Be gracious.
Be as nice to the mid-list or self-published writer standing beside you as you are to the editor you would kill to have publish you. Chances are you’ll have far more contact with that writer in your career than you will the editor. Not everything is about getting ahead. It’s about being a decent human being. Few things are uglier than people who spend their professional lives sucking up and kicking down.
Be generous.
You didn’t get to where you are as a writer all by yourself. I guarantee that someone around you has less experience. Introduce yourself to someone who looks as uncomfortable as you feel. Make them feel special. It won’t cost you anything, and the benefits are precious.
Be on time.
Even if you consistently run five minutes late every other day of your life, when you’re in a professional situation like a conference, be on time. Schedules can be tight, and people often do things in groups. (But don’t fret about sneaking into panels late, or leaving during. Just be discreet.)
Be available.
If you’re not Cormac McCarthy, or Emily Dickinson, leave your room! Put on deodorant, brush your teeth, comb your hair, and attend a panel, a cocktail party, or a lecture. Or even go hang out in the bar. You’re over twenty-one, and you’re allowed. See and be seen. That’s the way it works.
JSB’s Start-A-Plot Machine
Erle Stanley Gardner, author of the Perry Mason series of stories and books, was at one time the bestselling writer of all time. How did he manage it?
First, by typing a million words a year.
Next, once he got rolling, by dictating his books to a team of secretaries.
And, finally, by never stopping.
Something he did early on was to create a “plot machine” for himself. Interestingly, this was prompted by his use of the book Plotto, which was written by one William Wallace Cook (who is mentioned prominently in this book!).
This plot machine was a series of cardboard wheels, each with several one-line “spokes” around a plot development. The nine basic elements were as follows:
1. The act of primary villainy.
2. Motivation for the act of villainy: Villain resorts to crime because of desire for____ (“Note difference between a static and cumulative motivation. Better wherever possible to start with a departure from a cumulative murder motivation—gradually, inexorably, forced to a murder motivation.” - Erle Stanley Gardner.)
3. The villain’s cover-up: Having committed the act of villainy, the villain tries to conceal it or escape consequences.
4. Complications which arise during and after the cover-up: In trying to flee, villain is confronted by complications.
5. The hero’s contact with the act of villainy: The hero contacts the act of villainy either by chance or by deliberation.
6. Further complications and character conflicts: When conflict has been joined and hero comes in contact with villainy there are certain complicating circumstances which make for character conflicts and story.
7. Suspense through hero’s mistakes: The complications become involved with the suspense element.
8. Villain further attempts to escape: Villain feeling net closing about him tries to escape by some further act which points to a more exciting dramatic climax when carried through.
9. Hero sets solution factors in motion or traps villain.
It’s important to note that Gardner used this machine as a starting point only. The various spokes were brainstorming items. Once he had a combination, he would begin brainstorming and developing a plot.
In the pages that follow, I give you a simple plot-starter machine. Here’s how it works.
There are five headings (e.g., Act of Villainy). Each heading has a numbered list. I tell you how many choices there are per heading.
Start with any heading you desire.
Google random number generator and you’ll get their default.
Put in the number range for the heading. For example, Act of Villainy has 82 possibilities. You put in 1 and 82 as the range, then “spin” the calculator. Go to the corresponding number in the list, and put that item into a separate document.
I just did that and the number came up 30. On the Act of Villainy list, that item is “crime at sea.” I write that down.
And so on through the other headings.
Know that these are intended to storm your brain. You take each one, and also the combination of them, and think on paper or screen. Go where the ideas lead you. Write a free-form document, without pausing to edit, on what your imagination is coming up with.
Soon enough a plot will begin to take shape, and then you can begin to shape it yourself.
Or if you’re stuck in your writing or planning, use any one of these categories to come up with a random idea that can get you unstuck.
And that is always how the pulp writer wants to roll.
