The McManus School For
Wayward Writers
Welcome, students! Find a desk and get ready to take notes. Meet your instructor, best-selling author and humorist Patrick F. McManus. You can call him Dr. McManus... or just Pat. Any questions? No? Great, because we don't answer questions in this school. Now let's begin, and remember, NO TALKING during class.
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Stay Tuned! There's More Lessons To Come!
Lesson 1
Pat's Top Tips & Advice For New Writers
DR. MCMANUS: Try to work in a bit of visual detail wherever you can. A good writer turns on a tiny movie in the reader’s mind. The reader sees what is happening. Just remember to drop in a visual detail from time to time, so that the visual element doesn’t disappear for the reader. This is my own theory, as far as I know. I learned it by watching how an audience responds to my plays. I once heard a woman say after one of the plays, “I can’t understand it. I was just seeing mountains and barns and creeks, and all of a sudden I realized there was only an actor up there on a bare stage.
Basically, I think the writer should always keep the reader from ever noticing the writing. If you have an awkward sentence, the reader instantly becomes aware of the writing. The same is true with a repetition of a word or a sentence structure. Worst of all is “fine” writing. One time, I wrote the phrase “splashing through shallow pools of sunlight on the trail.” I knew I should strike it out, but I liked it so much I left it in. Months later, I ran into an English professor I knew in a hallway at the university where I taught. He said, “Ah, McManus, I just read a story of yours in the barbershop, and there was a phrase in it I liked very much—splashing through…” He said, “I didn’t know you did fine writing.” That’s when I knew I should always cut out fine writing. My theory, which may be wrong, is that the writing should flow into the reader’s head without him or her being aware that it is writing.
Point of view is tricky but very important. For example, the four-inch-long bruises on your legs. You obviously can’t see them from your position of lying in the bed. Perhaps your mother says to the nurse, “My God, where did she get those bruises on her legs? They must be four-inches long!” The nurse says, “That’s where she was strapped to the operating table.” In other words, some invention must be required regarding the point of view. Even in a factual book, I don’t think that is wrong. It’s worse to have the reader think, “How did she know she had bruises on her legs if she’s lying flat in bed?”
Regarding flashbacks, introduce earlier scenes like, “I’m nine years old and sitting in my fifth-grade class. My friend Mary leans forward over her desk and whispers in my ear…” Keeping track of your age at each point of the book would be important for the reader.
Suppose your book is set in the present time, say, when you just met the love of your life. You start thinking back to various phases of your life. You go back to that scene and treat it in the present tense. “When you have completed that scene, your love walks into the room, and you are back to “now.”
There are many good books on writing at your local library, and you should read all of them or at least those on topics of particular interest to you. “Writers’ Market” used to be an essential book for all freelance writers, and I suspect it is still useful, but it is not the great resource it once was. It will tell you who is buying what, how much, how to prepare manuscripts and submit them, etc. The best book on magazine article writing and writing in general, in my opinion, is William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. The way to become a professional writer is to set aside a period of time each day for writing—two hours is about right. Then write seven days a week. In a month, you will have learned more than all the writing classes could ever have taught you.
Don’t be afraid of imitating writers that you particularly enjoy reading. Your own style will eventually develop through the process of your own writing. Imitation is the best way to learn. Of famous writers, I think Ernest Hemingway is the best one to learn from. The worst Hemingway is probably the best for learning, because it’s easier to see what he’s doing. That doesn’t mean you have to write like Hemingway. Sometimes he even gives advice. I like what he has to say about the “three cushion” pool shot: “I try to do the thing by the three custion shot rather than by words or direct statement. But maybe we must have the direct statement, too.” Let the reader put two or three things together to know something about a character; don’t tell them straight out. For example, don’t say my friend Jack is precise. Show them Jack filling his gas tank to even gallons or balancing his checkbook to the penny.
Get your stuff published. Local newspapers and magazines of all kinds are a great place to start. Once you have published your first piece—anywhere—you are on your way. The first published piece will be a major psychological breakthrough for you. After that, you will know that you can do it. Once you have published a few pieces in a local publication, set your sights a little higher. Don’t try to start at the top of the ladder; you will only be discouraged, unless, of course, you happen to be a genius. And the editor you send the piece to is also a genius. You will often become discouraged by responses from editors, or no responses from editors, but if you let that stop you, you weren’t meant for this business. Rejection is a big part of becoming a writer. If you can’t stand rejection, writing is probably the wrong career for you.
