How To Write Good
WANT TO LEARN HOW TO REALLY WRITE GOOD? WANT TO LEARN
"THE TEN MAGIC PHRASES OF JOURNALISM" AND THE "TRICKS OF THE
TRADE"? THEN THIS INSIGHTFUL SATIRICAL ESSAY FROM THE EARLY 1970'S IS FOR
YOU.
by Michael O'Donoghue
"If I could not earn a penny from my writing, I would
earn my livelihood at something else and continue to write at night."
- Irving Wallace
"Financial success is not the only reward of good
writing.
It brings to the writer rich inner satisfaction as well."
- Eliot Foster, Director of Admissions
Famous Writers School Introduction
A long time ago, when I was just starting out, I had the good
fortune to meet the great Willa Cather. With all the audacity of youth, I asked
her what advice she would give the would-be-writer and she replied:
"My advice to the would-be-writer is that he start
slowly, writing short undemanding things, things such as telegrams, flip-books,
crank letters, signature scarves, spot quizzes, capsule summaries, fortune
cookies and errata. Then, when he feels he's ready, move up to the more
challenging items such as mandates, objective correlatives, passion plays,
pointless diatribes, minor classics, manifestos, mezzotints, oxymora, exposes,
broadsides, and papal bulls.
"And above all, never forget that the pen is mightier
than the plow-share. By this I mean that writing, all in all, is a hell of a
lot more fun than farming. For one thing, writers seldom, if ever, have to get
up at five o'clock in the morning and shovel manure. As far as I'm concerned,
that gives them the edge right there."
She went on to tell me many things, both wonderful and wise,
probing the secrets of her craft, showing how to weave a net of words and
capture the fleeting stuff of life. Unfortunately, I've forgotten every bit of
it.
I do recall, however, her answer when I asked "If you
could only give me one rule to follow, what would it be?" She paused,
looked down for a moment and finally said, "Never wear brown shoes with a
blue suit."
There's very little I could add to that except to say "Go
to it and good luck!"
LESSON 1 - THE GRABBER
The "grabber" is the initial sentence of a novel or
short story designed to jolt the reader out of his complacency and arouse his
curiosity, forcing him to press onward. For example:
"It's no good, Alex," she rejoined, "Even if I
did love you, my father would never let me marry an alligator."
The reader is immediately bombarded with questions, questions
such as "Why won't her father let her marry an alligator?" "How
come she doesn't love him?" and "Can she learn to love him in
time?" The reader's interest has been "grabbed"!
Just so there'll be no misunderstanding about grabbers, I've
listed a few more below:
• "I'm afraid
you're too late," sneered Zoltan. "The fireplace has already flown
south for the winter!"
• Sylvia lay sick
among the silverware...
• Chinese vegetables
mean more to me than you do, my dear," Charles remarked to his wife,
adding injury to insult by lodging a grapefruit knife in her neck.
• "I have in my
hands," Professor Willobee exclaimed, clutching a sheaf of papers in his
trembling fingers and pacing in circles about the carpet while I stood at the
window, barely able to make out the Capitol dome through the thick, churning for
that rolled in off the Potomac, wondering to myself what matter could possibly
be so urgent as to bring the distinguished historian bursting into my State
Department office at the unseemly hour, "definitive proof that Abraham
Lincoln was a homo!"
These are just a handful of the possible grabbers. Needless to
say, there are thousands of others, but if you fail to think of them, feel free
to use any or all of these.
LESSON 2 - THE ENDING
All too often, the budding author finds that his tale has run
its course and yet he sees no way to satisfactorily end it, or, in literary
parlance, "wrap it up." Observe how easily I resolve this problem:
Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck. -the end-
If the story happens to be set in England, use the same
ending, slightly modified:
Suddenly, everyone was run over by a lorry. -the end-
If set in France:
Soudainement, tout le monde
etait écrasé par un camion. -finis-
You'll be surprised at how many different settings and
situations this ending applies to. For instance, if you were writing a story
about ants, it would end "Suddenly, everyone was run over by a
centipede." In fact, this is the only ending you ever need use.*
*Warning - if you are writing a story about trucks, do not
have the trucks run over by a truck. Have the trucks run over by a mammoth
truck.
