Writing the Novel

Chapter 15 Doing It Again Moving on to the next book. Special aspects of sequels and series books

It’s a lot easier to begin work on a second book if some eager publisher snapped up the first one ten minutes after it left your typewriter. But it doesn’t happen that way very often. As I suggested earlier, a great many of us write first novels that turn out to be unsalable. And many who do go on to produce salable second novels — but that only happens if we get that second novel written.

There’s no reason to assume that your first novel will turn out to be unpublishable. But there’s every reason in the world to expect that it will take a long time finding its way into a publisher’s heart and onto his spring list. That time will pass much faster and be put to far better use if you spend it writing your next book.

Among other things, plunging into your next book may help you deal with the old My-Novel’s-Finished-And-I-Wish-I-Were-Dead Blues.

I almost hesitate to mention the depression that so frequently follows the completion of a novel for fear of making it a matter of self-fulfilling prophecy. I’d hate to think that, having finished your book in high spirits, you’ll now go sit in the corner and sulk so you can be just like the pros. I think it’s better overall, though, to be able to allow for this sort of thing. We writers tend to regard ourselves as unique specimens of humanity, so it may be reassuring to know that one is not the first person in the world to have finished a novel and wanted to throw up.

It does indeed happen to most of us, and I’m sure it’s not limited to writers. This sort of after-work depression seems to be the typical aftermath of any arduous long-term creative endeavor. Indeed, it’s quite obviously equivalent to the syndrome known as Post-Partum Depression, the feeling of emptiness and purposelessness so many mothers go through immediately after childbirth. For nine months they’ve defined themselves in terms of this life growing inside of them. Their whole purpose has been to carry their child to term. Now the child’s born and the mother’s chore is completed, and what’s she supposed to do for an encore?

Sound familiar?

It’s a little worse for a writer. The mother’s got a cute little baby to play with, and if changing him’s a bore, there’s still a certain amount of satisfaction in having him around the house. If nothing else, everybody who sees him is going to make admiring noises. Even if the kid looks like a monkey, nobody’s going to hand him a banana. They’ll all assure the mother that her kid’s a handsome devil.

Pity the poor novelist. Nobody comes over to visit his book and bring it a squeaky toy or a cuddly stuffed animal. His friends read it out of a sense of obligation, and what praise they offer has a suspiciously hollow ring to it. Agents and editors, meanwhile, have the effrontery to tell him thanks but no thanks. His child doesn’t fit their needs at the moment, he’s assured, although this is not to say that the little brat lacks merit.

My book’s no good, the novelist concludes. Therefore I’m no good. Therefore I’m a failure, and therefore I’ll be a failure forever, and if I had any brains I’d blow them out. If I had the guts to do it, which I don’t, because I’m worthless. So I guess I’ll drink myself to death, or go eat worms, or really get into daytime television watching.

There’s not much point in attacking this position logically. Logic doesn’t have a whole lot to do with it. Post-novel depression is just as likely to strike when the book’s a hit, and it’s absolutely devastating when the novel scores a really impressive success.

Does that seem strange? Here’s how the writer’s mind adds it all up:

The book’s a success. Gee, that’s terrific. But wait a minute. It can’t really be that good. I know it can’t be that good, because I’m the guy who wrote it, and I’m not that good, so how good can it be, huh? Now sooner or later they’re gonna find out it’s not as good as they think it is, and where’ll I be then? And anyway, what difference does it make if it’s good or not? Because one thing’s sure. I couldn’t possibly write anything that good again. Matter of fact, I don’t think I could write anything halfway decent again. Come to reflect on it, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t write anything again, decent or otherwise. I think I’ll throw my typewriter out the window. I think I’ll throw myself out the window. I think....

I think you get the idea.

Does this really happen? You bet it does. I’ve written more novels than I can shake a stick at — though some of them deserve it — and I still experience a letdown when I finish a book, one composed of many of the thoughts presented above. After all this time, I recognize what I feel as symptomatic of Post-Novel Depression. You would think this recognition would help, and once in awhile it does, but often it doesn’t.

Some years ago, finishing a book was a signal for me to reach for a bottle. I put myself under considerable pressure in my work and felt that alcohol would do a good job of relieving that pressure when the work was done. What booze does, of course, is not so much relieve tension as mask its symptoms. When post-novel depression set in, I’d go on drinking in an attempt to alleviate the depression.

This wasn’t wise. Alcohol is clinically a depressant, and pouring it into a depressed writer is like pouring oil on troubled fires. It does exactly the opposite of what you hope it will do, deepening and exacerbating the underlying depression. A few celebratory “Hey-the-book’s done” drinks may be a great idea, but the kind of medicinal drinking some of us get into can be ruinous.

I don’t drink any more, and that helps. Another thing that makes my post-novel depressions easier to bear is that I don’t have as much of a high to crash from these days. I don’t write as intensively as I used to, having settled down to a steady and comfortable pace of five pages or so per day. I’m not panting when I get to the finish line, and that seems to make a difference.

