By Stephen KingFrom "On Writing"
By the time I started my first novel, Carrie, I had landed a job teaching English in the town of Hampden, Maine. I would be paid about $6500 a year, which seemed an unthinkable sum after earning $1.60 an hour at my previous job in a laundry.
By the late winter of 1973 we were living in a double-wide trailer in Hermon, a little town west of Bangor. I was driving a Buick with transmission problems we couldn’t afford to fix, my wife, Tabby, was working at Dunkin’ Donuts and we had no telephone.
I wasn’t having much success with my writing. By most Friday afternoons I felt as if I’d spent the week with jumper cables clamped to my brain. If asked what I did in my spare time, I’d tell people I was writing a book- what else does any self-respecting creative writing teacher do with his or her spare time? And of course I’d lie to myself, telling myself it wasn’t too late, there were novelists who didn’t get started until they were, 50, hell, even 60. Probably plenty of them.
My wife made a crucial difference during those two years I spent teaching at Hampden (and washing sheets at New Franklin Laundry during the summer vacation.) If she had suggested that the time I spent writing stories was wasted, I think a lot of the heart would have gone out of me. Tabby never voiced a single doubt, however. Her support was a constant, one of the few good things I could take as a given. And whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, There’s some one who knows. Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.
I had problems with Carrie, not feeling at home with my all-girl cast. I had landed on Planet Female, and one sortie into the girls’ locker room at Brunswick High School years before wasn’t much help in navigating there. I couldn’t see wasting two weeks, maybe even a month, creating a novella I didn’t like and wouldn’t be able to sell. So I threw it away.
The next night, when I came home from school, Tabby had the pages. She’d spied them while emptying my wastebasket, shaken the cigarette ashes off the crumpled balls of paper, smoothed them out and sat down to read them. She wanted me to go on with it, she said. She wanted to know the rest of the story. I told her I didn’t know jack about high school girls. She said she’d help me with that part. She had her chin tilted down and was smiling in that severely cute way of hers. “You’ve got something here,” she said. “I really think you do.”
Four months later the manuscript of Carrie went off to the book publisher, Doubleday, where I had made a friend named William Thompson. I pretty much forgot about it moved on with my life.
My free period that semester was, right after lunch. I usually spent it in the teachers’ room, grading papers and wishing I could stretch out on the couch and take a nap- in the early afternoon I have all the energy of a boa constrictor that’s just swallowed a goat.
On one afternoon the intercom came on and Colleen Sites in the office asked me to come to the office. I had a phone call. My wife.
The walk from the teachers’ room in the lower wing to the main office seemed long even with classes in session and the halls mostly empty. I hurried, not quite running, my heart beating hard. Tabby would have had to dress the kids in their boots and jackets to use the neighbors’ phone, and I could think of only two reasons she might have done so. Either one of our kids had fallen off the stoop and broken a leg, or I had sold Carrie.
My wife, sounding out of breath and deliriously happy, read me a telegram. Bill Thompson (who would later go on to discover a Mississippi scribbler named John Grisham) had sent it after trying to call, and discovering the Kings no longer had a phone. “Congratulations,” it read. “Carrie officially a Doubleday book. Is $2500 advance okay? The future lies ahead. Love, Bill.”
Although my little high school horror novel was accepted in late March or early April of 1973, publication wasn’t slated until spring of 1974. This wasn’t unusual. In those days Doubleday was an enormous fiction mill churning out mysteries, romances, science-fiction yarns and westerns at a rate of 50 or more a month, all of this in addition to a robust frontlist- including books by heavy hitters like Leon Uris and Allen Drury. I was only one small fish in a very busy river.
Tabby asked if I could quit teaching. I told her no, not based on a $2500 advance and only nebulous possibilities beyond that. If I’d been on my own, maybe (hell, probably). But with a wife and two kids? Not happening.
I remember the two of us lying in bed the night of the telegram, eating toast and talking until the small hours of the morning. Tabby asked me how much we’d make if Doubleday was able to sell paperback reprint rights to Carrie, and I said I didn’t know. I’d read that Mario Puzo had just scored a huge advance for paperback rights to The Godfather- $400,000 according to the newspaper- but I didn’t believe Carrie would fetch anything near that, assuming it sold to paperback at all.
The Editor Who Discovered Both
Stephen King and John Grisham
By: James Gray
Two years ago, at breakfast in a Holiday Inn restaurant in Memphis, novelist John Grisham signed a copy of the hardcover edition of “A Time to Kill” and gave it to a friend. The inscription amounted to only ten words, but it said plenty about Grisham’s regard for the recipient. He wrote: “To Bill Thompson, the guy who got it all started.”
