Part 14 (2/2)

I met Roger the first day we were there. He helped us with our luggage. I tried to tip him for helping us with the bags, but he waved the bills away. I guessed Roger to be in his late thirties, maybe a couple of years older. Later, from the window I watched him was.h.i.+ng the cars of residents, which seemed to give him a lot of pleasure. No car wash in the world could do the job as meticulously as Roger did. I saw him doing small repairs around the place. Whenever I pa.s.sed him, I stopped to exchange a sentence or two. I think Roger was slightly r.e.t.a.r.ded, a nice man with a personality a lot more pleasant than most of the people around him who had all their marbles.

Come Sat.u.r.day morning, my wife went down to Roger's apartment again. Still no answer. I thumbed through the Yellow Pages, and after four tries got a plumber who was working on Sat.u.r.days and who promised to show up in an hour. He showed up three hours later, did a quick fix on the dishwasher, but cautioned us that a pipe leading to the dishwasher needed replacing and urged us to tell the superintendent.

I didn't see Roger around at all on Sat.u.r.day.

On Sunday I looked out of our second-story window and saw several policemen cl.u.s.tered around the door of Roger's apartment. I hurried down and was intercepted by a neighbor.

”Roger's dead,” he said.

”Where?”

”In his apartment.”

All I could think was, ”He's so young!” He seemed strong and healthy the way he hoisted our bags.

The policemen weren't saying anything except that the body was still in the apartment and they were waiting for the coroner.

Hours later, from my window I saw the body bag being carried out. By the time I got downstairs, the police were gone.

Two days later I was about to drive out of the underground garage, when I saw Roger and a young girl moving stuff out of his apartment. I thought he was dead! Who was in the body bag?

I stopped the car and got out to tell Roger how glad I was he was alive and to find out what happened. The man had a stammer. I didn't remember Roger stammering.

It turned out that the man was Roger's twin brother, who'd come a distance, and with his daughter's help was piling Roger's belongings onto a pickup truck.

”Not the bed,” the brother said, shaking his head.

From him I learned that Roger had suffered a silent heart attack, probably on Thursday night since he didn't respond to my wife's knock Friday morning. Because he must have felt very cold, Roger put one electric blanket under himself and another on top. He burned all day Friday, Sat.u.r.day, and Sunday.

”The funeral,” the twin brother said, ”will be closed casket.”

If I had started to recount what had happened by saying, ”The superintendent of the building I was staying in burned to death last weekend,” I would have spoiled the story by telegraphing the outcome. That's what we do in life. Our instinct is to give the conclusion first. As storytellers, we have to hold back by telling the story from a consistent point of view-in this case, mine-and showing what happened as I learned about it. I didn't refer to Roger as ”the superintendent.” I called him by his name. I said a couple of things to humanize him. I particularized as often as possible. But most important, I stuck to one point of view. I didn't say more than I found out at any time. I conveyed what I learned in the same order that I learned it, thus giving the entire story a consistent point of view.

In considering suspense, you might want to refer to the following checklist: the same paragraph?

* Can you convert any sentence to a question that will arouse curiosity rather than satisfy it?

In considering the creation of tension in nonfiction, let's keep the difference between tension and suspense in mind. Suspense arouses a feeling of anxious uncertainty in the reader about what might happen, or a hope that something bad won't happen. Tension usually involves the sudden onset of a feeling of stress, strain, or pressure. As I've pointed out earlier, we deplore suspense and tension in life and enjoy them in writing.

Tension can be created by the simple mention of a time or date. ”It was four o'clock in the morning” creates tension because it's an hour when most people are asleep. Therefore, anything that happens at four in the morning is in itself tension producing or could be. It's the ”could be” factor that creates tension in the reader because he expects tension as part of his experience.

Two authors whose books I edited, Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, collaborated on a number of nonfiction ”disaster” books that were hugely successful. They specialized in moment-by-moment reconstructions of cataclysmic events in such books as The Day the World Ended, The San Francisco Earthquake, s.h.i.+pwreck, and Voyage of the d.a.m.ned. Voyage was the story of the luxury liner St. Louis, one of the last s.h.i.+ps to leave n.a.z.i Germany before World War II erupted. We know at the outset that the 937 pa.s.sengers, all Jews fleeing n.a.z.i Germany, are in danger. If Cuba does not let them in, the s.h.i.+p will return its human cargo to the n.a.z.is and many will die. The first chapter is headed Wednesday, May 3, 1939. That prewar date in itself is enough to put tension to work. The second chapter is headed Thursday, May 4, 1939. The tension increases. Therefore, each time a date appears, the reader's pulse quickens. That's tension at work.

Let's examine how tension can be induced in a simple sequence. Here's the way it was originally written: The suspect refused to obey the policeman's order to come out of his automobile.

No tension. Now the same event as edited: The policeman ordered the suspect to come out of his automobile. The suspect didn't move.