When I finish a book nowadays, I take good care of myself. For a couple of weeks I take plenty of time off. I read fiction — something I often can’t do while I’m writing it. I take long exploratory walks, recharging my batteries for the next book. I buy myself a present. If I can afford it, I try to get away for a week.

During this period, I recognize my own emotional frailty. I’ve learned not to be surprised if my eyes begin to tear while I’m watching reruns of the Mary Tyler Moore show, I make it a point to eat properly, to get plenty of exercise, to keep reasonably regular hours. Sometimes I even try fasting for a few days.

Before very long, my mind begins to remember that I’m a writer. It starts sending up signals, playing games of What If? knitting little plot fragments like a subtle wife turning out tiny garments. I can’t avoid knowing that, to strain the metaphor, the honeymoon is over. It’s time to get back to work on the next one.

You write the second book the same way you wrote the first one — hatching an idea, shaping it into a plot, outlining or not outlining as you prefer, and turning out the book itself one day at a time. In a sense, every novel’s a first novel — because you haven’t written it before. You’ll be ever so much more at ease the second time around, and you’ll probably display considerable technical proficiency compared to your maiden effort, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a piece of cake. Listen, it’s never a piece of cake. No matter how many books you’ve done.

Should your second book be similar in type to your first? Having written Trefillian House, would you be wise to embark on another gothic while Ms. Wimpole’s reading your first one?

That’s your decision to make. And it’s possible your unconscious mind will make it for you. After I wrote my first novel, years passed before I was to write another lesbian novel — not because I wouldn’t have been delighted to do so, but because my mind didn’t produce any ideas in that vein. If I hadn’t been so goddam young and stupid I might have cudgeled it some, but I guess I just figured I’d exhausted the subject and ought to go on to other things — which may have been the right decision for me at the time.

You may find that Trefillian House was your ultimate statement in the world of gothic novels. Or you may decide that you’re simply ready for something else; while you had fun writing the book, you now regard it as a warm-up exercise for something more ambitious and artistically satisfying. On the other hand, you may have found your metier, and your mind may be teeming with ways to write the same book different — and better this time around.

Remember that the choice is yours, and that it doesn’t involve signing any long-term contracts. You can try something else with your second book, then return to gothics at a later date. Conversely, you can write a second gothic without typing yourself irreversibly as a writer of gothics and nothing else. Your second book is just a second book. It’s not a career.

Even if you do write a second gothic, it’s not too likely that we’ll be seeing more of Trefillian House’s young widow. Gothic novels don’t run to series heroines. Their lead characters are generally well supplied with house and husband by the time the book is over.

Series characters, however, are frequently met with in some other fiction categories — suspense novels, first and foremost, but westerns and science-fiction novels as well.

I’ve worked with three series characters over the years — Evan Tanner, Matt Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr. Obviously, I enjoy doing this sort of thing, developing a character over several books, learning more about him as he makes his way through plot after plot. When I get hold of a character who really engages me, I’m loathe to let go of him.

Should your second novel feature the same character as your first? Again, that’s up to you. If you find that the lead of your first book has a sufficiently strong hold upon your imagination so that you want to write a second book about him, by all means go ahead and do it. Bear in mind, though, that you can always write your second book about some other character and come back to the first one in a later book. You may want a change of pace.

It’s important, if you do embark on a series, that you not presuppose the reader’s acquaintance with any previous books. Your second novel — indeed, each of your series novels — ought to be complete in and of itself. You’re writing a second book about a particular character, not Volume Two of a trilogy; the reader shouldn’t have to have read your first book in order to appreciate your second.

At the same time, there shouldn’t be so much duplication in the second book that someone who has read the first will be bored. Don’t worry overmuch about this last, however. It’s been my observation that the sort of reader who likes series books doesn’t mind being reminded of certain things. The sense of the familiar evidently appeals to him; he gets the feeling that he’s an insider, already acquainted with characters who must be described for noninsiders.

One problem with a series is that you have to remember who’s who and what’s what. The same readers who most enjoy series novels are most insistent that the writer avoid inconsistencies. It may be no particular problem remembering that your lead has blue eyes, but what color are his girlfriend’s? And where did I mention the names and ages of Scudder’s kids?

Arthur Maling has a particular dilemma along these lines, and one that serves to illustrate just how complicated the business of series novels can be:

A problem with a series, albeit one you’re not terribly likely to face in the second book, is boredom. Most series writers run into this sooner or later. Dorothy Sayers is supposed to have told Agatha Christie how sick and tired she was of writing about Lord Peter Wimsey; Christie in turn confessed to a deep-seated desire to kill off Hercule Poirot, and proved it by doing precisely that in the “final” Poirot novel, written in the forties and not published until after the author’s own death.

I stopped writing the Tanner series not because I grew tired of the character but because the books themselves seemed to have a deadening sameness about them. It seemed to me that Tanner kept going to the same kinds of places, meeting the same sorts of people, having the same kinds of conversations, and dealing with the same kinds of plot problems. I’ve since come to realize that there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. My awareness of this sameness was inevitably more acute than a reader’s would be, since I was spending a couple of months writing something he would read in as many hours. Besides, readers want a series book to be pretty much like the last one; if they hadn’t liked the last one in the first place they wouldn’t have bought the second, or the third, or the fortieth.

