Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-02-19
WILKIE COLLINS
TELLS THE SECRET OF THE EA-
NOUS WOMAN IN WHITE"

The Great Novelist Writes to At Ameri-
can Lady About His Methods Of Work.
He Describes the Building of the Story.
The Title.
You ask me, frankly, to tell you how
write my books, and you express an opinion
that other persons besides yourself may be in
terested in the result if I comply with your
request. am not at all sure that have the
honor Of agreeing with you Ny own inn
preston is that the public cares little how
books are written. II the books are easy to
get, and if they prove to be interesting, the
general reader asks for nothing more. You
assert, upon this, that there is but one way Of
Eleciding which is the sound opinion, yours OF
ynine, and that way is-to try the expert
ment. Your will is law. Let the experiment
be tried.
All my novels are produced by the same
literary method. II we take one book as an
example, shall perhaps be able to make my
self more readily understood, and shall GER
tainly occupy less Of your time. When l
think of the claims of the toilet, the claims
of the shops, the claims Of conversation, the
claims of horse exercise and claims Of chat
to say nothing of hundreds of other smaller
occupations-my respect for the value of
your time is part Of my respect for yourself.
Which book shall We choose as specimen?
SHALL it be the most popular booka Very
well. l have now to tell you how wrote
1.-THE Woman in White"
Ny first proceeding is to get my central
tdea-the pivot on which the story turns.
The central idea Of 1.-The Woman in White"
is the idea of a conspiracy in private life, in
which circumstances are so handled as to rob
a woman of her identity by confounding her
with another woman sufficiently like her in
personal appearance to answer the wicked
purpose The destruction of her identity
represents first division of the story; the
recovery of her identity marks second di-
vision.
My central idea next suggests some of my
chief characters. A clever devil must con-
duct the conspiracy. Male devil or female
devil! The sort of wickedness wanted seems
to be mans wickedness Perhaps foreign
man. Count Fosco family shows himself to
me before know his name. let him wait
and begin to think about the two women.
They must be both innocent and both inter
esting Lady Clyde dawns on me as one of
the innocent victims. I try to discover the
fail try what a walk will do
for me-and fail devote the evening to
new effort-and fail. Experience tells me to
take no more trouble about it, and leave that
other woman to come of her own accord.
The next morning, before have been awake
in nv bed for more than ten minutes, my
perverse brain set to work without consulting
me Poor Anne Catherick comes into the
room and says: TRY me-"
have got an idea; have got three of my
characters. What is there to do now? My
next proceeding is to begin building up the
story.
Here my favorite three efforts must be en-
First effort-to begin at the be-
ginning Second effort-to keep the story
always advancing without paying the small
est attention to the serial division in parts or
to the book publications in volumes. Third
decide on the end All this is done,
IS my father used to paint his skies in his ia
nous sea pieces, at one heat. Asyet I do not
enter into details; l merely set up my land
marks In doing this the main situations of
the story present themselves, and at the same
time | see my characters in all sorts of new
aspects. These discoveries lead me nearer
and nearer to finding the right end. The end
being decided on, go back again to the be-
ginning and look at it with a new eye and fail
to be satisfied with it. l have yielded to the
worst temptation that besets a novelist-the
to begin with @ striking incident,
without counting the cost in the shape of ex-
plantations that must and will follow These
pests Of fiction, to reader and writer alike,
can only be eradicated in one way l have
already mentioned the way-to begin at the
In the case of "The Woman in
White" l get back las vainly believe) to the
true starting point of the story. l lam now at
liberty to set the new novel going, having,
let me repeat, no more than an outline of
story and characters before me and leaving
the details in each case to the spur of the
For a week, as well as I can remember,
work for the best part of every day. but not
as happily as usual. An unpleasant sense of
wrong worries me. At the begin
ming Of the second week disheartening dis
coverv reveals itself have not found the
right beginning of "The Woman in White
yet.
The scene of my opening chapters is in Cum
Clyde; Mr. Fairlie, with his irritable
nerves and his art treasures: Miss Halcombe
discovered suddenly, like Anne Catherickl,
are all waiting the arrival of the young
drawing master, Walter Hartright No:
this won't do. The person to be first intro
1uced is Anne Catherick She must he
already familiar figure to the reader, when
he reader accompanies me to Cumberland
This is what must be DONE but don't sec
low to do it; no new idea comes to me;
and my manuscript have auarreled and
lont speak to each other. One evening I
,appen to read of a lunatic who has escaped
rom an asylum-a paragraph of few lines
,nly, in a newspaper. Instantly the idea
zones to me of Walter Hartright's midnight
Meeting with Anne Catherick, escaped from
he asylum .'The Woman in White" begins
'gain, and nobody will never be half as much
Interested in it now as l am. From that
moment ! have done with my miseries For
he next six months the pen goes on. 1t is
york, hard work, but the harder the better,
or this excellent reason: the work is its own
great reward.
As an example of the gradual manner in
which l reached the development of charac-
er may return to a moment to Fosco The |
making him fat was an afterthought; his |
anaries end his white mice were found next, |
md the most valuable discovery of all, his |
dmiration of Miss Halcombe. took its rise in |
conviction that he would not be true to ma |
ure unless there was some weak point some
shere in bis character.
Ny last difficulty tried me after the story
lad been finished and part Of it had been set |
Up in proof for serial publication in All the |
fear Round Neither 1 nor any friend /
vhom consulted could find the right title /
literally at the eleventh hour thought Of
The Woman in White" h various quarters
his was declared 10 be vile uelodramatic
tile that would ruin the book. Among the
cry few friends who encouraged me, the frs.