INTRODUCTIONThis book is also not for hobbyists, dabblers, screenwriters look-
ing for extra money, nor, alas, for authors of illustrated children's
books, who are a separate breed in a highly specialized field. To be
sure, there is useful advice and information about book publishing
for all writers herein, but it is to full-time novelists that I am chiefly
addressing myself.
Why am I willing to share my expertise? Why am I not reserving
it for my clients?
We need storytellers. In our world of dislocation, of declining
institutions, it is imperative that the values that bind us together be
reaffirmed. One of the primary ways we do this, I believe, is through
the stories that we tell to one another.
Think about it. We tell stories all the time: on the phone to our
friends; with our families at holidays; from the pulpit; in speeches;
in newspapers; on TV; on-line; on the movie screen and live stage.
Would we do this if it were not important, even fundamental to our
mutual well-being? I do not think so.
Not all novels are equally good, of course. Some of them fade
from memory almost immediately; others last. Some have a pro-
found impact; others only momentarily delight. Some are short;
others long. Whatever their shape and substance, I believe that few
story forms have the power to grip an audience as firmly, as pro-
foundly, and for as long as the form we call the novel.
Novels' power, and the imaginative level on which they engage the
reader, 1 think account for the importance that they are accorded by
scholars, critics, and readers. It is easy to excite an audience through
film. The combination of script, color, moving images, sound, and
music is a potent brew. But novels are pure. They are a solo art. When
they succeed, it is through the imaginative power and literary skill of
a single mind.
Today, so many of the stories we get are the product of a team
effort. We do not need more of that. A story constructed by com-
mittee can be wonderful, I admit, but too often such stories offer us
what is easy and homogenized. They are built to touch only the
mass audience's lowest common denominators. Only the solo sto-
ryteller has the chance consistently to show us new ways of seeing,
new paths toward understanding.xvi