Anthony Trollope on Speed Writing

At every turn, indie writers are encouraged and urged and pressured to write faster. Quality seems to be a second thought. Just as long as thousands of words are written every day, the indie writer is told that he or she is on the first step to success.

Books abound telling us how to write faster. The following books appeared on the first page of an Amazon search: 2K to 10K, Fast Fiction, Write Fast, 5000 Words Per Hour. And of course the authors of these books are making money hand over fist by telling us how to write faster. But none of the authors of those books are in the same league as Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Stephen King, Sandra Brown or Dean Koontz. Generally speaking the writers of how-to books don’t make their living by writing fiction. They make their money telling wannabe writers how to write. And that should be a warning to us all.

There is no secret to writing fast. To put it bluntly, all one needs to do is to park one’s butt in a chair for a set amount of time, cut the distractions, and write. As Australian science fiction and fantasy writer Patty Jansen has said, 1000 finished words each day will produce at least four novels per year. At the end of three years a writer could have four three-book series for sale. That is a solid step in the direction of writing for a living.

Four weeks ago I mentioned Anthony Trollope’s method for producing three-quarters of a million words per year. In his own day, the Victorian novelist was known as The Writing Machine. In an era when artists were supposed to work by inspiration, Trollope quite baldly and boldly showed that successful artists work by perspiration. Let’s expand a bit on Trollope’s method.

Anthony Trollope viewed writing just like any other business. To be successful, one had to have goals and then set up a plan to meet those goals.

In several different chapters of his Autobiography, Trollope gives us a window into his working life as a successful author. I recommend that every writer read Anthony Trollope’s Autobiography. It’s available for free at Project Gutenberg.

Goals

Trollope’s overall goal was to be a successful author, which by his definition meant he had to earn a livable wage from writing.

The first step in achieving that goal was to write books. For each novel, Trollope set a date for the novel to be completed and submitted to a publisher.

To hold himself accountable, he kept a writing diary and recorded his progress in it. In that way he didn’t have to guess if he was making progress towards his goal. He knew how much he had written every day. He also knew if he was slacking off. The diary was his production manager.

By setting a goal, Trollope had made a commitment. We all know the benefit of setting goals. We also know the benefit of being held accountable to reach those goals. Trollope held himself accountable by means of his writing diary and his desire to earn a livable wage from his writing.

In the end, we are the ones who are responsible for our own success.

Write Every Morning

To achieve his greater goal, Anthony Trollope set smaller goals. Goals that could be achieved every day, and thereby be an encouragement to him.

He set aside three hours every morning as his writing time. This was a daily goal. 

He got up at 5:30 AM, spent the first half-hour reviewing the previous day’s production, then wrote for the remaining 2 1/2 hours. Afterwards, he dressed, ate breakfast, and went to his day job at the post office.

Why write in the morning? Why not in the evening? Trollope doesn’t specifically tell us. However, he was a very busy man. He had a family and a full-time job. He was a social person and, after a day at the post office, he’d go to the club, visit with friends, play whist, and two or more times a week he’d go fox hunting.

Practically speaking, that only left mornings in which to write — and early mornings at that.

Psychologically, though, writing first thing in the morning says something else. It says we value it above everything else in our day. It’s so valuable that we make sure we get it done before we do anything else. Even eating breakfast. Whether Trollope realized it or not he was telling himself that writing was the most important thing in his life.

Lawrence Block noted he was fresher first thing in the morning. The issues of the day hadn’t filled up his mind yet. So in addition to the psychological value, writing first thing in the morning means we get to start with a clean slate — and thereby hopefully produce our best work.

Write To The Clock

It’s one thing to get up at 5:30 AM to write and it’s another thing entirely to produce something in the three hours you’ve set aside to write.

Trollope left nothing to chance. To sit and stare at the wall or out the window, waiting for inspiration to strike, was not the Trollope way. He was a busy man. He had to make the most of his time. And make the most of it, he did.

After reviewing the previous day’s work, Trollope took out his watch and set it on the table. He took out a sheet of paper, dipped his steel dip pen into the ink pot, and commenced writing.