LESSON 3 - CHOOSING A TITLE
A friend of mine recently had a bunch of articles rejected by
the Reader's Digest and, unable to understand why, he turned to me for advice.
I spotted the problem at a glance. His titles were all wrong. By calling his
pieces such things as "Unwed Mothers - A Head Start on Life,"
"Cancer - The Incurable Disease," "A Leading Psychologist
Explains Why There Should Be More Violence on Television,"
"Dognappers I Have Known and Loved," "My Baby Was Born Dead and
I Couldn't Care Less" and "Pleasantville - Last of the Wide-Open
Towns," he had seriously misjudged his market. To steer him straight, I
drew up this list of all-purpose surefire titles:
• ________ at the
Crossroads
• The Case for
________
• The Role of
________
• Coping with
Changing ________
• A Realistic Look
at ________
• The ________
Experience
• Bridging the
________ Gap
• A ________ for All
Seasons
Simply fill in the blanks with the topic of your choice and,
if that doesn't work you can always resort to the one title that never fails:
"South America, the Sleeping Giant on our Doorstep"
LESSON 4 - EXPOSITION
Perhaps the most difficult technique for the fledgling writer
to master is proper treatment of exposition. Yet watch the sly, subtle way I
"set the scene" of my smash play, The Last to Know, with a minimum of
words and effort.
(The curtain opens on a tastefully appointed dining room, the
table ringed by men in tuxedos and women in costly gowns. There is a knock at
the door.)
LORD OVERBROOKE: Oh, come in, Lydia. Allow me to introduce my
dinner guests to you. This is Cheryl Heatherton, the madcap soybean heiress
whose zany antics actually mask a heart broken by her inability to meaningfully
communicate with her father, E. J. Heatherton, seated to her left, who is too
caught up in the heady world of high finance to sit down and have a quiet chat
with his own daughter, unwanted to begin with, disposing of his paternal
obligations by giving her everything, everything but love, that is.
Next to them sits Geoffrey Drake, a seemingly successful
merchant banker trapped in an unfortunate marriage with a woman half his age,
who wistfully looks back upon his days as the raffish Group Captain of an
R.A.F. bomber squadron that flew eighty-one missions over Berlin, his tortured
psyche refusing to admit, despite frequent nightmares in which, dripping with
sweat, he wakes screaming, "Pull it up! Pull it up, I say! I can't hold
her any longer! We're losing altitude! We're going down! Jerry at three o'clock
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggh!", that his cowardice and his cowardice alone was
responsible for the loss of his crew and "Digger," the little
Manchester terrier who was their mascot.
The empty chair to his right was vacated just five minutes ago
by Geoffrey's stunning wife, twenty-three- year-old, golden-tressed Edwina
Drake, who, claiming a severe migraine, begged to be excused that she might
return home and rest, whereas, in reality, she is, at this moment, speeding to
the arms of another man, convinced that if she can steal a little happiness
now, it doesn't matter who she hurts later on. The elderly servant preparing
the Caviar en Socle is Andrew who's been with my family for over forty years
although he hasn't received a salary for the last two, even going on so far as
to loan me his life's savings to cover my spiraling gambling debts but it's
only a matter of time before I am exposed as a penniless fraud and high society
turns its back on me.
The dark woman opposite me is Yvonne de Zenobia, the fading
Mexican film star, who speaks of her last movie as though it was shot only
yesterday, unwilling to face the fact that she hasn't been before the cameras
in nearly fifteen years; unwilling to confess that her life has been little
more than a tarnished dream.
As for her companion, Desmond Trelawney, he is an unmitigated
scoundrel about whom the less said, the better.
And, of course, you know your father, the ruthless war
profiteer, and your hopelessly alcoholic mother, who never quite escaped her
checkered past, realizing, all too late, that despite her jewels and
limousines, she was still just a taxi-dancer who belonged to any man for a
drink and a few cigarettes.
Please take a seat. We were just talking about you.
This example demonstrates everything you'll ever need to know
about exposition. Study it carefully.