A former college student of mine, who went on to a very successful career in writing, told me the other day at lunch that I had once informed a writing workshop not to be afraid of contacting celebrities, if that’s who you want to write about. So she sent Carol Burnett a letter, and ended up interviewing Ms. Burnett at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood. She sold the piece to Working Women magazine.
Analyze the publication to which you want to aim your article or story. Study at least a dozen issues: what kinds of articles have they run in the past, what kinds of ads do they run, what are the special interests of the audience, etc. To sell to a publication, you need to understand it almost as well as the editor does, perhaps better. Almost any magazine-article writing book in the library will show you how to do this. The rest depends on your own talent and intelligence.
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ON HUMOR
The humor piece is one of the most difficult to sell. Editors are afraid of humor. An editor may think your story is hilarious, but he’s afraid to trust his own judgment when it comes to humor. An editor wrote to me once and asked me to write for the magazine. “But not humor,” he said. “Humor is too dangerous.” I don’t think it occurs to any kid that he will become a humor writer when he grows up. I certainly had no intention of doing so. I wrote mostly science and travel articles for my first ten years of freelancing. One evening I completed a science article and still had an hour left in my writing time. So I wrote a piece of nonsense. In those days, I had a rule, and that was that anything I wrote I would send out to market. The humor piece was rejected twice, but then bought by Field & Stream. I was paid $300 for it. I had just written a long factual piece for a major national magazine and was paid $750 for it. But I had worked two months on the factual piece and only one hour on the humor piece. Wait a darn minute, I thought. And that is how I suddenly became a humor writer.I think the writing business is much tougher to break into now than it was when I started. But making a living as an independent freelance writer is one of the best jobs in the world. I was told by a very successful freelancer a decade or so ago, “Pat, the Internet is the future fof freelancing.” I have no experience with that, but he was probably right. I just don’t know anything about it.
ARTICLE IDEA SALABILITY TEST
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Is the subject unusual: the largest, smallest, cheapest, most expensive, worst, best, oldest, youngest, etc.?
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Is it off-beat — is it a subject the publication ordinarily wouldn’t buy but which can be “slanted” to the editorial requirements?
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Does the article have a point?
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Does it make some assertion that is supported by the text or article?
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Does the article engage the self-interest of the reader in this particular audience?
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Is the article about a person or people as opposed to a “thing”?
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Are good original quotes available?
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Are good research sources (authorities to interview) available?
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Are there good anecdotes available?
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Are there one or more appropriate markets available for the article?
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Is it possible to get good illustrations/photos?
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Does the article have humor or drama?
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Does the topic have national interest as opposed to regional or local interest?
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Is it timely?
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Does it have a “key phrase” or editorial concept?
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Does it have a catchy title or hook for the lead?
Dissecting My First Deer
If you did your homework, you've already read this version of "My First Deer and Welcome to It." If you haven't, take a minute to read the recap below so you'll be up to speed when Dr. McManus discusses the tricks he used to achieve peak humor at the end of the piece.
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DR. MCMANUS: People often ask me how I ever became such an awful hunter. The answer is my first deer. I never fully recovered from it. Many years ago, I reported on this incident in a column for Field & Stream Magazine. I believe that column was collected in my first book, A Fine & Pleasant Misery. I could tell you for certain, but I would have to get up and walk across the room and check the book. (Note: this story is actually in They Shoot Canoes, Don’t They?)
Anyway, the report went something like this. Although my memory may be a little shaky, everything about this report is true.