Writing 250 words per page, he turned out one page of his novel every 15 minutes. One thousand words per hour. Two thousand five hundred words, or 10 manuscript pages, by the time his morning writing session was over.

By setting both a daily goal and an hourly goal, Trollope could gauge his progress. And we all know how exhilarating even small successes can be.

By writing to the clock, Trollope produced 47 novels, 17 works of nonfiction, 2 plays, 44 short stories, in addition to numerous articles, lectures, and letters. And all that in the span of 35 years, from 1847 (when his first novel was published) to December 1882 (when he died).

Summary

How did Anthony Trollope produce a full-time writer’s output only writing part-time?

He made efficient use of his time. In a nutshell, this is his method:

• Write at a set time every day.
• Write for a set amount of time every day.
• Write a set amount of words in that time every day.
• Set a deadline for the work to be completed.
• Keep a diary of your progress to inspire you or chastise you.

Two thousand five hundred words each day will give you 912,500 words a year. That’s seven 120,000 novels. Or eleven 80,000 word novels. Or eighteen 50,000 word novels.

Honestly, does anyone need to produce more than that in one year?

As always, comments are welcome! And until next time, happy reading (and writing)!

Interview with Author Ben Willoughby

Today I have the privilege of interviewing one of my favorite indie authors, Ben Willoughby. We first ran across each other on Twitter, and since then I’ve gotten to know him and his writing. So without further ado, let’s chat with Ben.

CW: Tell us a little about yourself.

BW: First, thank you for inviting me to partake in this interview! I’m flattered to have the honor of talking on your blog!

CW: You’re welcome.

BW: My name is Ben Willoughby, and I’m a happily married husband with a beautiful wife and a lovely daughter who turned three last October. I’m an indie writer who’s mainly dabbled in fantasy as well as horror. I have a dieselpunk trilogy I’m currently working on. In my full-time job, I’m a graphic designer.

CW: You’re a bit like me. Writing in several different genres. What did you read as a child?

BW: I really got into mysteries and science fiction as a kid. 

For mysteries, I ate up every single Sherlock Holmes book Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, as well as many of Agatha Christie’s Poirot books.

For science fiction, I read a lot of HG Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Jules Verne, and AE Van Vogt. 

When I first started writing for fun at thirteen, I tried to come up with my own mysteries, but could never really finish them. Some have said you should write what you enjoy, but I’ve found I can rarely figure out how to do a straight up detective novel.

I also read heavily into military history. My dad was an officer in the army (he’s since retired), so I grew up with a lot of his old books laying around the house, and was exposed to them. By middle school I had a better knowledge on events like the Napoleonic Wars or World War II than most kids my age. 

While my family was stationed in Europe in the mid-90’s, I would go to school and read Erwin Rommel’s World War I memoir Infantry Attacks, and I got to go to the Waterloo battlefield for my thirteenth birthday. I could never get into historical fiction – I think the only historical fiction book I read was The Killer Angels, which was later turned into the movie Gettysburg.

CW: Very interesting. Similar interests, you and I. Aside from writing, how do you spend your free time?

BW: I do artwork, whether it’s sketching or graphic design. My main full-time work for the past decade has been in graphic design, as well as motion design and editing. This has helped me in my writing, since I’ve been able to design my own covers. With the exception of Gods on the Mountain, where I used a freelance artist to paint the cover for me.

I also do a lot of personal study on various topics. My favorite subjects are military history and theology.

And of course, when my daughter is awake, and is in the same room as me, she always desires daddy time.

CW: Yes, there is always the requisite “daddy time”.

BW: There is.

CW: Being a writer, you’re also a reader I would guess.

BW: Yes.

CW: How many fiction books do you read a year?

BW: I read quite a bit, though I don’t know if I can really pin a number on it. If I had to “guesstimate,” I would say about two dozen a year. Part of the problem is finding the time to sit down and read – I’ll get involved in another project, or have to spend time with the family, and by the time I’ve sat down in a place where I can read, I’m too tired to mentally focus. I’ve been getting better about it recently, however.

I also read quite a bit of non-fiction on top of fiction. I recently read a book on what life in England was like at the turn of the first millennium, and am now going through a book on Martin Luther.