Opening Setting
List of 70
1.24-hour restaurant
2.airport
3.amusement park
4.antique shop
5.apartment
6.aquarium
7.art museum
8.bakery
9.bank
10.bar
11.beach
12.boardwalk
13.bomb shelter
14.bookstore
15.boulevard
16.boutique
17.brothel
18.bus depot
19.casino
20.cathedral
21.cemetery
22.center of town
23.church
24.city college
25.city dump
26.City Hall
27.coffeehouse
28.concert hall
29.convention center
30.courthouse
31.day-care center
32.delicatessen
33.department store
34.fast-food restaurant
35.fire
36.fire station
37.freeway
38.golf course
39.health spa
40.high school
41.home
42.hospital
43.hotel
44.industrial park
45.jail
46.mobile home park
47.movie location
48.nightclub
49.office building
50.park bench
51.parking garage
52.playground
53.post office
54.prison
55.public library
56.real estate development
57.restaurant
58.river
59.safe house
60.shelter for battered women
61.shelter for the homeless
62.shipyard
63.shopping mall
64.stadium
65.sushi bar
66.swimming pool
67.synagogue
68.taxi
69.water treatment plant
70.zoo
Act of Villain
List of 82
1.abduction
2.assault
3.air piracy
4.armed robbery
5.arson
6.assassination
7.attack (physical/verbal assault)
8.ax murder
9.baby selling
10.bank robbery
11.bigamy
12.blackmail
13.bomb
14.breaking and entering
15.bribery
16.campus rape
17.car bombing
18.car as weapon (running people down)
19.carjacking
20.car theft
21.cattle rustling
22.child abuse
23.cock fighting
24.computer fraud
25.conspiracy
26.contract murder
27.co
pycat crime
28.counterfeiting
29.crime of passion
30.crime at sea
31.data rape
32.dog fighting
33.drive-by shooting
34.driving under the influence
35.drug dealing
36.drug trafficking
37.embezzlement
38.espionage
39.extortion
40.flag burning
41.forgery
42.freeway shooting
43.gangland slaying
44.gang war
45.hate crime
46.hijacking
47.hit-and-run
48.hostage held
49.indecent exposure
50.insider trading
51.insurance fraud
52.involuntary manslaughter
53.jury tampering
54.kidnapping
55.mail fraud
56.mass murder
57.mob violence
58.money laundering
59.Neo-Nazi protest
60.obscene phone call
61.perjury
62.police brutality
63.political corruption
64.Ponzi scheme
65.prison riot
66.prostitution
67.purse snatching
68.random shooting
69.rape
70.serial killings
71.sexual harassment
72.state-sponsored terrorism
73.statutory rape
74.tagging (graffiti)
75.tax evasion
76.theft
77.treason
78.vehicular homicide
79.vigilantism
80.violence in school
81.voter fraud
82.white-collar crime
Motive
List of 5
1.Money
2.Power
3.Revenge
4.Sex
5.Fame
Hostile minor characters making complications for hero
List of 24
1.Relative
2.Friend
3.Alcoholic
4.Cowboy
5.Architect
6.Fighter
7.Health nut
8.Bartender
9.Recluse
10.Florist
11.Cop
12.Hairdresser
13.Gun fanatic
14.Writer
15.Firefighter
16.Animal trainer
17.Dog groomer
18.Nudist
19.Actor
20.Waiter
21.Arsonist
22.Slacker
23.Pothead
24.Blind person
Twists
1.Somebody is dead you didn’t expect.
2.Getting knocked out.
3.Planted bomb.
4.Anonymous text or email.
5.A dark secret revealed.
6.An emotional wound revealed.
7.An ally betrays.
8.A guy with a gun walks in.
9.The road is closed.
10.The bridge is out.
11.You thought it was a man, but it’s a woman.
12.You thought it was a woman, but it’s a man.
13.You thought he/she was dead, but he/she isn’t.
14.Surprise witness.
15.The message didn’t go through.
16.Corrupt person is really trustworthy.
17.Trustworthy person is really corrupt.
18.The protagonist finds out he/she is related to another character.
19.Accident.
20.Injury.
21.Something false goes viral.
22.Good news gets bad.
23.Bad news gets worse.
The Armbrewster Memoir
A few years ago I wrote a series based of pulp-style posts on the group blog Kill Zone. Written from the POV of a writer named William “Wild Bill” Armbrewster, we see Wild Bill dispensing advice to a young wannabe writer. I even made up a bio for Armbrewster that could very well have been true:
WILLIAM "WILD BILL" ARMBREWSTER was born in 1899 in Cleveland, Ohio. He had a troubled relationship with his father, which led to Armbrewster dropping out of high school and riding the rails as a hobo. He was nabbed by yard bulls in Chicago in 1917 and given a choice: go to jail or join the Army. He chose the Army and saw action in France during World War I, winning the Silver Star.
After the war he took up residence in Los Angeles and got a job driving a delivery van for the Broadway Department Store. At night he worked on stories for the pulp magazines, gathering a trunk full of rejection letters.