RECAP: About halfway up the mountain, I came across a real hunters’ camp. It was beautiful! Just like one of the illustrations of a hunting camp in an outdoor magazine. There were big white-wall tents, men walking around in their beautiful hunting gear, big four-wheel drive vehicles — oh, it was absolutely wonderful! When the hunters saw me, pumping my bike up the mountain in quest of my very first deer, they thought I was the funniest thing they had ever seen, and they started hooting and hollering and teasing me. I said to myself, “You guys, just wait! You’ll be surprised when I get a deer before you do!”Well, just as I crested the top of the mountain, a beautiful four-point buck stepped out of the brush and stood there looking at me. I didn’t know what to do — I’d never shot anything before, but finally I managed to snap off a shot. That deer dropped like a rock! I was amazed! It had been such a difficult shot, too. The rifle was still tied to the handlebars!I rushed over to the deer to look for a bullet hole, but couldn’t find any. Then I noticed a big chunk had been taken out of one of its antlers. I had hit it so hard in the antlers that I had killed it!
My problem then was how to get the deer home, so my grandmother could dress it for me. I somehow managed to drag the deer over to my bicycle. (Deer are a whole lot heavier than you might think.) First, I tried draping it over the rear-fender carrier, but its hind legs dragged on one side and its head and front legs on the other side, so I knew that wouldn’t work. Suddenly, I remembered that I often carried friends of mine astraddle of the rear-fender carrier! Yes! I thought. I twisted the deer up and around and finally got it sitting astraddle of the carrier. Then I tied each of its front legs to either side of the handlebars. Finally, I wiggled in between its legs and got on the seat. I now had the deer’s head draped over my right shoulder.
I started to pedal — it’s a lot harder to pedal with a deer on a bicycle than you might think. Just as the front wheel of my bike went over the crest of the mountain and we started down the steep decline, I heard something strange. I had never heard anything like it before — it sounded kind of like — I don’t know exactly what — kind of like a snort. I turned and looked at the deer. It was blinking its eyes!
Right away, the deer panicked — it’s first time on a bicycle — but there was nothing I could do about that now! The bike was picking up speed and bouncing over rocks and around logs, and the deer was thrashing around and blowing deer slobber all over my face, and it was terrible. Just then, we passed the hunting camp. I could see the hunters were surprised I had gotten a deer before they did.We continued on down the mountain, and suddenly I realized I had made a serious mistake. I had forgotten to tie down the deer’s hind legs. As it thrashed around, it somehow managed to get its hind hooves on the pedals. And then it caught on to pedaling! It started to like it!
Now we were really flying down the mountain! If you think a deer can run fast, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a deer on a bicycle! When we reached the bottom, I threw myself off and lay there on the ground as I watched the deer disappear over the horizon with my bike!Later, I heard that it was shot by police — while holding up a liquor store — in Tacoma, Washington — with my rifle!I think that first deer is the reason I never became a very good hunter.
DR. MCMANUS: I realize analyzing a story kills it a good deal deader than the deer who escaped on my bike. There are, however, a few things I would like to point out about the writing of “My First Deer and Welcome to It”. This version of the story, by the way, is taken from talks I’ve given around the country on various book tours.
First of all, you have to be very careful about getting the deer on the bike. You can, in fact, actually carry a dead deer home on a bicycle. (I have received countless pictures of just such undertakings.) At the start of the story, you must suspend the reader’s disbelief by carefully and logically placing the deer on the bike. Obviously, you can’t dress out the deer beforehand, because then it is never coming back to life! That is why I suggest Pat doesn’t know how to dress out a deer and is leaving that chore for his grandmother. Each step in the story, up to a certain point, must be such that it is believable. And remain so, until the deer gets its hooves on the pedals!
Pat’s lack of understanding is also an element in the humor. The hunters at the camp see this outrageous spectacle go by with a live deer thrashing about on the boy’s bicycle, and he interprets their reaction as surprise that he had got a deer before they did.
Observers come in very handy in humor. But you have to insert them early in the story. You can’t have them pop up suddenly when you need them. So the hunting camp is inserted early enough in this story so that the reader forgets about it until you want to use the line, “I could see the hunters were surprised I had got a deer before they did.”
The interesting thing about using observers in humor is that they are unaware of the complex series of believable steps that have created the weird situation observed. In creating your humor piece, you might want to think about starting with the predicament in which you have placed your character. Perhaps he is clinging to a rain pipe on the second story of an apartment house. Or maybe he is crouched in a compartment under a sink in a stranger’s house. Then you build your story up to the point of discovery, logical step by logical step. At some point, you drift into the totally impossible — the deer starts to pedal the bike — and in a sense, the reader suddenly discovers he or she has been had.