CW: What book do you think everyone should read and why?

BW: This is a hard question to answer, because obviously not every book is going to be for every person’s taste. Any book I say, there will most likely be someone out there to say it’s not for them, or could never, in any way, edify them.

CW: Fair enough, so tell us instead about a book that has influenced you as a person.

BW: I used to have an enormous, single volume of Matthew Henry’s commentary on the Bible. 

CW: Hey, I had one of those! A great Puritan commentary.

BW: Yes, it is. His analytical way of thinking, and explaining everything as if he were writing a sermon, influenced how I read things in general, which was carefully, word for word, and with a larger picture in mind. It did way more to assist my understanding of comprehensive reading than any test I took in school did.

CW: Spot on about Matthew Henry. Okay, you are being exiled to a small island in the Pacific. You can take 3 books with you. What books would you take and why?

BW: a. The Bible, to maintain my faith and knowledge in true wisdom.

b. The Encyclopedia of Military History by the Dupuys. I used to read that for fun as a kid. There’s enough information in there to pass away eternity and a day.

c. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, because that’s good sci-fi. (Also, fudge the movie.)

CW: Very interesting choices. So now tell us about a book that’s influenced you as a writer.

BW: It’s hard to pin this down exactly on any one book, because obviously we glean from everything we read, and there are plenty of authors out there who have influenced us. If I had to point to one (in a collective sense), it might be George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. 

The earliest books did a great job not only in character development, and every character feels different in their motivations and desires, but the worldbuilding was also excellent. Westeros felt like a real, functioning world. I won’t say his worldbuilding is perfect, as there are a few parts I find a tad bit contrived (eg., one house ruling the same position for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years), but compared to other works, it’s much more polished. To step into the story is to step into another land.

It’s a bit sad for me to say all this, and I hesitated doing so, since I’ve stopped reading the series long ago. George R.R. Martin takes decades to write one book (confirming my earliest fears that he was the new Robert Jordan), and his storyline has gotten bogged down in so many subplots he’s now admitted he’ll have to write several more books. Also, it’s quite obvious he’s sold out to HBO. But that’s another rant for another time.

CW: Of all your books, which one is your favorite and why?

BW: I find myself still going back to my novelette The House That Homed. It was a lot of fun to write (about three-quarters of it was complete, on-the-spot improvisation) and it showcases my sense of humor, which admittedly is pretty unique and relies heavily on non sequitur. Whenever I pick it up and reread it, there are scenes (like Officer Bruce’s meltdown) that still make me crack up. There are also some parts that will reenter my head as I’m out and about and make me chuckle (like the “It’s the Kickstart guys again” line).

CW: Oh, yes, The House That Homed is fabulous. Superb dark humor. Now, if I hadn’t read any of your books, which one should I start with and why?

BW: In all honesty, probably one of the last ones I published, Mannegishi. I think it’s the much more polished of much of my work, in terms of development, story, and build-up. I was also pretty proud of how I developed each of the individual characters, and how they relate. This was the book where, at a pinnacle point in the romance subplot, my wife actually lamented, “I don’t even care about the aliens anymore!” It was also a lot of fun to write scenes involving exchanges between certain characters, such as the scene where Rick and Lucy have some brief convos, or all the scenes where Sam and Rick go at each other, and so I feel like those scenes really work.

CW: I haven’t read Mannegishi yet. It is, however, on my list. Thank you, Ben Willoughby, for chatting with us today.

And now here is a bit more about Ben, where you can find his books, and get in touch with him.

Ben Willoughby was born in the United States and, being a military brat, ended up seeing a lot of it (along with a foreign country or two). At a very young age, he found a love for reading. At the age of 12, he found a passion for writing. In his late 20's, he decided to pursue publishing many of the ideas and concepts he had developed over the years. He currently lives in Ohio with his loving wife and young daughter. When not writing or reading, he spends his spare time sketching and smoking his pipe.

