Sunday, October 4: The A.D.D. Detective
PROFESSIONAL TIPS – Robert Heinlein
by Leigh Lundin
Hugo winner Robert A. Heinlein was one of the classic writers nurtured by Astounding Science Fiction’s renown editor, John W. Campbell. He was a difficult writer for many people, thought by the left to be right wing and thought by the right to be left wing, and socially subversive by all.
For a couple of decades, he wrote sophisticated juvenile novels although it takes a clever adult to grok them. Heinlein believed children were smarter and more perceptive than adults gave them credit for, and wrote, so far as his editors allowed him, to write for them alone.
Each decade since 1940 seems to have found a new Heinlein and a new generation of readers. His first work, For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs, written in 1939, was finally published in 2003 and, while not a great book, it served as a taproot for Heinlein’s later novels.
Heinlein left us six tips, not how to write, but how to be published. Those tips are:
- You must write.
- Finish what you start.
- You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
- You must put your story on the market.
- You must keep it on the market until it has sold.
- Start working on something else.
Grammar
Because readers may expect ‘how to write’ tips rather than how to publish, we leave Heinlein and visit the SAT people who give us ten tips in the guise of a quiz.
Without admitting to a bloody nose, let’s say I didn’t get a perfect score. I bickered with one answer because an actual error is not underlined, which is confusing. (Another sentence is technically correct but they’re looking for something else.) The quiz is a good reminder not to become complacent.
Closing Counters
I mentioned last week Reader’s Digest is in Chapter 11, which means downsizing the publisher noted for, er, downsizing. Another reference will soon bite the dust. Microsoft, never known for extended commitment, will discontinue their Encarta web site, software, and reference works at the end of this month. Their explanation had more to do with sales-speak ("The world is changing, blah, blah…") than hard business news, and in all likelihood, it was probably their business model that was wrong rather than the encyclopedia itself. People don’t like paying research and reference fees. That said, it’s a shame to see set another reference close its covers for good.
Before Encarta goes away, here’s your chance to take this noir quiz.
“You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.” Huh?
Apparently it worked for him but in my opinion a better fit for most people would be the advice of William Campbell Gault: “You have to rewrite, but be careful. You may be cutting out the good stuff.”
I didn’t get a perfect score.
Me neither, but they cheated. The passive voice is not grammatically incorrect.
As far as Heinlein is concerned, well, I have a love/hate relationship with him, mostly hate when he was being “serious” and love when he put a plug in all that preachifying and wrote straightforward adventure fare. He could be unbearably cutesy-wutesy: the notebooks of Lazarus Long should be burned and Michael Valentine Smith should have been eaten by the Martian equivalent of wolves before he grew out of infancy (sorry, Rob, but I really, really, hated that book) — on the other hand, Scar Gordon and Johnny Rico are among he most fun characters in all of science fiction.
HEINLEIN LIED.
Well, okay, not technically, but…
In 1964 Heinlein wrote “How To, in Four Tricky Lessons” (from OF WORLDS BEYOND), in which are found his famous Five Rules (#6 from the above list is not among them, but follows logically).
It’s that Rule #3 that sticks in my craw: “You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.” I cannot tell you the number of young (and not-so-young) writers who have quoted that rule to me as the reason that they, the artiste, refuse to do any form of rewrite, even when it is plain to everyone but they themselves that their first draft is execrable. Inevitably, they remain unpublished.
But I have further reason to dislike hearing that rule quoted.
In July 1982, Isaac Asimov wrote an editorial called “Revisions” for ISSAC ASIMOV’S SF MAGAZINE, in which he revealed that Heinlein wrote a page literally ONLY ONCE, and when he pulled it from the typewriter, he NEVER AGAIN rewrote it, unless directed to by an editor.
Yep. Heinlein NEVER rewrote anything. Everything he sent out was a first draft. And he put that forth as being the only way to write correctly. He even berated Asimov (who wrote once and then rewrote once) with the remark “You have to type it TWICE? Why don’t you type it correctly the first time?”
So, unless–like Heinlein–you happen to be turning out commercially-perfect prose in your very first draft, you just possibly might want to ignore that “rule” and consider rewriting your work to make it better.
But that’s just me…
Compared to the rest of you, I’m a babe-in-the-woods, but I spend twice the time editing and re-editing than I do writing.
I always thought Heinlein meant rewriting AFTER you start submitting, but what do I know?
As I have said before I try to write the first draft ASAP in a white heat and then revise, quite literally, for years.
James, I really do sympathize with you. Lazarus Long irritated the hell out of me – I loved The Cat Who Walked Through Walls because the main character despised Lazarus and saw him as the pompous jerk he was. But the Lazarus Long notebooks does include the immortal advice “always store beer in a dark place.”
And as I have said before, embarrassing as it is to admit it, a lot of my personal philosophy comes from meeting Dr Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land at an early age.
As for Heinlein’s advice, one should always remember Dogbert’s advice, which I paraphrase here: “Beware of taking advice from the very successful because, as a rule, they don’t want company.”
“I spend twice the time editing and re-editing than I do writing.”
I put my hand up to that too.
Got 6/10 in the SAT (snorts with fury over some of those sentences). And 9/10 in the Noir.
I’m currently slogging through a first draft and trying really really hard to not re-write. Yet. I did like Heinlein’s list.
Barrie, I think Heinlein almost stands alone in not revising or even rewording. We also don’t know how much editors cleaned up after him. If I recall correctly, John Campbell hinted he did some reshaping, although Heinlein denied it.
The important thing is you have to do what works for you. Good luck!
“You Must Write” and “You Must Finish What You Write” are the ones I should’ve taken to heart about 20 years ago!
I don’t think rewriting is the issue.I think it’s all that editing! Writing is like that first impression. The first one, is the one you don’t forget. But, what can I say, I’m a romantic!