Best-selling author says he is just a storyteller

Press, 13 March 1987, Page 4

Best-selling author says he is just a storyteller

By

CHRIS MOORE

To describe Sidney Sheldon as a best-selling author is an understatement.

He is a super-seller. Since the appearance of “The Naked Face” in 1970, Sidney Sheldon has launched a literary bombardment of best sellers — "The Other Side of Midnight” (1973), “Bloodline" (1978), "Master of the Game” (1982). There have been the television mini-series, the public acclaim, the awards, and the books with sale figures in the millions. His publisher is today a very happy person, but Sidney Sheldon offers simpler reasons for his success.

'Tm a storyteller,” he

said during a visit to Christchurch yesterday. "People say how wonderful it must be to achieve a life-long ambition, but at no stage in my life did it ever occur to me that I could or would write a novel.

"I got this idea about a psychiatrist who someone was trying to kill. The plot was so introspective that you had to get into his mind. I didn’t know how to do that in a dramatic form but writing a novel was one way. "I dictated the book from nine to 12 to one of my secretaries while a second kept the world away. Then I put on my producer’s hat to produce ‘I Dream of Jeannie.’ In nine months the book was

finished. We sent ’The Naked Face’ to a literary agent who liked it. Half a dozen publishers turned it down before one finally accepted it All I can say today is ’thank God I decided to write it’.”

Before becoming a novelist, Sidney Sheldon had written 30 film screenplays, eight Broadway plays, and 250 television scripts. At the age of 25, he had three successful musicals running on Broadway. He won an Academy Award for “The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer.” His screenplays include “Easter Parade” and “Annie Get Your Gun.” He created the television series, “Hart to Hart.”

Today under the South-

ern Californian sun and a few doors away from the actor, Kirk Douglas, the words continue to pour on to the shorthand note pads.

His latest book, “Windmill of the Gods,” begins with an unconscious moment of self-analysis: “Stanton Rogers was destined to be President of the United States.” Sidney Sheldon was equally destined to be one of the leading American popular fiction writers. But he still prefers to describe himself as a storyteller, a teller of tales. “My books begin with one character — a personality who sparks the book in my mind. I don’t know what the plot will be until I’ve dictated a first

draft to my secretary — anything between 1000 to 1500 pages. Then I start rewriting, perhaps discarding 200 pages. A lot of it won’t fit and the story has to be straightened out For a year I can do up to a dozen drafts. A writer is his or her best editor.

“For that first draft I put down anything which comes to me. Then I become a critic — and become very tough. After two years, the publisher sees it for the first time. I don’t know of anyone else who works this way. But it works for me.”

When the final word of the final draft has been typed, he feels only relief — and a reluctance to

relinquish his characters. Sidney Sheldon is one author who identifies closely with his cast, “even the heavies.”

“I’m deeply involved with every character. If they feel anger, I get angry. If they feel pain, I feel pain. I remember dictating a death scene and becoming so choked up, I couldn’t go on. Dickens felt this way when writing about Little Nell’s death? I’m glad. Dickens was one of the all-time greats.” The one reason for his books’ success, he says, is the reader’s ability to identify with his characters’ triumphs, disasters and adventures. But the critics often differ.

“If Sidney Sheldon’s books are impossible to put down, it’s because the publisher has put glue on the cover,” one reviewer said.

Sheldon remains philosophical.

“A critic is a person who gets his or her power from a newspaper or a magazine. But it’s still one person’s view and those opinions are over-inflated because the power of the press is behind them.

“I’ve sold 100 million books throughout the world and they have received a range of criticism. There are the critics who hate me, those who love me. You can’t think about this because you would go crazy if you did.

“My books were once described as faction — a mixture of truth and fiction. Basically Tm a storyteller and like to write books which are exciting. Most of my protagonists are women but 40 per cent of my readers are men. I write adventure books which are packed with action. You can’t please everybody but all I can do is use .an idea which excites me.

"Years ago, I visited Morocco and toured one of the open air markets. In one comer, a crowd was sitting around a man who was just talking. “My guide told me that he was a storyteller who was paid for telling stories. This is what I am.”