In 1923 a chance meeting with Dashiell Hammett in a Hollywood haberdashery led to a lifelong friendship between the two. Hammett asked to see one of Armbrewster's stories, liked it, and personally recommended it to George W. Sutton, editor of Black Mask. The story, for which Armbrewster received $15, was “Murder in the Yard.” After that Armbrewster became a staple of the pulps and was never out print again. Between 1923 and 1935 he averaged a million words a year.
In 1931 he wrote the first in a series of stories featuring Cliff Hanlon, an ex-boxer working as a troubleshooter for the movie studio Empire Consolidated. In 1941 the first of ten novels featuring Hanlon was released to great acclaim. Falling Star was turned into a hit movie in 1943, with George Raft in the role of Hanlon. Eventually Humphrey Bogart, Dick Powell, Paul Newman, and Al Pacino would take a turn playing the legendary tough guy.
Known as the man with the red-hot typewriter, Armbrewster wrote many of his stories at a corner table at Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood. He was granted this favor by the owners, for reasons that remain mysterious to this day (some Armbrewster scholars believe he rescued the daughter of one of the owners from an attack by a street thug).
Over the course of his career, Armbrewster shared his writing wisdom with young writers, many of whom went on to careers of their own. One of them, Benny Wannabe, in his eulogy at Armbrewster’s funeral, said, “He told me what it took to become a real writer. And he bought me my first sandwich in Los Angeles.”
For his writing advice, read on.
Now You Can Call Yourself a Writer
The afternoon crowd at Musso’s was loud and obnoxious, like a haberdasher with a hangnail. I sat in the corner with my typewriter, pounding away at the new story for Black Mask. It was fighting me. It was pummeling me into the canvas. I was a bleeding mess. So I gave the business to my martini and cursed the page mocking me from the roller. That’s when I noticed the kid.
He was just standing there, holding his hat. He was maybe twenty-two, twenty-three, which made him a kid to me.
“Are you Mr. Armbrewster, the writer?” he said.
“Right now I’m Mr. Armbrewster, the stinker. Who are you?”
“My name’s Benny. Benny Wannabe.”
“So?”
“May I sit down?”
“If you buy me a drink. See that man over there behind the bar? In the red coat? His name is Joe. Go tell him to make another for Mr. Armbrewster and then you can sit.”
The kid romped off like a happy puppy. I looked at my typewriter and tried to make my detective say something witty. But he just sat there, the piker.
The kid came back and set a fresh one before me.
“Now, what can I do for you?” I said.
“Well, I … I’m a writer. I’ve read every story you’ve ever written. I think you’re the best. Even better than Hammett and Chandler.”
I was starting to like this kid.
“And I just wanted to meet you,” he said. “Somebody at the hotel said you like to work here, and so I took a chance and here you are.”
“You say you’re a writer, eh?”
“That’s right.”
“What have you written?”
“A short story.”
“One short story?”
He smiled, nodded. I took a snort of martini. Then I popped the olive in my mouth, chewed, and scowled.
“Don’t call yourself a writer just yet, kid,” I said.
“But a writer writes,” he said. “So I’ve been told.”
I ripped the sheet I’d been working on out of the typewriter, crumpled it, and tossed it on the pile on the floor. “No,” I said. “A writer works.”
Benny Wannabe cocked his head, like that dog listening to the gramophone.
“Look, kid, it’s fine to want to write. It’s a hell of a business, though, and if you want to make any money at this thing, you have to work, and hard. You have to look at it as a craft, not some ethereal vapor dancing through your noggin, and sweat and fight until you figure out how to do it. Then you have to put your stuff out there, get rejected, fight some more and keep on writing and fighting and typing, until you die.”
“Gee,” Benny said.
I closed my eyes.
“I have my story with me!” The kid fished out some folded pages and handed them to me. I scowled again, then read the first paragraph.
The wind was a torrent that day, the day of my birth, the day of my beginning life’s sad yet remarkable sojourn, and the trees were golden with leaves that looked like little pots of gold with rainbows coming out of them, full of the promise of life and song and the iridescence of possibility. Suddenly, a shot rang out.
“I’m going to need another drink,” I said.
“Right away!”
When the kid came back I said, “Listen, Benny, do you really want to be a writer?”
He nodded.
“Not just so you can call yourself one. I mean, so you actually have a chance to make some lettuce at it. You do want to make lettuce, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes sir. I believe in lettuce.”
“Do you have a job, Benny?”
“I’m a writer!”
“Not yet you’re not. I mean, do you have any source of income?”
He shook his head.
“What are you using for dough?”