HOW AUTHORS WRITE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3822, 16 October 1936, Page 11

HOW AUTHORS WRITE

ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS. / Authors have differed greatly in their methods of work. Some have been very industrious and methodical, applying themselves to their task daily at regular hours, others have been spasmodic, and for days and weeks have been unable to get any work done. Some have written rapidly and completed books in a few months; others have spent years in revising and rewriting their work before publication. Anthony Trollope, who in his autobiography revealed how he wrote his novels, was one of the most industrious and methodical authors on record. He used to get up every morning at 5.30, and work for three hours. This enabled him to finish his breakfast. Then he went to his office, and had his evenings free for social engagements. “All those who have lived as literary men—working daily at literary labours—will agree with me that three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write,” he said in his autobiography. “But then he should have so trained himself that he shall be able to work continuously during those three hours—so have trained his mind that it shall not be necessary for him to sit nibbling his pen and gazing at the wall before him till he shall have found the words with which he wants to express his ideas. It had at this time been my custom—and it still is my custom, though of late I have become a little lenient to myself—to write with my watch before me, and to require from myself 250 words every quarter of an hour. I have found that the 250 words have been forthcoming as regularly as my watch went. But my three hours were not devoted entirely to writing. I always begin my task by reading the Work of the day before, an operation which would take me half an hour, and which consisted chiefly in weighing with my ear the sound of the words and phrases. I would strongly recommend this practice to all tyros in writing. This division of time allowed me to produce over ten pages of an ordinary novel volume in a day, and if kept up through ten months would have given as its results three novels of three volumes each in the year. I have never written three novels in a year, but by following the plan I have described I have written more than as much as three novels, and by adhering to it over a course of years I have been enabled to have always on hand one or two, or even three, unpublished novels in my desk beside me.” In addition to novels. Trollope wrote scores of “political, critical, social and sporting articles” for magazines. He was so methodical that on one occasion when he had written the last word of a novel ten minutes before his usual time for leaving his desk and dressing for breakfast, he began another book rather than leave off work too soon. Sometimes when travelling by train on his official duties as supervisor in the Postal Department he continued working on a novel.

Thackeray was a very unmethodical author compared with Trollope, who deplored the fact that Thackeray (whose novels, like those of Dickens, were published in monthly parts) was often so late with his copy that the printer’s boy had to wait outside in the passage while he finished it Mr Lewis Melville in his biography of Thackeray defends him against the accusation of idleness, but admits he was unmethodical. “He was not a ’aborious writer as a rule, though he laboured hard before producing both ‘Esmond’ and ‘The Virginians,’ states Mr Melville. “He would read a book to obtain a paragraph, or visit a place for the sake of a description, or even inspect the complaint books of the Reform and Athenaeum clubs in order to impart local colour to his club snobs. But with the exception of ‘Esmond’ he never drew up a plot, and he wrote from number to number, careless of what might follow. Indeed, he admitted that when he began a novel he rarely knew how many people were to figure in it, and he told Mr Jeaffreson that his plan was to create mentally two or three of his chief characters, and then to write right away from time to time, with intervals of repose between the times of industry, and go on from chapter to chapter with only a general notion of the course he would be taking a few chapters later. ‘I don’t control my characters,’ he said ‘I am in their hands, and they take me where they please.’ ” “That he was unmethodical I do not dispute,” continues Mr Melville. “He had his stated hours for writing. He would take a quiet table at the Athenaeum Club, and cover a few of those little slips of paper on which he wrote his stories; and later in the day he would go to the Garrick Club and devote some more time to his -work.j But he was easily tempted to go for a walk, or to join in an interesting conversation, and to put his sheets away until another time.” Dickens was a methodical worker. Most of his writing was done in his study between breakfast and luncheon. In the afternoon or evening he took a walk about London, or in the country when he was living at Gads-

