EDGAR WALLACE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 119, 15 November 1929, Page 19

EDGAR WALLACE

THE FICTION KING HOW HE WORKS "Some ■ people, dazzled by the Niagara of books, serials, articles; short stories, plays, and films turned out by Edgar Wallace, have, takoii it for granted that Wallace, like Dumas, employs a horde of literary ghosts," writes Mr. 0. Patrick Thompson in the New York "Herald Tribuno." "But the truth is that he does all his writing himself, using a large agile'hand or a fluonfc tongue. To a man who has written" an 80,000-word serial in three days, a play in under four, and who is used to being rung up at 11 a.m. and requested for :i 3000-wovd short story by 1 p.m.. it is easy. Resource, invention, knowledge, an eye for copy and character and hard work—that is the secret- of his amazing" output. " He starts with the denouement in thinkout out a plot, and works backward to the beginning. After this ho find? the mechanical job of getting Ms story into words comparatively simple. He haa no system. Often ho will find a morning full of engagements —rehearsals, board meetings, a race meeting. Then he will write in' the afternoon. When, he is travelling he always engages an extra room to work in. He leaves a lot of routine business work to his wife, who used to be his secre* tary.' When he had no time to 'look after a theatre where one of.hia.plays was, running—he had written the play, taken the theatre, engaged the cast, rehearsed and supervised the production—lie put his wife in to look after, it. ' • ' THE PLAY THAT MADE HIM. "His play 'The Ringer' made him. He wrote it in.three days. It.was a sensational success. And suddenly -everybody wanted to see'Binger' plays, and read 'Bing'er' books, and Edgar Wallace was , the-only, man:- who/. Could satisfy the demand.* He had, after a.llj .been producing the? goods for a quarter of a century, and had a huge stock.; to fill-file, demand. ' "Up. went his price with a bang. He had been selling serials for £200 a time. A year after his great boom started a great newspaper paid him £.10,000 for first serial rights in a thriller,- neither better-nor:.worse.than scores of others he had V.written, and spent £50,000 advertising-it; Editors who twenty years;ago :had bought a 30,000-word detective yarn from him for £50, found they had to pay £500 for the right to run it again. And they did. "Most men would have been overwhelmed by such success; a good many would: have cleaned up and retired. Wallace was equal to..ajl calls', and all emergencies. He increased his already colossal-rate of production-aud reorr ganised himself. Movies? Certainly. He organised his own company, and started to produce his own films. Plays? Of course. He wio#r; new ones, and if he could not get Jiis price he'went into the business of theatre-renter, and producer,' and was his own backer. Things like .short stories," articles,"and bi-weekly racing features, he took in his stride. :A. ...short,- story- before .breakfajt.is.e.asy, an. article simplyji matter of picking up the dictaphone in an odd twenty minutes. Serials present a trifle more of a problem, but he -can- write three—at the-same time;' getting up at 4 a.m. (because it is quiet then), using a pencil and pad until the tale is well under way, and then continuing chapter by chapter into the'dictaphone." " : - .-■■-.-. "Devising new plots gives him the same mental amusement other people find in bridge and cross-word puzzles. He takes practically no • exercise, does not play golf, .drinks oceans of tea, and goes to racing. Horse-racing is his passion, and although he loses a lot of money by indulging it, he makes a lot more writing about it. Whatever he does means copy, and wherever he goes he finds.more copy. Ho remains, despite his colossal success, unspoiled, good-humoured, sympathetic, renowned for a quixotic generosity."