The Deadly Sin

H. Bedford-Jones, known as “The King of the Pulps” because he was so prolific, made a very decent living selling stories to the fiction magazines of his day. In today’s dollars, he was a millionaire.

He wrote for about six hours every day and had four typewriters going — each with a different story or novel. If he got stuck on one, he slid over to the next machine and started banging out more on that story.

We don’t even know exactly how much he wrote. He was a poor record keeper, and used several pen names. The current tally of his output is 231 novels, 21 novellas, 372 novelettes, and 748 short stories, plus an incredible amount of non-fiction, poetry, radio dramas, and articles. All in a 40 year career. Something over 25 million words he wrote.

So, when I came across a copy of his book This Fiction Business (revised edition, 1929) — I bought it. My thinking being this guy knew a thing or two about writing. The book is quite entertaining, very inspirational, and informative. It’s a bit dated, but the publishing industry hasn’t actually changed all that much in the 90 years since the book was published. Much of the business aspect still applies for those going the traditional publishing route.

Chapter 6 is titled “The Deadly Sin”. In this chapter, HB-J reveals the one thing that holds back new and inexperienced writers from getting published — or, in today’s indie world, from getting readers.

The deadly sin is “The lack of perception as to what must be emphasized…”.

The new writer with little experience often misses the beat when she fails to emphasize what is important in the story from the reader’s perspective.

HB-J gives the example of a friend who couldn’t sell a story, even though he had editors praise it. HB-J read the story and saw the problem right away. The writer had disposed of the climactic conflict in 2 sentences.

Readers don’t want that. They want to fight with the hero or heroine in an arduous contest, perhaps almost lose, and then come out victorious.

Ironically enough, just before reading This Fiction Business, I read a short story in an anthology where the author made the same mistake. In the span of two sentences the story went from very good to ho-hum.

The writer lost me as a reader in those two sentences. I have no desire to read anything else she’s written. I don’t have the money to waste on a book that might have a lackluster climactic scene. Not when there are plenty of very good writers to read.

The art of telling a story is to know how to pace it for the maximum effect you, the writer, want to achieve. You also need to know what your audience is going to want to spend the most time experiencing. Is it the description of a room, or an info dump of background material, or the main character locked in a battle with the villain?

Some writers just naturally know how to tell a story. They’re the ones you want to listen to sitting around the campfire. The rest of us have to learn how to tell a story. And the best way to do that is to, as Stephen King noted, read lots and write lots.

Only by writing story after story do we get the practice needed for us to learn how to tell a good story.

Only by reading story after story, written by those who know how to tell a story, will we gain the feel for how it’s done.

So now, my writing friends, go forth and sin no more.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!