Strangers by Dean Koontz
decided th selling books based on samples and outlines was a grave mistake
After drawing a contract, the publisher and editor had a year eighteen months to think about the outline, to build expectations what sort of book it would be, to create this glorious gleaming in age of the book in their heads. Consequently, when the script wa at last delivered, and when it was inevitably different from the idea of what the book was going to be, their enthusiasm sagge The novel might not be inadequate in any way, might even be in measurably better than the con-job story that had been tricked u in an outline to cage a contract, might be written with passion an narrative energy, but the very fact that it didn’t match expectatior was a mark against it; its lovely difference doomed it.
Not in a state of full sanity, I planned to write a novel on spe even though a contract was offered. I dreamed of writing a boc that would be big in narrative scope and theme, that would t stuffed with interesting characters, that would rivet the reader wil twists and turns and mystery and wonder, that would be TH BEST DAMN BOOK EVER WRITTEN. Yes, of course, that is a absurd goal, overweening ambition of the most deplorably weer ing sort, especially as The Little Engine That Could had alread been published and had established a literary pinnacle that no mo tal writer will ever achieve again. Nevertheless, writing is hard—even if at times filled with joy—that it doesn’t make muc sense to set out to write a mediocre book or even a reasonable good book. Besides, each time you set out to write the best dam book ever written, and each time that you inevitably fail to write i you automatically motivate yourself to do better the next time, get closer to the grail. Anyway, my intention was to deliver a sto that would so surprise and delight a publisher that guarantees of bestseller-size hardcover printing and an equivalent advertisi budget would be obtainable in the contract.
When I began Strangers, I had enough money in the bank live for six or eight months, which was the length of time I ex pected that I would need to write an approximately five hundre page manuscript. This was madness. Money never lasts as long a it ought to, and books can seldom be finished when you expect. Si months later, working sixty-hour weeks, having amassed 450 ma uscript pages, I realized that I hadn’t yet reached the midpoint the novel. I had begun writing without an outline, without plo notes, with the identities of my two main characters vaguely fixe in mind, and otherwise with only a situation and certain theme that engaged me emotionally and intellectually. This plunge-off-the-cliff approach was enormously liberating and inspired creative exuberance. My male and female leads came alive for me, and soon I had a cast of twelve major characters in a story of far greater complexity than anything I had tackled before. Instead of six months, I required eleven months and three weeks to complete the novel. Somehow my wife, Gerda, stretched the money, somehow we found double the window of time I thought I could afford to write unpaid. I’m sure we experienced moments when finances were shaky, but I don’t remember any; all I remember is the thrill I felt as the novel came together better day by day, taking on a life of its own, sweeping me into a narrative tornado so that I seemed to be not the creator but a full participant in the storm.
When I delivered Strangers, the publisher reacted as I hoped. The script was read on a weekend; Monday we received an offer two and a half times greater than the amount I had been paid for my previous book. Furthermore, guarantees were made as to print run and advertising budget. I accepted. I celebrated. I bought an antique spoon.
Now to the incontrovertible second proof of my departure from full sanity. Because Strangers was so long, and because the length would add typesetting, paper, and shipping costs to the publication budget, I was offered an additional six-figure amount that would be payable only if I could cut the manuscript by 30 percent. This bonus, after taxes, was enough to cover our living expenses for two years—which is a tempting amount of freedom. (It would also have allowed me to order a custom-crafted Jell-O mold in the shape of a jackass; that neighbor was still begging to be Cuisinarted.) After a year of working for nothing, a sane person would have accepted this offer at once. I demurred, explaining that I was so close to the book that I couldn’t see where such drastic cuts could be accommodated.
The publisher graciously acknowledged that she, too, was not entirely sure how this goal could be achieved, and that she found each of the large cast of characters to be essential—making it impossible to cut pages by trimming the cast. She assured me, nevertheless, that the new editor being assigned to me would show me how to slim down the book without damaging it.
The editor was Alan Williams. Charming, intelligent, witty, he came to Strangers with years of experience editing both literary and popular fiction, including many bestsellers. After working six weeks on the manuscript, Alan sent me his line notes, plus his suggested cuts. To trim the manuscript by 30 percent, I would ha needed to lose three hundred pages (as it was 960). Alan’s to suggested cuts amounted to just five pages. He had found the cha acters, story lines, and even the descriptive passages so intertwin narratively and thematically that he didn’t feel he could snip an thing without unraveling the book. But to tweak me, he wro “You will see here and there a suggestion for the deletion of a sometimes as much as a paragraph, totaling about five pages. W these examples as your guide, I’m sure you’ll find another pages in short order.” I thought he was serious, until I phoned in a state of high anxiety and heard his laughter.
I cut Strangers by only ten pages, and I never earned that ad tional six-figure sum; however, this failure to behave in an entire sane and responsible manner eventually paid off. For one thing ended up with the book I wanted, as it had been given to me. warts are warts that either I love or I can live with; I don’t have look at it and wince with regret over lost characters, missi scenes. Furthermore, Strangers became my first hardcover be seller, was well received by critics, and was translated into vir ally all languages except Urdu (but we’re still hopeful that so Urduian publisher will see the light). I have never since given publisher an outline or sample chapter in order to make a deal; contract for three novels of an unknown nature. When I delive book, the publisher discovers what it’s about. Likewise, I have gun every book since Strangers by leaping off that cliff, with litt more than a situation, a character or two, and a core theme.
In an annotated bibliography in The Dean Koontz Companio a book about my work, the bibliographer writes of Strange “Though the novel deals with as many issues and themes as it do characters, it is primarily an exploration of the nature of friendsh in all its permutations ...” This is correct, but Strangers also dea with the themes of love, redemption, hope, and transcendance which all my books are concerned—and with which I am sessed—to this day.
In short, I’m still a little crazy after all these years, and all you readers who have supported my writing have enabled me this pleasant madness. Thank you, and thank God you’re out the