HOW TO WRITE FICTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8878, 14 May 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOW TO WRITE FICTION.

"The morning is the time for fiction," Mr. Walter Besant is said to have informed a recent interviewer, "and three to four hours' work daily are quite enough." The distinguished novelist further opines that the spell of intellectual toil which he prescribes as a pabulum would represent roughly from 1000 to 1500 words. But all these things depend on circumstances. I write myself, says Mr. Sala in his "Echoes," with painful slowness ; and I cannot get through more than 500 words an hour. Thus, it takes ma three hours to write a leading article of 1500 words; but, dictating it to an amanuensis, the task can be got through, so far as the caligraphy is concerned, is just one hour and a-half. To this must be added two hours in the morning patiently plodding through the newspapers in search of an attractive subject, and at least another hour spent in " thinking out" the subject when fixed upon, and reading up the necessary books of reference if the topic is a thorny one. This is known in circles outside journalism as "dashing off" a leader. Of fiction I have had very little experience, and the few novels and short stories of which I have been guilty have been scribbled at all Ports of seasons—in the small hours of the night, at early morn- I ing, on board ship, and in railway trains. You can write quite easily in a drawingroom car of the Pacific railway crossing the Rocky Mountains. Charles Dickens' allowance of literary work was four hours, neither more nor less. Down to his desk with inflexible resolution the illustrious novelist sat most days at ten, not to rise therefrom till two; and if " the maggot did not bite"—if the spirits of fiction did not come when they were called upon—he would write something else : essays, letters, or what not. The first Lord Lytton worked only three hours a day; but he worked every day, and his baggage litteraire was consequently immense. Anthony Trollope, whose reputation for social amenity I perceive that Mr. Edmund Yates declines to vindicate from the strictures of "A.K. H. 8.," was an early-morning worker. Thackeray wrote by fits and starts, just a3 the humour seized him ; and he was usually late with his "copy." It would be interesting, moreover, to know on what some authors have written. Byron (" Don Juan" period), cold gin and water; Schiller, Rhein wein ; Leigh Hunt, green tea; Voltaire, coffee in inordinate quantities; Blackstone ("Commentaries"), port; Theodore Hook, " braisarr." Stay, there was Professor Wilson, the " Christopher North" cf Blackwood. Sodawater, quaffed through the spout of a teapot, was his working tipple.