The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1888-07-12
Mlallliomof pilot.
THURSDAY, JULY u.
WlLKIE COLLINS.
How the Great Novelist Writes-Revisins
Story Seven Times.

a story Seven Times.
Collins is the novelist of construc
| ton; and plot and character and incl
| dent are always the development from
a central dramatic idea, 1.-The pivot on
| which the story turns" as in ''The
| Woman in White" the substitution of
one woman for another in a lunatic
asylum. and in 'sThe Moonstone," the
projection of an eastern jewel. with the
superstititious devotion of it's attend
ant priests, into mOdern-civiliZed soci-
ETY.. This idea settled, he weayes his
plot, selects his characters, builds up
his incidents, all with reference to 1t,
and above all things writes one con-
tinuous story, and not two or three al
ternating stories in one. This makes
him indifferent to methods of publica-
ton, for as he means to keep up an I'M
tagging interest throughout, he ex-
poets to hold his reader, whether to sit
up all night to finish the volume, as
many of of them complain to him, or
from week to week or month to month.
His first aim and chief difficulty is to
begin at the beginning" so that the
story tells itself straight on to its pre-
determined end without barking back,
and he thinks many novelists who aim
to be artists much too careless about
this. Sometimes he has written out
the latter part of his book first, and
the first almost last of all, with this in
view. He never transfers real peo-
pie, and seldom real places or Incl
dents, to his books, yet he has found
that no one can invent name, and a
new book often brings protests from
more than one correspondent against
too close copies or misleading per-
visions OF what Ihey suppose to be mis-
originals. One outraged Frenchman,
who saw himself in a particularly I'M
pleasant villain, kindly offered, if Mr..
| Collins would come to Paris, to meet
him with pistols and seconds at the
| care.
Mr.. Collins never spares himself.
and takes minute pains with the details
| of his work Most of his novels, by
the time they reach publication in
| book form, have been written or re-
| vised seven times; the first writing; q
| revision next day before the autograph
manuscript goes to cOpyist; a second
and third revision upon the cOpyist's
manuscript; fourth on the proof;
fifth on the printers ''revise;n a final
revision after the story has appeared
| in periodical as it is made ready for
Il book. 1t is this hard writing which
makes easy reading and good English.
| Nowadays he restricts himself to four
hours, and those of daylight, but in
| former times he wrote almost con-
tinuously, spurred on by the eager de-
light of the work itself When he be-
gan, his fayolite hours were from near
midnight to just before dawn; but
ghosts cured him of that. They
used to accompany him upstairs as he
gave up work for bed, and a
| particular green woman with tusk
teeth stood ut the turn, and said good
night by biting a piece out of his
shoulder. He gave them good rid
dance by reyolutionizing his hours of
work, and now the latter part of the
day is apt to be given up to novel
reading, for he is a catholic customer
for his fellOW-craftsmen's wares, en-
| Toying them us a reader and not as q
critic. Believing that novel should
be, first of all, story, he thinks Cooper
the great American tictionist, and Won
| y
author of the Misunderstanding stories
and sea tales "a writer for boys" His
aim has been to follow any successful
story with one of entirely different
kind and scene, as when mo Name"
| followed The Woman in White The
success of these books was indeed enor-
nous. On one of them he was paid
$4,000 for book form alone, and the
next, which proved to be ''Armadale,n
was secured by rival publisher who
offered $4,000 before the book was out
lined or line written. No such prices
seem to be paid for novels now as then,
but it has not been given to this gener-
alton, as to its fathers, to welcome
within triad of years QS59-61) such
books as The VirginianS'' and
Phillip "a Tale of Two Cities and
Great Expectations, adam Beden
and The Mill on the Floss" white
Lies and The Cloister and the
| Hearth" The Bertrams'' and Fran
| ley Parsonage and The Woman in
| White, "A Il. B0eCber, IN Ha9per'S
| Magazine.