't |
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What to do when the writing looks bad |
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How to resume writing when a script's grown cold |
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The dangers of first-draftitis |
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Benzedrine, stayawake pills, and other stimulants |
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Slumps: how to avoid them or break them |
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Your Attractive Merchandise: The Professional-Looking Manuscript |
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44 | (9) |
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Why professionals attach so much importance to manuscript appearance |
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The basic difference between professionals' scripts and new writers' scripts |
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Why some editors must reject incorrectly prepared manuscripts |
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Should you quote a price for the manuscript? |
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Should you secure copyright and list copyright notice? |
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Should you use a cover page? |
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Best tools for the writer |
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The proper way to determine word count |
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| PART TWO The Planning and Plotting Facts |
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53 | (80) |
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Where do you Get Your Ideas?: Tapping the Reservoir |
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54 | (6) |
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How to get ideas for books |
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How to make them come in a steady stream |
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What about plots from real life and personal experience? |
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What personal experience really means |
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Should you write only about things you know? |
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Pulling ideas out of your mind |
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How about plotting devices and gadgets? |
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Ideas that come when you don't need them |
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Plotting without a compass: the who-knows-where-it's-going approach |
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Should you use a notebook? |
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Plots that Sell: How to Build Your Ideas into Salable Books |
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60 | (6) |
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The basic pattern underlying all successful fiction |
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Why fairy tales and classics and current magazine stories are built from the same bricks |
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The vital difference between a plot pattern and a formula |
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Elements of the basic plot pattern |
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How the elements work together |
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Analysis of each ingredient of the basic plot pattern |
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Why your book must contain all the elements |
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When is a Novel not a Novel?: Incident Versus Novel |
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66 | (5) |
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The difference between a novel and an incident |
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The dangers of writing an incident when you mean to write a novel |
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Why an incident is not enough |
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Singleoccurrence incidents and multipleoccurrence incidents |
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How to tell an incident when you see one |
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No clash, no cash: the importance of conflict |
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Outward conflict, and its buried brother |
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The missing factor in any kind of incident |
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Small pebbles, big boulders |
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Why one incident after another doesn't make a novel, either |
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The Big Headache: The Problem |
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71 | (8) |
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How to get a sound story problem |
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What makes an adequate problem? |
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Why some problems are weak |
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How to avoid the paper-dragon problem |
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Is that problem a white elephant? |
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Your hero's nose in someone else's business |
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Why some books are ``too slight'' |
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The dangers of idiot plotting |
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Putting the time element to work |
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How to turn your weak problem into a strong one |
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Hit Him When He's Down: Complications |
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79 | (6) |
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Which complications increase reader interest |
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Physical and mental complications |
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Complications that prevent a logical solution |
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The best way to build complications |
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Unnecessary complications |
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Complications that speed up the story, and complications that slow it up |
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The sure way of knowing whether or not your complications fill the bill |
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The Final Sandbag: The Crisis Point |
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85 | (5) |
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Why the book must reach a peak-point |
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How to know when you're there |
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How long to keep the book at the crisis point |
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The difference between complications and crisis |
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How to make sure your peak-point is sufficiently strong |
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How to make it so if it isn't |
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The importance of the upward-and-onward movement |
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Different crises for different kinds of books |
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And that did the Trick: The Solution |
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90 | (7) |
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How to solve the story problem |
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What a satisfactory solution really means |
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Happy endings and unhappy endings |
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Typical solution troubles |
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The big build-up, then the letdown |
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The importance of plants in the unexpected-luck ending |
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Dangers when you use plants |
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The help-from-fate solution |
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The concrete solution and the implied solution |
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Must the hero always solve his own problem and, if so, to what extent? |
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97 | (6) |
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Why choice of correct viewpoint is vital |
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The various kinds of viewpoints |
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Which is most popular in today's buying, and why |
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The life's-on-stage-always aspects of leadcharacter viewpoint |
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When to use shifting viewpoints |
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Should the author ever enter the book? |
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The book told by an observer |
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The decline and fall of frame books |
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The Hemingway viewpoint book |
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When to use the first-person method |
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What Makes them Tick?: Motivation |
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103 | (6) |
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Why your characters act as they do |
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The big question: is it adequate? |
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The out-of-character action made logical |
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Real-life motivation and fiction motivation: why people will believe one and not the other |
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Consistency in motivation |
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The avoidance of stock types and routine actions |
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The basic human drives that make acceptable motivations |
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The yardstick readers use on fiction motivation |
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But Who'll Believe It?: Plausibility |
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109 | (7) |
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What makes one book plausible and another implausible? |
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It's possible, but is it probable? |
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Some dogs climb trees; can your dog climb trees? |
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The importance of accuracy |
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Implausibility through triteness |
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The job treatment: bad luck piled upon bad luck |
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Why some types of characters are implausible |
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How to make your book convincing |
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His Thoughts Returned to His Childhood: Flashback |
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116 | (9) |
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Why flashback is often a reason for rejection |
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The stop-the-story aspects of flashback |
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The realism-destroying aspects of flashback |
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When flashback should not be used |