You can find Ben’s books at:

https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Willoughby/e/B00WV2OQI2

Ben’s website is: http://benwilloughbyauthor.blogspot.com/

And you can find him on Twitter (https://twitter.com/BenWilloughby84)

and Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13877156.Ben_Willoughby)

Anthony Trollope: The Writer’s Writer, Part 2

Last week I wrote that the Victorian writer Anthony Trollope is my writing mentor. He is the one who keeps my feet on the ground when it comes to writing and advice and writing fads.

This week I would like to continue exploring what today’s indie authors can learn from Anthony Trollope. Let’s look at a few more areas where he can teach us valuable lessons.

Gadgets

Lots of writers spend lots of money on all manner of gadgets and software to help them write. I think it is an age thing. Those who grew up with computers are more likely to be attracted to gadgets to help them write.

But gadgets do not make the writer.

Trollope wrote with a steel dip pen, ink, and paper. That’s it. No Scrivener. No Dragon. No Hemingway Editor. No classes to learn how to use Scrivener. And certainly no computer.

We don’t need gadgets to write well. We might think we do because we live in an age filled with gadgets. What we really need to write well, is to know how to tell a story. And sad to say, gadgets can’t help us with that.

There is plenty of evidence that shows writing by hand will produce a superior product. And Trollope has shown us that we can produce 10 books a year simply by using pen and paper.

We don’t need gadgets and we don’t need to spend the money to buy the gadgets or learn how to use them. Writers write.

Beats, Structure, and Formulae

Many of my fellow writers obsess over how to tell the story. They get all wrapped up in making sure they have all of the story beats that somebody told them they needed. Or they struggle to fit their story into three-act structure or five-act structure. Or they slavishly follow Lester Dent’s formula or Freitag’s Pyramid.

To my mind this is all crazy. It’s a waste of time. Most of it anyway. We all know conflict drives a story. The conflict can be external or internal. The conflict can be subtle or violent. We know we have to batter our protagonist until he or she reaches down deep to draw on that inner strength that enables him or her to triumph. 

So do it. Just tell the doggone story.

Once again, Trollope shows us how to do it. In his Autobiography, Chapter 5, he wrote:

“[The Warden] has a merit of its own,—a merit by my own perception of which I was enabled to see wherein lay whatever strength I did possess. The characters of the bishop, of the archdeacon, of the archdeacon’s wife, and especially of the warden, are all well and clearly drawn. I had realised to myself a series of portraits, and had been able so to put them on the canvas that my readers should see that which I meant them to see. There is no gift which an author can have more useful to him than this.”

Characters. Well drawn and believable characters. That’s what it’s all about. They’re the secret to telling your story. Not beats or formulae. Ray Bradbury put it this way: create your characters, let them do their thing, and there’s your story.

We can spend all the time we want making sure X happens at the one fifth mark of the book and that Y happens at the one third mark of the book. That the mirror point happens precisely at the 50% mark. Etc. etc.

None of that makes for a good story unless one has good characters. As Trollope noted in the seventh chapter of his Autobiography:

“A novel should give a picture of common life enlivened by humour and sweetened by pathos. To make that picture worthy of attention, the canvas should be crowded with real portraits, not of individuals known to the world or to the author, but of created personages impregnated with traits of character which are known. To my thinking, the plot is but the vehicle for all this; and when you have the vehicle without the passengers, a story of mystery in which the agents never spring to life, you have but a wooden show.”

Sure there has to be a story, and Trollope admits this, but the story, the plot, is secondary to the characters. Plot exists in order to bring out the characters of the story. Characters that come across as real. Characters that make us laugh and tug at our heartstrings.

Therefore, create good characters, throw problems at them, and let them do their thing. Letting a story unfold organically will always lead to a better story then one forced into some kind of mold.

Reviews

Writers today obsess about reviews. If they get one bad review, their world seems to fall apart.

Let’s face facts. There are going to be people who don’t like what we write. There are going to be people who love what we write. And there are going to be people who think our writing is okay but no great shakes.

That’s the name of the game. And to top it off, the public is a very fickle creature. What’s hot today will be cold tomorrow.