LESSON 5 - FINDING THE RAW MATERIAL
As any professional writer will tell you, the richest source
of material is one's relatives, one's neighbors and, more often than not, total
strangers. A day doesn't go by without at least one person, upon learning that
I'm a professional writer, offering me some terrific idea for a story. And I'm
sure it will come as no shock when I say that most of the ideas are pretty damn
good!
Only last week, a pipe-fitter of my acquaintance came up with
a surprise ending guaranteed to unnerve the most jaded reader. What you do is
tell this really weird story that keeps on getting weirder and weirder until,
just when the reader is muttering, "How in the heck is he going to get
himself out of this one? He's really painted himself into a corner!" you
spring the "mindblower": "But then he woke up. It had all been a
dream!" (which I, professional writer that I am, honed down to: "But
then the alarm clock rang. It had all been a dream!"). And this came from
a common, run-of-the-mill pipe-fitter! For free!
Cabdrivers, another great wealth of material, will often
remark, "Boy, lemme tell ya! Some of the characters I get in this cab
would fill a book! Real kooks, ya know what I mean?" And then, without my
having to coax even the slightest, they tell me about them, and they would fill
a book. Perhaps two or three books. In addition, if you're at all interested in
social science, cabdrivers are able to provide countless examples of the
failures of the welfare state.
To illustrate just how valid these unsolicited suggestions can
be, I shall print a few lines from a newly completed play inspired by my aunt,
who had the idea as far back as when she was attending grade school. It's
called "If an Old House Could Talk, What Tales It Would Tell".
The Floor: Do you remember the time the middle-aged lady who
always wore the stilletto heels tripped over an extension cord while running to
answer the phone and spilled the Ovaltine all over me and they spent the next
20 minutes mopping it up?
The Wall: No.
Of course, I can't print too much here because I don't want to
spoil the ending (although I will give you a "hint": it involves a
truck...). I just wanted to show you how much the world would have missed had I
rejected my aunt's suggestion out of hand simply because she is not a
professional writer like myself.
LESSON 6 - QUOTING OTHER AUTHORS
If placed in a situation where you must quote another author,
always write "[sic]" after any word that may be misspelled or looks
the least bit questionable in any way. If there are no misspellings or curious
words, toss in a few "[sic]"s just to break up the flow. By doing
this, you will appear to be knowledgeable and "on your toes," while
the one quoted will seem suspect and vaguely discredited. Two examples will
suffice:
"O Sleepless as the river under thee, Vaulting the sea,
the prairies' dreaming sod, Unto us lowiest sometime sweep, descend And of the
curveship [sic], lend a myth to God" - Hart Crane
"Beauty is but a flowre [sic], Which wrinckles [sic] will
devoure [sic] Brightnesse [sic] falls from the ayre [sic] Queenes [sic] have
died yong [sic] and faire [sic] Dust hath closde [sic] Helens [sic] eye [sic] I
am sick [sic], I must dye [sic]: Lord, have mercy on us." - Thomas Nashe
Note how only one small "[sic]" makes Crane's entire
stanza trivial and worthless, which, in his case, takes less doing that Nashe,
on the other hand, has been rendered virtually unreadable. Anyone having to
choose between you and Nashe would pick you every time! And, when it's all said
and done, isn't that the name of the game?
LESSON 7 - MAKING THE READER FEEL INADEQUATE
Without question, the surest way to make a reader feel
inadequate is through casual erudition, and there is no better way to achieve
casual erudition than by putting the punchline of an anecdote in a little
foreign language. Here's a sample:
One crisp October morning, while taking my usual stroll down
the Kurfurstenstrasse, I spied my old friend Casimir Malevitch, the renowned
Suprematist painter, sitting on a bench. Noting that he had a banana in his
ear, I said to him, "Excuse me, Casimir, but I believe you have a banana
in your ear." "What?" he asked. Moving closer and speaking quite
distinctly, I repeated my previous observation, saying, "I said 'You have
a banana in your ear!' " "What's that you say?" came the reply.
By now I was a trifle piqued at this awkward situation and, seeking to make
myself plain, once and for all, I fairly screamed, "I SAID THAT YOU HAVE A
BANANA IN YOUR EAR, YOU DOLT!!!" Imagine my chagrin when Casimir looked at
me blankly and quipped, "Meh soon kahi sakta - meree kaan meh kayla
heh!"