The words were a fitting tribute not only to a friendship, but to the vital role a veteran editor played in launching the author’s career.
It was William G. “Bill” Thompson who first saw Grisham’s potential and helped him fulfill it. In 1987, while editor at Wynwood Press in New York, Thompson received the original manuscript of “A Time to Kill.” He accepted it and began working with Grisham on the rewrite, helping him reshape it into a stronger and better novel. The Wynwood Press edition of “A Time to Kill” was published in 1988, and though lack of promotion and negative market factors prevented its commercial success, its publication brought Grisham considerable attention and helped spur him toward completion of another novel- this one titled “The Firm.”
The ensuing success of “The Firm” and other Grisham novels is testimony to his talent. But, as with most successful writers, there was an element of luck involved when Grisham’s manuscript reached Thompson’s desk. A less perceptive editor might have passed it by, but Thompson’s gift is a remarkable eye for spotting literary talent, even when it’s buried in the usual verbosity of a first novel. As a case-in-point, while working as an editor for Doubleday in 1973, he fought hard for a manuscript from a previously rejected but tenacious young writer from Maine. It took time and persistence, but eventually he got enough support from colleagues that he was able to offer Stephen King a contract for a chilling novel titled “Carrie.”
While at Doubleday, Thompson was King’s editor for his first seven novels. When King left Doubleday, Thompson worked at other publishing houses with authors such as former president Richard Nixon, mystery writer Elmore Leonard, Peter Straub, and others. His career includes stints at G.P. Putnam and Arbor House, as well as Wynwood Press, which he started from the ground up and where Grisham’s first novel appeared one day, over the transom.
What advice does the person who discovered King and Grisham give to an undiscovered novelist or short story writer? During a recent telephone interview, Thompson offered five points that can help get you started in the right direction.
Find a niche. “I think writers must specialize more today, which is a change from the time when Stephen King broke in. I once gave him some advice- that he avoid typecasting by trying his hand in something other than horror- but he, fortunately, didn’t take it. That same advice now would probably be inappropriate for a new fiction writer. Your best chance at break in is to pick a genre that you like and are comfortable with- mystery, suspense, romance, horror, science fiction, etc.- and concentrate on making your mark there.”
Get the job done. “Take a disciplined, professional approach to your work. Write something every day you possibly can, even when you’d rather do anything else but write. It’s tough work, and the only compensation is a feeling of satisfaction as you watch those pages pile up. Then, once that first draft is completed, you can really begin to work toward an even more satisfying end- rewriting, revising, and organizing the manuscript into a finished product. But don’t make the mistake of sending your book to an agent or publisher before it’s actually ready. Your story line may be interesting, but it doesn’t translate into potential sales until it’s wrapped up in a full-size, polished, marketable manuscript. Then you have something to offer.”
Become a student of the market. “I believe a writer must travel two paths- one that’s creative and ends with a finished manuscript, and one in the real world of business that leads to opportunities to sell your work. Keep up-to-date on what’s happening in publishing through Publisher’s Weekly and other trade papers and journals. Look for any trends in the best-seller lists- such as female detectives, books on angels, political exposes, etc.- and try to anticipate what might be next. And if you don’t get it right, don’t worry. Publishers have been trying to figure it out for years.
“Also study The Literary Marketplace, which lists not only publishers, but book packagers, agents and other players in the publishing industry. Write to a number of publishers- those that seem to you the best bets for your manuscript- and ask for submission guidelines. And always remember to include an SASE when writing to an agent or publisher.”
Start small. “Sure, it’s possible that you’ll write a blockbuster, get a top agent, sign a three-book contract with a major publisher, land a lucrative movie deal, and be set for life. But that’s a good example of the fantasy category, and while there’s nothing to prevent your trying for the jackpot, you’ll probably enhance your chance of publication if you also investigate the small presses and regional publishers who can’t pay much, but who care a great deal about their writers. Just be very wary of an offer from the publisher who loves your work, but wants you to pay for its publication.”
Finally, stick to it. "Perseverance is vital in any worthwhile endeavor, but particularly in the writing of fiction. Stephen King is an excellent example. He sent several manuscripts to Doubleday without success, and was on the verge of giving up. But he decided to give one more try to a manuscript that essentially even he had rejected. That manuscript evolved into Carrie, and it signaled the beginning of a phenomenal career.”
Today Thompson works as an Editorial Consultant in New York. His eye for talent is a sharp as ever, and he confesses to a feeling of excitement whenever he receives new manuscript. Who knows? In the envelope may lie the work of the next King or Grisham. And if it is there, you can be sure he will recognize it.