Trollope had his share of adverse publisher and reader reactions. His first three books sold nothing. As in zero copies. At least that Trollope was aware of. In fact, he didn’t even get paid for the first two because apparently the publisher didn’t make any money. For his third book he received a £20 advance. And that was all the money he ever saw for it. Again, because the publisher didn’t make any money on it.

After those debacles, Trollope didn’t doubt that he should try to be a writer. He accepted the public’s opinion that they didn’t like those books and decided to try his hand at a play. When his friends told him to go back to novel writing he accepted that too. But he never doubted that he could be a writer. And that’s important. He had self-confidence. He just had to identify what the problem was that other people were signifying that he had.

And the problem for Trollope turned out to be subject matter. Apparently the English public wasn’t ready for Irish novels, or historical novels (at least how Trollope wrote them).

So Trollope turned to writing a contemporary novel set in a fictional English cathedral city. With The Warden, his fourth novel, Anthony Trollope finally made some money. In two years, he made a little over £20 from royalties. Or about $2700 in today’s money. Two years later, Barchester Towers was published, for which he received an advance of £100. 

Trollope had finally achieved success. He hit on a subject the English reading public liked. His strength was in writing contemporary novels about the people in his own class. And he did it well. Mostly because his characters are so delightful.

The lesson for us is if we wish to make money writing, then we need to write what we know and write what resonates with the market.

Many writers eschew writing to market. They somehow think that sullies their reputation or the literary quality of what they write. But stop and think about this for a moment. Shakespeare wrote to market. Dickens wrote to market. Longfellow, about the only poet who ever made a living from poetry, wrote to market. There is nothing wrong with writing to market, unless one does a very bad job of it. And unfortunately there are writers who do.

Writing to market simply means you’re writing books or short stories that people want to read. Trollope’s Irish novels are very good, but no one in the 1840s wanted to read them. Trollope loved Ireland and could have written lots more Irish novels, but he wanted to make a living from writing and knew that if he persisted in writing Irish novels he would not be able to accomplish his goal. So he eventually turned to writing about the other thing he knew — his own class, and the reading public devoured his books.

Regardless of what he wrote, Trollope’s goal was to write the best book that he could. Shouldn’t that be our goal? And does the genre or subject matter truly matter that much?

If you like science fiction, and military science fiction is all the rage, then write the best military science fiction novel that you can. Trollope didn’t especially love English cathedral cities. But he knew the setting would enable him to write about the people he knew and from that produce good books. If we want to be successful, doesn’t Trollope’s attitude and approach make sense?

When we get bad reviews, we should look at what the people are really saying. Maybe they’re telling us something, and maybe we need to take heed of what they’re telling us. Trollope did, and went on to become a very successful author.

Anthony Trollope is a person who can show us how to triumph in adversity, set a dream for ourselves, and through perseverance and astute observation achieve that dream.

You can get Anthony Trollope’s Autobiography for free at Project Gutenberg. It’s a marvelous handbook for success.

As always comments are welcome, and until next time happy reading and writing!

Anthony Trollope: The Writer’s Writer, Part 1

The Victorian writer Anthony Trollope is my writing mentor. He is the one who keeps my feet on the ground when it comes to writing and writing fads. For even though he lived in the 19th century (1815-1882), he was very much a 21st century indie author in sentiment.

In his own day, he was a popular novelist. Not on par with the likes of Dickens or Thackeray, nevertheless his name was more or less a household word. He wrote what would probably be called today slice-of-life mainstream fiction. Novels about the goings on of upper-class English society, for the most part. His books tend to be light, have plenty of humor, and a healthy dollop of social satire.

What can today’s indie authors learn from Anthony Trollope? Just about everything to guide and direct our attitude and to developing a methodology towards maintaining a writing career.

Let’s look at a few areas where I see my fellow authors struggling to come to grips with the writing life and where Trollope can teach us valuable lessons.

Quitting the Day Job

On Facebook group after Facebook group, I see my fellow writers in a frenzy to write and sell enough in order to quit the day job and write full-time. And in this frenzy they fall victim to all manner of hucksters selling (operative word here) services and advice. (NB: I don’t mean all the middlemen catering to writers are hucksters. Just remember, though, PT Barnum’s quip: a sucker is born every minute. We should strive to not be the suckers.)