Oh, what a laugh we had over that one.
With one stroke, the reader has been made to feel not only
that his education was second-rate, but that you are getting far more out of
life than he. This is precisely why this device is best used in memoirs, whose
sole purpose is to make the reader feel that you have lived life to the
fullest, while his existence, in comparison, has been meaningless and
shabby....
LESSON 8 - COVERING THE NEWS
Have you ever wondered how reporters are able to turn out a
dozen or so news articles day after day, year after year, and still keep their
copy so fresh, so vital, so alive? It's because they know The Ten Magic Phrases
of Journalism, key constructions with which one can express every known human
emotion! As one might suppose, The Phrases, discovered only after centuries of
trial and error, are a closely guarded secret, available to no one but
accredited members of the press. However, at the risk of being cashiered from
the Newspaper Guild, I am now going to reveal them to you:
The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism
1. "violence
flared"
2. "limped into
port"
3. "according to
informed sources"
4. "wholesale
destruction"
5. "no immediate
comment"
6. "student
unrest"
7. "riot-torn"
8. "flatly
denied"
9. "gutted by
fire"
10. "roving bands
of Negro youths"
Let's try putting The Phrases to work in a sample news story:
NEWARK, NJ, Aug. 22 (UPI) - Violence flared yesterday when
roving bands of Negro youths broke windows and looted shops in riot-torn
Newark. Mayor Kenneth Gibson had no immediate comment but, according to
informed sources, he flatly denied saying that student unrest was behind the
wholesale destruction that resulted in scores of buildings being gutted by
fire, and added, "If this city were a Liberian freighter,* we just may
have limped into port."
*Whenever needed, "Norwegian Tanker" can always be
substituted for "Liberian freighter." Consider them interchangeable.
Proof positive that The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism can
express every known human emotion and then some!
LESSON 9 - TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Just as homemakers have their hints (e.g. a ball of cotton,
dipped in vanilla extract and placed in the refrigerator, will absorb food
odors), writers have their own bag of tricks, a bag of tricks, I might hasten
to point out, you won't learn at any Bread Loaf Conference. Most writers, ivory
tower idealists that they are, prefer to play up the mystique of their
"art" (visitations from the Muse, l'ecriture automatique, talking in
tongues, et cetera, et cetera), and sweep the hard-nosed practicalities under the
rug. Keeping in mind, however, that a good workman doesn't curse his tools, I
am now going to make public these long suppressed tricks of the trade.
Suppose you've written a dreadful chapter (we'll dub it
Chapter Six for our purposes here), utterly without merit, tedious and boring
beyond belief, and you just can't find the energy to re-write it. Since it's
obvious that the reader, once he realizes how dull and shoddy Chapter Six
really is, will refuse to read any further, you must provide some strong
ulterior motive for completing the chapter. I've always found lust effective:
Artfully concealed within the next chapter is the astounding
secret of an ancient Bhutanese love cult that will increase your sexual
satisfaction by at least 60% and possibly more--
(Print Chapter Six.)
Pretty wild, huh? Bet you can hardly wait to try it! And don't
show your appreciation by reading Chapter Seven!*
*This ensures that the reader reads Chapter Six not once but
several times. Possibly, he may even read Chapter Seven.
Fear also works:
Dear Reader, This message is printed on Chinese poison paper
which is made from deadly herbs that are instantly absorbed by the fingertips
so it won't do any good to wash your hands because you will die a horrible and
lingering death in about an hour unless you take the special antidote which is
revealed in Chapter Six and you'll be saved. Sincerely, (Your name)
Or even:
Dear Reader, You are obviously one of those rare people who
are immune to Chinese paper so this message is printed on Bavarian poison paper
which is about a thousand times more powerful and even if you're wearing gloves
you're dead for sure unless you read Chapter Six very carefully and find the
special antidote. Sincerely, (Your name)
Appealing to vanity, greed, sloth and whatever, you can keep
this up, chapter by chapter, until they finish the book. In fact, the number of
appeals is limited only by human frailty itself...
LESSON 10 - MORE WRITING HINTS
There are many more writing hints I could share with you, but
suddenly I am run over by a truck.
-the end-