A Writer's Tale

What if I write the whole thing? It won’t just be a ‘Laymon companion’ for my fans, it’ll also be a book full of advice and information for aspiring writers. I’ll tell them things they’ll never hear in creative writing classes… or anywhere else. The nitty-gritty stuff most writers only find out the hard way.”

Peter and John were enthusiastic about the idea.

And one thing has continued leading to another to the point where I am now writing this piece three days before my deadline.

If not for the deadline, I could keep on writing A Writer’s Tale. Like the novel ideas I’m always seeking, it has an “infinitely expandable” plot.

But this piece will be it. For now. We want to have the book ready by late October, in time for the World Fantasy Convention.

Time to stop writing it, and put the final touches on The Midnight Tour.

Like A Writer’s Tale, The Midnight Tour grew well beyond my original intentions.

From the start, I wanted it to be a big book with lots of scope. After developing the plot, I knew there was enough material to take me well beyond my usual 600 pages of manuscript.

I expected it to run no longer than 700-750 pages.

But one thing led to another…

As I’ve stressed in the course of A Writer’s Tale, every story seems to have its own internal, hidden structure. The writer’s job is to discover it, reveal it and follow it.

Once I’d made my early decisions about the basic plotlines for The Midnight Tour, I had little choice but to let the stories develop along their natural paths.

I found myself surprised, however, by the length of the paths.

I kept following them, having plenty of adventures along the way, moving ever closer to my destination the midnight tour itself. But the tour, like a mountain seen in the distance, was farther away than I ever expected.

And I had a deadline to meet.

The contractual deadline is December 31, 1997. But it isn’t exactly the real deadline.

Because of the approaching holidays and family commitments, I need to finish The Midnight Tour and send it to England no later than December 23.

As early as October, I knew that I had a long distance to travel in a fairly short amount of time.

Sure, there were short-cuts I could’ve taken to get there quicker.

But I wanted this to be my biggest book yet. It was to be the ultimate Beast House story. I wanted to pull out all the stops, “ring all the bells,” take it all to the limits.

If you’ve learned anything from reading A Writer’s Tale, you’ve learned that the larger the novel (within limits), the more seriously it will likely be taken by agents, publishers, book club buyers and readers.

The Cellar had been a quickie little genre piece. The Beast House had been more fully developed, more mainstream. With The Midnight Tour, I wanted epic proportions. I didn’t want people to read it and think, “Not bad for a sequel.” I wanted them to think, “Holy shit!”

But I never expected to go 900 pages with it!

As I kept writing the deadline drawing closer and the midnight tour still looming in the distance I knew I was cutting things close. If I didn’t watch out, I’d run out of time before reaching the end of the book.

Starting in October, I knuckled down. Instead of my usual 30 pages per week, I averaged about 40. Finally, the first week in December, I wrote a total of 56. That brought me to December 6, the day on which I finished the climax of The Midnight Tour.

As of today, I am attempting to finish A Writer’s Tale. I am also proof-reading my manuscript of The Midnight Tour, making a ton of corrections. And I have not yet finished writing the wind-up” what we used to call “the denouement” of The Midnight Tour.

Even though I’m anxious (more anxious than eager) to get done with this and move on I have a very busy week ahead I feel compelled to follow my own advice.

Advice I am about to impart to you.

Never rush the ending.

John Kinney, my editor long ago at Warner Books, once told me that writers are like baseball pitchers a lot of them seem to “lose it” in the final innings. He thought it would be a neat idea to have “relief writers” who could come in and save the endings.

Though I don’t like his idea about relief writers, I do think that John made a very good point about book endings.

During the final chapters, writers often mess up.

This may happen for several reasons.

1. The writer may simply have grown tired of his story. He’s been dealing too long with the same old characters, the same old plot, and he wants to get it over with so he can move on to fresh material.