Anthony Trollope, on the other hand, shows us we can write full time by writing part-time.

Anthony Trollope was a busy man. He worked full time at the post office (he invented the iconic British pillar mailbox). He was a social man. He went hunting at least twice a week, frequently played whist, visited with friends, and spent at least six weeks out of England on holiday. He was also married and had a family. He was a very busy man indeed! He did all of that and devoted three hours every day to writing, which he did in the morning before going to work.

And from those three hours each day of writing he produced a large body of work. In the course of a 35 year writing career he produced 47 novels, 44 short stories, 17 books of nonfiction, 20 articles, 2 plays, plus numerous letters.

Anthony Trollope proves one does not have to quit the day job to be a full-time writer. Because one can be a full-time writer writing only part-time.

Productivity

Go to any Facebook writer’s group and at some point a discussion will arise regarding writing speed and daily word production. One can find books on how to produce 5000 or 10,000 words a day. Of course those books are for sale, which gives us an idea as to how those authors earn their living. One of the latest fads on how to get more production is dictating one’s novel. And the fads keep on coming.

In the end, the only way to produce a high word count each day is to put your butt in your chair and write. Avoid distractions and write.

One hundred sixty years ago, Anthony Trollope showed us a very simple way to produce enough words in a year to be a prolific author. In his own day, Trollope was known as The Writing Machine.

He got up at 5:30 AM to began his three hour stint at writing. The first half-hour was spent reviewing the previous day’s work.

Then he put his watch on his desk and began writing for 2 1/2 hours. Trollope’s goal was to write one page, 250 words, every 15 minutes. At the end of his writing session, he’d have 10 pages or 2500 words.

If a writer today maintained Trollope’s pace every day for a year, he or she would have written 912,500 words. That’s very close to what Dean Wesley Smith calls “Pulp Speed” (which is writing over 1 million words per year). Those 912,500 words are enough for ten or eleven 80,000 word novels. Seriously folks, do we need to produce more than that in a year?

Trollope proves no writer needs to resort to Herculean efforts to produce a sizable body of fiction. Ten novels a year writing part-time is nothing to sneeze at.

Rewriting

Part of the key to high word counts is not rewriting and minimal editing.

Anthony Trollope did not rewrite. He also essentially did no editing. When he finished a manuscript he was for all intents and purposes finished with it. He sold it to the publisher as is. If the publisher did any editing after they got the manuscript, we don’t know. I doubt they did a lot, because mid-series in The Barchester Chronicles Trollope changed the name of one of his characters. He didn’t catch it and neither did the editor, if there was one.

As Dean Wesley Smith points out in his blog post on pulp speed writing, prolific authors don’t rewrite. They basically don’t have time to invest that much effort into any given manuscript. The prolific writer writes, it’s as simple as that. The goal isn’t perfection, the goal is production of decent and acceptable work.

I hear writers all the time talking about the number of edits they put a manuscript through, the number of beta reads, and how many professional editors they hire. Whereas, if they had gotten the manuscript right the first time they could’ve saved themselves a lot of time and money. And maybe even written another book.

Now I’m not advocating for sloppiness. I take pride in my work and while I don’t rewrite I do perform a modicum of editing. I make sure that I catch as many typos as I can and get rid of as many clunky sentences as I can. Which is basically what the pulp fiction writers did. And Anthony Trollope was setting the pattern long before the pulp fiction era.

Get in practice to write it right the first time. Academicians, who don’t make their living by writing, have spun the myth that the first draft is crap. There are scores of writers who made and make their living writing who say that advice is crap. 

Write so your story is right when it goes on paper the first time. It saves time and money in the long run and time and money equals more books, which means more money — for you.

Next week we’ll continue our look at what Anthony Trollope can teach us writers in the 21st century.

Trollope is a person who can show us how to triumph in adversity, set a dream for ourselves, and through perseverance and astute observation achieve that dream.

You can get Anthony Trollope’s Autobiography for free at Project Gutenberg. It’s a marvelous handbook for success.

As always comments are welcome, and until next time happy reading and writing!