In 1949, while labouring over The Grand Sophy, Georgette Heyer wrote the following note to her publisher. Jennifer Kloester, in her biography of Heyer, described it as a “witty, self-mocking summation of her personal principles for successful novel-writing.” It is a touch too long for me to be able to gracefully work it into my review of that biography but I enjoyed it so much that I thought it deserved its own post. I had a few laughs over it and I hope you do too!
- Induce your publisher to hand over at once a sum of money grossly in excess of what the book is likely to be worth to him. This gives one a certain amount of incentive to write the thing, and may be achieved by various methods, the most highly recommended being what may be termed as The Little Woman Act.
- Think out a snappy title. This deceives the publisher into thinking (a) that he is getting the Book of the Year; and (b) that you have the whole plot already mapped out. The only drawback lies in the fact that having announced a title you will be slightly handicapped when it comes to hanging some kind of story on to it.
- Brood for several weeks, achieving, if not a Plot, depression, despair, and hysteria in yourself, and a strong desire to leave home in your entourage. This condition will induce you to believe yourself to be the victim of Artistic Temperament, and may even mislead you into thinking that you really are a Creative Artist.
- While under this delusion, jab a sheet of paper into your typewriter, and hurl on to it Chapter I. This may give you an idea, not perhaps for the whole book, but for Chapter II.
- Introduce several characters who might conceivably be useful later on. You never know: they may take matters into their own hands.
- Assuming that he has been properly trained, read over what you have done to your husband. His extravagant enthusiasm may lead you to think you’ve perpetuated something good and this will inspire you to churn out a bit more.
- Think out a grand final scene, with the maximum number of incongruous characters massed together in some improbably place. Allow your sense of farce full play. This will, with any luck at all, make the reader forget what the rest of the book was like.
- Try and work out how and why these characters got together remembering that it is better to ‘gloss over,’ by technique (which if you haven’t learnt in thirty years you ought to have learnt), than to put your head in the gas oven.
- Book a room in a good Mental Home.
Finally, a few things to be avoided while engaged on this work:
- The thought that you are enduring this agony only to enrich the Inland Revenue.
- All thought of the book that has obsessed your mind and soul for the past six months.
- Any rational thought whatsoever. To indulge in this can only mean that you will stop dead, realizing that you are writing unmitigated rubbish, and would have done better as a charwoman.
Brilliant — I love it (even though I have tried and failed to love GH’s novels).
I love this, although number 2 doesn’t seem to hold true any longer. I’ve just discovered that the reason I haven’t been able to track down a new book by one of my favourite authors is because the title it was announced by has been changed and I’ve been looking for the wrong thing.
#7 makes me think of the ending of The Unknown Ajax, one of my favorites.
This is hilarious! Especially no.7. Love it. You should see Rose Macaulay’s advice on writing reviews for a similarly irreverent take – Michelle posted it recently: http://inkyfoot.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/friday-feature-on-reviewing-fiction/
I love #6 – “assuming that he has been properly trained”! lol!
Excellent advice! And thanks for the afternoon giggle 🙂
Now I know what I’ve been doing wrong!
Very funny! I can barely post a couple of hundred words every week, much less write an entire novel. I pick apart other people’s books but I couldn’t do it.
I’d jab a piece of paper into something — just think how satisfying that would be — except I don’t have a typewriter. Maybe I will put that on my list of things to do when not working on the things I am supposed to do. (And thank you so much for this — it’s very funny, and heartening to know that things do not ever change for writers, even if typewriter use is down.)
That Georgette Heyer is a delight! I’m charmed that this is how she thought of the book-writing process. All chaotic and crazy-like.
I love all this, especially #7, the grand final scene. In fact, I just finished the final scene of my next book (or let’s call it a story) this morning, and I now realise I have a much much better fix on my characters by knowing the ending; I think I’ll try it again for the next one: writing the ending first.