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When flashback must be used |
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Flashback that doesn't look like flashback |
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Flashback as an opening device: the ``everything-remembered'' script |
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How to make long flashbacks more interesting |
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Strange Sounds and Smells: Locale |
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125 | (8) |
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How much locale and background do books actually need? |
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The proper way to paint in locale and background |
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Should you ever skip locale and background entirely? |
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Locale in big chunks, and locale in small doses |
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The use of the senses in building locale |
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Should you write only about things and places you know? |
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Foreign terms and unfamiliar objects |
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How soon in a script must you establish locale? |
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| PART THREE The Writing Facts |
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133 | (44) |
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Lincoln's Mother's Doctor's Dog: The Title |
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134 | (6) |
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What the title must do for your book |
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How much will a dull or trite title injure your sales chances? |
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Editorial preferences in titles |
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The misleading title: love that sounds like murder |
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Proverbs and literary and biblical quotations as titles |
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The grade-school-composition title |
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How to make a trite title fresh by twisting it |
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Your Way with Words: Style |
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140 | (5) |
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Some light on the dark mystery of style |
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Common errors of style, and how to avoid them |
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The primary purpose and function of style |
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The outstanding and easily recognizable style |
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Rhythm in style: the mixture of long and short sentences |
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The trick of underplaying |
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Why it makes scenes more effective |
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``And in the Beginning...'': The Opening |
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145 | (7) |
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The just-before, just-as, and just-after openings |
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The danger of too much introduction |
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The narrative hook: use and abuse |
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The million characters opening |
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How soon must you introduce all your characters? |
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How to select the right opening |
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How to make your opening carry its share of the story load |
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Quote, End Quote: Dialogue |
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152 | (9) |
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How much dialogue should you use in a script? |
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Where to use dialogue, and where not to use it |
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How to make dialogue natural |
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How to break up long stretches of dialogue |
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How fiction dialogue differs from real-life dialogue |
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The factors of condensing and highlighting in dialogue |
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The danger of too much condensing |
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The subject of synonyms of ``said'' |
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When to use indirect dialogue, and when not to use it |
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Dialogue that sounds rehearsed |
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Forced make-a-point dialogue |
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Over the River and Through the Woods: Transition |
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161 | (4) |
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How to move your characters from one place or time to another |
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How to break off one scene, and how to begin another |
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How to determine the proper point at which to close a scene and open the next one |
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The asterisk in transition |
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The error of too-detailed transition |
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Stuffing the Hollow Man: Characterization |
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165 | (6) |
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How to characterize without stopping your story |
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What characterization really means |
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The right way to help your reader know one character from another |
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Extreme differences in characters, and small differences |
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The factors of approach, attitude, and manner |
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Should you characterize minor story people? |
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Should you use character tags? |
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Clothing and physical appearance in characterization |
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Tips on names for characters |
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And They Lived Happily Ever After: The Ending |
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171 | (6) |
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The correct place to end your book |
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Three ways to end books, and when to use each |
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The real meaning of the ``unresolved'' script |
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Should you ever go on after the solution is reached and, if so, when? |
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The punch-line device: how to use it and how not to use it |
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Anticlimax, frosting on the cake: or anticlimax, excess baggage |
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When anticlimaxes are acceptable |
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The down-through-the-third-generation ending |
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| PART FOUR The Finished-Product Facts |
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177 | (39) |
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The Slice and the Slash: Revision |
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178 | (7) |
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How much should you revise? |
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The icebox or cooler system: good or bad? |
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The dangers of excessive revision |
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The loss of emotional heat in revision |
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Should you polish your scripts? |
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How to tell when an editorial comment is an invitation for revision |
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How to tell when it isn't |
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Why an editor's advice may be wrong for other houses |
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How to interpret editorial directions for revision |
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Marketing and Agents: Where to go With the Completed Script |
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185 | (14) |
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Covering the market front |
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How many times should you submit a script before giving up on it? |
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Can you ever resubmit a script to a market that has once turned it down? |
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Should you get a literary agent? |
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Reliable and unreliable agents |
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Just Sign Here, Please: Contracts, Rights, and Other Legal Matters |
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199 | (10) |
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Guided tour of a book contract |
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What rights should the publisher control and what share of the income should you let him have? |
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Reprint and book club rights |
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Motion picture rights, television rights, and radio rights |
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Serial and anthology rights |
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How likely is it that the publisher will reject your script after it's under contract? |
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Royalties and the advance |
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The ``self-destruct'' clause |
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When to consult an attorney |
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The attorney who isn't a publishing specialist |
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Another Horizon: Nonfiction |
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209 | (6) |
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The major reasons for purchases and rejections |
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The opinion book: when it will sell and when it won't |
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The educationalhelpful book |
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The problem of the straight-educational book |
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The amusement-entertainment book |
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Big-name books and the small-town writer |
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Professional attitudes in nonfiction writing |
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215 | (1) |
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Things to remember when you begin the job of writing to sell |
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| Index |
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216 | |
Other versions by this Author
