Lawrence Block: Writing the Novel

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 With one unpublished novel to your credit, you still have the freedom to make your own decisions.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.