What creates the tension is separating the two parts of the action. The separation in the example is momentary. The continuation of tension over paragraphs and pages comes from stretching out a tense situation, often a confrontation between persons or groups. Let's look at the cop and the suspect again: The policeman ordered the suspect to come out of his automobile. The suspect didn't move. Bystanders reported that the officer then drew his gun and in a loud voice said, ”Get out, now!” The suspect shook his head and stayed put.

You can see how stretching out a sequence of acts produces tension that the reader finds pleasurable. Short sentences and short paragraphs help increase tension. A common error is the writer's temptation to rush to a conclusion. In life we savor good experiences and long for them to continue. The rush to end a good experience is counterproductive. The writer must discipline himself to hold back.

Dialogue is an area in which the interests of fiction writers and nonfiction writers diverge. For the novelist, dialogue provides immediacy to a scene and is a major contributor to the experience of fiction. For the writer of articles and books as well as journalism, dialogue is a danger unless one uses direct quotes that sound real and can be substantiated. Those are two quite different matters.

Recording what people actually say does not read well. It is frequently hesitant, wordy, repet.i.tive, and ultimately boring as court transcripts prove. The nonfiction writer has remedies.

If you quote anyone for more than three sentences, that's a speech. Break it up with something visual. It needn't be elaborate: Craig Marshall was the first to speak. ”The issues-count on it-are threefold,” he said. ”In two sections of the village, tap water is the color of, call it mud. Been that way for thirty years and the inc.u.mbents have done nothing about it.” Marshall coughed against his closed fist.

”Item two,” he continued, ”is the traffic nightmare from the sports complex. Anybody in this village has a heart attack when the traffic's letting out can count on the ambulance getting to him in two or three hours.” He looked pointedly at the mayor. ”That's a death sentence for somebody because as far as I can tell the Almighty hasn't given this community an exemption from heart attacks.”

The writer has broken up the quote with seemingly inconsequential things like a cough and looking at somebody. The first interruption humanizes the speaker and adds to the reality. The second-a glance at the mayor-invokes a suspicion of conflict by seeming to blame the mayor for the problems the speaker is talking about.

I saw the first draft, in which the speaker had two windy sentences that contributed absolutely nothing of importance and made the speaker sound like Dwight Eisenhower searching for the end of a sentence. The reporter left them out not to protect the reputation of Mr. Marshall but to prevent his copy from being boring. In reporting spoken words, it is not a writer's obligation to reproduce all of the words as long as the speaker's meaning is preserved.

Few people speak in complete and grammatical sentences. Moreover, perfectly formed sentences often come across to the reader as made up. In this instance, the reporter did a good job of catching the flavor of what was said. In quoting, the writer has to beware of cleaning up a speaker's sentences.

In 1975, just thirty days before Jimmy Hoffa, icon of the Teamsters Union, disappeared from the face of the earth, he came to lunch, bringing along, at my suggestion, the man who was ghosting his autobiography. Hoffa's material had been recorded on tape. The material as spoken by Hoffa was fascinating and colorful. That same material, with Hoffa's rough language cleaned up and sentences straightened out, was unreal and boring. The purpose of the meeting was to insist that the writer restore Hoffa's words, including the expletives and grammatical howlers. I wasn't arguing for a verbatim transcript of the tapes but for a retention of their color, which I succeeded in getting, and which all writers who deal with the spoken words of others should strive for.

When you're reporting the results of an interview, you will likely end up with too much quotation. You want to keep those parts that reveal the character of the speaker or that define subject matter. You want to preserve comments that are confrontational, colorful, or especially appropriate, and ditch the rest.

That brings us to the second matter. Never intentionally misquote. And never invent dialogue.

Invented dialogue is usually a highly visible sign of untrustworthy writing. A few writers of nonfiction commit the same errors as some historical novelists. They provide dialogue that would have been impossible for anyone to record. I know of cases in which books were rejected by editors because some piece of attributed dialogue was so apparently contrived that it cast doubt on the reliability of the author for facts that could not easily be confirmed.

Don't tempt rejection by an editor or a lawsuit from a person quoted inaccurately. If you find yourself inventing dialogue, write a play, novel, or movie.

Guts: The Decisive Ingredient A long time ago I took an oath never to write anything inoffensive.

In working with literally hundreds of authors over a period of many years I concluded that the single characteristic that most makes a difference in the success of an article or nonfiction book is the author's courage in revealing normally unspoken things about himself or his society. It takes guts to be a writer. A writer's job is to tell the truth in an interesting way. The truth is that adultery, theft, hypocrisy, envy, and boredom are all sins practiced everywhere that human nature thrives.

What people who are not writers say to each other in everyday conversation is the speakable. What makes writing at its best interesting is the writer's willingness to broach the unspeakable, to say things that people don't ordinarily say. In fact, the best writers, those whose originality s.h.i.+nes, tend to be those who are most outspoken.