hill. He led a very busy social life, and his keen interest in the theatre occupied a great deal of his time. SETTLED AND UNSETTLED HABITS. In some respects Arnold Bennett was even more methodical than Anthony Trollope. For years lie kept a record of the total number of words he had written in the course of each twelve months. In his Journal (extracts from which fill four volumes) he gave at the end of each year a summary of the work he had turned out. In 1910 he wrote 335,000 words, including two novels, and “probably about 80 articles.” In 1908 he wrote 423,000 words, including three-quart-ers of “ The Old Wives’ Tale,” “ Buried Alive,” two plays, half a dozen short stories, and more than sixty newspaper articles. Under the date of 25th September 1929, he mentioned in his Journal that he had begun that day a long novel (which was published early in 1931 under the title “Imperial Palace”). 1 have not written a long novel for years,” continued the entry in his Journal. “As a man with a great tendency towards idleness I prefer io write a short novel. It is easier. Not easier to do, but less of a strain on the creative faculty ... I reckon this novel will fill 900 pages of manuscript. How do I reckon? I don’t reckon. I just know. Experience has taught me pre-knowledge. When I began ‘The Old Wives’ Tale’ I announced to the domestic hearth, ‘This novel will be 200,000 words long, divided into four equal parts.’ ” “ Well, it was. This new novel will be 150,000 words long, and probably not divided into parts. To-day such a division strikes me as being a bit pompous. I know the main plot, but by no means all the incidents thereof, though I'have a few tit-bits of episodes which I shall not omit. I know the three chief characters, but by no means all the ins and outs of them. They won’t alter—l would never allow any of my characters to get the whip hand of me—but I shall fill them out. I know the ‘feel’ of the novel. That won’t alter, either. And I have the whole of the material for the novel, and it is indexed in a note book. I would sooner lose fifty pages of the manuscript than that little note book. If I did lose it, I think I would be capable of abandoning the novel for ever. And yet I leave the note book lying about.” BENNETT AND CONRAD. Arnold Bennett wrote rapidly, but Joseph Conrad wrote slowly and found his work a very heavy strain. Bennett could average more than 1000 words a day for a year, even allowing for several weeks holiday when nothing was written; but Conrad found that 500 words was a heavy day’s work, and that he could not keep up that pace. Sometimes he found it impossible to write at all, because he was not in the mood. When producing a book he was sometimes as restless as a hen looking for a place in which to lay an egg. His widow, in her little book, “Joseph Conrad As I Knew Him,” states: “Often in later years Conrad would attempt to write on odd pieces of paper in remote corners of the garden. Once he even annexed the only bathroom we had. He would give no reason for his strange choice, but for over a week our bathing hours were greatly restricted. In another phase he would wear only a greatly faded bath robe, and insisted on working in the conservatory, which adjoined the drawingroom. This necessitated posting a maid as scout near the front door to warn me of intending callers. Conrad often declared that he detested his study; but I noticed that he was never at his ease unless his familiar books were at hand. A cigarette burn usually adorned them. Sheets and table linen were hallmarked in the same manner.” Both Mark Twain and R. L. Stevenson were in the habit of writing in bed. Stevenson had the excuse of illhealth, but Mark Twain preferred writing in bed to using his study. When Mr Bigelow Paine waited on him with a proposal for compiling a biography, Mark Twain said to him: “I think I should enjoy dictating to a stenographer, with someone to prompt me and act as audience. The room adjoining this was fitted up for my study. My manuscripts and notes and private books and many of my letters are there, and there are a trunkful or two of such things in an attic. I seldom use the room myself. 1 do my writing and reading in bed. I will turn that room over to you for this work.” ■

Some authors like to write in a study with a pleasant outlook, but others find that a pleasant outlook distracts their thoughts. Mr Cecil Roberts, writing recently about the methods of authors, said:—“One has an office to which he goes every morning; most have a top room, or a hut in the garden. It is possible for Phillips Oppenheim to work in a sunny Study looking on to a golf links and the Mediterranean Sea. It is not possible for Mr Somerset Maughan to look on to anything, so he has built a workshop with a blank wall facing one of the loveliest views in Europe.”