The fact that you’ve created a strong character doesn’t mean you should write a second book about him. It seems as though some writers are geared to write series books and others are not. Sometimes success will tend to force a series upon a writer. That sort of thing has been happening ever since Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor because Queen Elizabeth wanted to see another play about Falstaff. At this stage of the game, however, it’s not too likely that you’ll have to launch a series as a command performance for royalty. With one unpublished novel to your credit, you still have the freedom to make your own decisions.

The journeyman novelist occasionally has the opportunity to produce books of a sort we haven’t yet discussed — tie-ins, novelizations, and books in someone else’s series.

I haven’t mentioned them previously because they’re the sort of thing a publisher is likely to hand out as an assignment, and it’s highly unlikely your first novel will be assigned to you. Later on, though, when publishers are familiar with you and your work, or when you have an agent who can recommend you for assignments, some of this work may come your way.

Books of this sort aren’t much fun to write. You can’t display a hell of a lot of creativity, nor are you likely to earn substantial sums from them. Writing paperback novels about the Brady Bunch will not make you rich. Turning Grade “B” movie scripts into Grade “C” novels won’t make your name a household word. And there’s a limit to how much pride you can take in having been one of fifty people to write under the umbrella pen name of Nick Carter.

All the same, any assignment that brings the novice novelist money for writing fiction is not all bad. And writing the books can sharpen your craft considerably, whatever the ultimate merits of what you write. There’s a point, certainly, when you should stop accepting these assignments and concentrate instead on your own work, but you can burn that bridge when you come to it.

The tie-in is a book based on someone else’s characters. You generally furnish your own plot, although the publisher or someone from the network may have suggestions to throw into the hopper — which is probably the right place for them.

I wrote my first detective novel this way. Belmont Books had a deal set for a tie-in novel based on Markham, a series starring Ray Milland. The book I wrote turned out rather well, and my agent agreed it was a shame to waste it as a tie-in so he showed it to Knox Burger, then at Gold Medal. Knox liked it, whereupon I had to redo the book, changing Roy Markham to Ed London and otherwise altering the character. That done, I had to go write yet another book about Markham, which Belmont did indeed publish.

Novelizations are easier in that the whole plot is laid out for you, scene by scene. You’ve got a movie script in front of you and your job is to turn it into prose. It’s very rare that this is anything more than a purely mechanical task, which explains why knowledgeable readers shun those paperbacks that carry notices indicating they were based upon a screenplay. They’re almost invariably lifeless.

The fact that the books sell so well all the same indicates too how few readers are all that knowledgeable, or all that sensitive to writing quality. Sad to say.

Some writers are better at novelizations than others. A pro who can turn out solid acceptable novelizations regularly can count on a decent steady income. A handful have acquired reputations; Leonore Fleischer, for one, is able to demand high advances and preferential royalty rates because of her reputation for delivering a quality product.

Writing books in somebody else’s series is just what it sounds like. I couldn’t say how many people have launched literary careers by being Nick Carter for a couple of books. Here again, the work is thankless and ill-paying, but it’s a way to learn your craft while you get paid for it, and that’s not the worst thing that ever happened to a writer.

You wouldn’t want to spend a career writing this sort of swill, but one book does not a career make. As to whether this sort of hack work is lower than you care to stoop, that’s for you to decide.

If you figure it’ll make you blind, you can always quit when you need glasses.

A second novel, whatever sort you choose, is the best thing to do after you’ve done your first novel. You’ll learn from it, even as you have learned from the first. You’ll be able to see your own increased facility. You’ll be doing the best thing possible to cure the post-novel blahs. And, once you’ve finished it, you’ll have two manuscripts out to market. While this may bring rejections at double your usual rate, so too will it more than double your chances of eventual acceptance.

Finally, there’s one more argument for writing a second novel. If you don’t, how can reviewers complain that it doesn’t fulfill the promise of your first novel?

Has this helped any?

I wonder, looking over what I’ve written, whether I’ve done what I set out to do. I’m often similarly uncertain when I write the last words of a novel, skip a few spaces, and type “The End” in the center of the page. Does the story hold up? Are the characters interesting? Is the book I’ve written the book I wanted to write in the first place? It never quite is, perhaps because one’s reach exceeds one’s grasp, but is it at least a good book?

Maybe you’ll get something out of it. I don’t know. In the final analysis, you can no more learn the gentle art of novel writing from a book than you can learn how to ride a bicycle. The only way you really learn is by doing it yourself, and you may fall off a lot before you get the hang of it.

I wish you luck.

I won’t read your manuscript, or recommend an agent, or put you in touch with a publisher. I’ll answer letters — if I can make the time, and if you enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope. But that’s as much as I’ll do. You have to do the rest yourself. That, I’m afraid is how it works in this business.

I hope you write your novel. I hope you write a lot of them, and that they’re very good books indeed. Not because I would presume to regard your work as a sort of literary grandchild of mine — let’s face it, you’d write it whether or not you read this book.

But simply because, while there are far too many books in this world, there are far too few good ones.

And I don’t ever want to run out of things to read.