Do shy men and women ever become superb writers? Yes, after overcoming their natural reluctance to say the things they think. Fig leaves have no place on either the bodies or the minds of the best writers. I like the way Red Smith put it: ”There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”

On the issue of candor, is there something nonfiction writers can learn from novelists? Yes, there is hardly anything about the secret, sometimes mischievous, cruel, evil, outrageous, defiant, and glorious acts and thoughts of human beings that has not appeared in the novels of the last few decades. And there is little about the private acts of people that has escaped reporting-and not only in the sensational press. The novelist has it easier. He hides a little-just a little-under the presumption that he is making things up. We all know that the most truth-bearing parts of superior fiction aren't ”made up.” They come from the novelist's observation and understanding of human nature. The nonfiction writer who dares to dare is more exposed. The a.s.sumption of his readers is that he is writing fact. He may have to prove his a.s.sertions to an editor, or worse, to a court. He needs the courage of a soldier or firefighter because often the more he reveals that is interesting to his readers, the more exposed he is. Readers are curious about the inmost secrets of others. The subjects of factual writing-if they are not publicity seekers-don't want anything embarra.s.sing on public display. It is no accident that some of the best nonfiction writing of the century has come from writers who are also experienced novelists.

Mary McCarthy, whose novels brought her fame, early on earned a reputation for keen observation and a sharp tongue for her critical writings. George Orwell's nonfiction is far superior to his fiction and exceptionally outspoken. Critics have called him the best nonfiction writer of this century. V. S. Naipaul's nonfiction, once sampled, will lead you quickly to conclude that he has the courage to see and say what, for instance, politicians almost never say. His nonfiction makes waves by being sharply observant and truthful in territory that frightens off lesser writers. Rebecca West, whom Time magazine called ”indisputably the world's No. 1 woman writer,” started out as a novelist and six decades later was still writing fiction. However, her great reputation rests largely on her shrewd, brave, and intelligent factual writing. Most writers know Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby but haven't read his gutsy nonfiction in The Crack-Up.

Writers read writers, and if being outspoken is a problem for you, I suggest you immerse yourself in the work of the writers I've mentioned, and also try the work of contemporaries like Gore Vidal and Joan Didion, even if it's just to sample how they deal with candor.

Vidal, who has never wanted for vitriol much less candor, begins one piece about Tennessee Williams by pa.s.sing the candor chalice to Williams, whom he quotes saying, ”I particularly like New York on hot summer nights when all the ... uh, superfluous people are off the streets.” Borrowing the candor of another has been useful to Joan Didion also. I quote from Goodbye to All That, a memoir of her pilgrimage to New York when she was twenty-three: I remember once, one cold bright December evening in New York, suggesting to a friend who complained of having been around too long that he come with me to a party where there could be, I a.s.sured him with the bright resourcefulness of twenty-three, ”new faces.” He laughed literally until he choked, and I had to roll down the taxi window and hit him on the back. ”New faces,” he said finally, ”don't tell me about new faces.” It seemed that the last time he had gone to a party where he had been promised ”new faces,” there had been fifteen people in the room, and he had already slept with five of the women and owed money to all but two of the men.

Next let's sample someone not as well known. Gayle Pemberton, a black writer with a Ph.D. from Harvard, wrote about the time she was going broke in Los Angeles on a temporary typist's revenue, and signed up to work for a caterer on three successive weekends. What she later wrote about it made the experience worthwhile: Our caterer was one of a new breed of gourmet cooks who do all preparation and cooking at the client's home-none of your cold-cut or warming-tray catering. As a result, her clients had a tendency to have loads of money and even more kitchen s.p.a.ce.

Usually her staff was not expected to serve the meal, but on this occasion we did. I was directed to wear stockings and black shoes and I was given a blue-patterned ap.r.o.n dress, with frills here and there, to wear. Clearly, my academic lady-banker pumps were out of the question, so I invested in a pair of trendy black sneakers-which cost me five dollars less than what I earned the entire time I worked for the caterer. Buying the sneakers was plainly excessive but I told myself they were a necessary expense. I was not looking forward to wearing the little French serving-girl uniform, though. Everything about it and me were wrong, but I had signed on and it would have been unseemly and downright hostile to jump s.h.i.+p.

One thing I liked about the caterer was her insistence that her crew not be treated as servants- that is, we worked for her and took orders from her, not from the clients, who might find ordering us around an emboldening and socially one-upping experience. She also preferred to use crystal and china she rented, keeping her employees and herself safe from a client's rage in case a family heirloom should get broken. But on this occasion, her client insisted that we use his Baccarat crystal. We were all made particularly nervous by his tone. It was the same tone I heard from a mucky-muck at my studio typing job: cold, arrogant, a matter-of-fact ”you are s.h.i.+t” att.i.tude that is well known to nurses and secretaries.

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