"The Dean" or "Work at writing till you drop and then some"

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dondomat

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[FONT=&quot]Why Koontz is one of my literary heroes[/FONT][FONT=&quot]:
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[FONT=&quot]Koontz was a writer eminently unsuited for writing fat bestselling thrillers, who year by year, with grim determination, developed a series of tricks and techniques with which to force himself to become a writer of said fat bestselling thrillers.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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[FONT=&quot]He started out as a paperback sci-fi/suspense/heist guy, churning out half a dozen or more books a year. He was, broadly speaking, in the Frederic Brown/Robert Bloch/Philip Jose Farmer/Clifford Simak continuum. His sci-fi—like a jolly good second-rate Philip K Dick or Harlan Ellison; his fantasy—like a fairly good third rate Ray Bradbury; his tales of suspense—like a second-rate Robert Bloch; his heist adventures and war novels and erotica and…[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]But while he was still young enough, he realized that a) he would never be a 1st class author in the fields of Philip K Dick or Robert Bloch or Ray Bradbury, or John D. Macdonald and b) that he would have to write a dozen second rate paperbacks every year for the rest of his life, in order to remain very modestly solvent.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Also, he realized that all the energy and effort that goes into writing ten paperbacks a year can be focused into one (or two) more complex, more epic novels. It was the right decision—eventually, just one complex novel from the later 1980’s would outsell all his 1960’s and 1970’s paperbacks put together—but for that to happen the effort was very, very, intense.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]His first try at an “airport bestseller” was an international thriller—Dragonfly (1975)—about spies and the cold war and shit, but it bombed. Of course it bombed. It’s not his scene.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]From then on he writes in THE Dean Koontz style—complex thrillers about psychopaths, the paranormal, b-film sci-fi, and combinations of those. So he starts gathering speed. He teaches himself more and more tricks which gradually raise the impact of his books. His genetic leanings are into baroque, weird prose in dreamy science fiction settings, but he enforces incredible discipline upon this creative core.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]He does not have King’s natural talent for the “weird bestseller” type of literature, but he has absolutely relentless determination. Nightchills, The Face of Fear, Vision come out in the second half of the 1970’s; then the first fat paperback bestsellers—The Key to Midnight, Funhouse, Whispers—then maintaining this level, consolidating the hard-won technique and stylistic gains with The House of Thunder, Phantoms, Darkfall, etc., and finally, in 1986, after 18 years and 50 books—Strangers—his most complex and bombastic thing yet, the first hardcover bestseller that hits the NYT list and from then on he’s shoulder to shoulder with Stephen King in terms of sales. And then one further.

Only King started with a bang with book one, while Koontz had to work and work until his bang came with book fifty-one. King had a hundred films and serials made off his stuff, while Koontz--one fifth that. One had [FONT=&quot]crazy talent plus crazy luck--the other--crazy determination.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]The public-relations legend about Mr. Koontz and the five-year agreement with his gracious wife is worded in ways that make the casual reader jump to the conclusion that his success came after two years as a full-time writer. No, his ability to hang on by his fingernails while writing unending paperbacks about spaceships and witches and cops and robbers is what happened then. His actual success—recognition and financial security—came after 18 years and 50 books.
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[FONT=&quot]Again, for King this happened with book one, and he had natural talent for this type of literature. Koontz had to work like twenty Kings rolled into one, to gradually develop a method which would allow him—a fairly good writer of modest 1950’s type of pulp[FONT=&quot] fare[/FONT] and with no or little natural aptitude for the modern fat blockbuster (nor for non-awkward dialogue, for that matter)—to transcend his limitations and become the absolute best.
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[FONT=&quot]Cue Eye of the Tiger.[/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT=&quot]This story also works with Jack Higgins in the role of Koontz, and Frederic Forsyth in the role of King.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I also find it difficult to channel my initial writerly impulses into something more structured. This is why, in a very practical sense, studying Koontz (and Higgins), is more useful to me, than studying King (and Forsyth). I can see the tricks that develop with time to compensate the natural drawbacks of the style. I [FONT=&quot]can see how upgra[FONT=&quot]ding elements A, B, and C, can be enough to hide the deficiencies of D and E.

[FONT=&quot]Love it.[/FONT]
[/FONT][/FONT] [/FONT]
 
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Jamesaritchie

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Well, it wasn't quite that bad. Koontz was earning a very decent living as a writer only three years after starting. A good living, by any realistic standard. His wife agreed to support both of them for five years, but she only had to do so for three.

I'm pretty sure Demon Seed was his first bestseller, and it came in 1973. It sold more than two million copies. He rewrote it completely and sold it again in 1997, but that first version was turned into a film, and sold a LOT of copies. Believe me, two millions copies is not only a bestseller, it's a bestseller anyone would love to have. http://www.deankoontz.com/demon-seed-from-the-author/

He also had at least three other books before Strangers that were not only bestsellers, but that sold more than a million copies each. Whispers, published in 1980, is considered his breakout novel, and was a huge bestseller.

1986 was simply the first he had a hardcover bestseller on the list, which doesn't mean much. By that time, his pseudonyms had already made him rich. These books were later released again with teh name Dean Koontz on the covers, and hit bestseller status again. Because of this, many think the books were written much later than they really were.

I'm a huge admirer of Koontz. I think he's a better writer than King. But he did not go eighteen years and fifty-six novels without having bestseller, and he was making very decent money only three years after he started writing. He was never hanging on by his finegrnails, he was selling millions of copies, and getting films deals, very early on.

Had Koontz stopped writing before Strangers even came out, he still would have been a rich and successful writer, and with a career any of us would love to come close to.

And while it was King's first published novel that made him famous, he also had to write four unpublished ones before Carrie was released.
 

Lhowling

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I'm pretty sure Demon Seed was his first bestseller, and it came in 1973. It sold more than two million copies. He rewrote it completely and sold it again in 1997, but that first version was turned into a film, and sold a LOT of copies. Believe me, two millions copies is not only a bestseller, it's a bestseller anyone would love to have. http://www.deankoontz.com/demon-seed-from-the-author/

I love Demon Seed.
 

Axl Prose

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Koontz is one of my all time favorites. He really hit his stride in the 80's. I thought he had a little drop off in the 90's, then hit another stride in the 2000's. The Face, The Taking, Velocity, Frankenstein (the first original three), loved all those.

But honestly, all the stuff the OP talks about, that's really how I think it works most of the time. Write. Get better at writing. Find out what you are good at. Find out what your readers like. Keep writing.
 

dondomat

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Demon Seed became a bestseller in 1977, after the film came out, but yeah, perhaps I did pile on teh drama :e2violin:

I'm very glad he didn't stop before Strangers but continued. BTW, that's also his watershed shift from outliner to pantser. Starting with this book he just wades in...

Possibly after 30-40 more novels so will I, haha. For now, not just outlining, but super-duper-hyper outlining.
 
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Jamesaritchie

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If I had an idol in writing among modern writer, Ray Bradbury would be head and tale above the others, but Dean Koontz would be up there in the top five, and that's saying something. I really enjoy King's stories, but I'm not at all sure he'd be in the top ten.

Have you listened to the podcasts on Dean Koontz's website? All are highly informative, and some are hilarious. Start with number one, and listen to them in order. http://www.deankoontz.com/audiovideo
 

dondomat

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Ha, I just swung by because I remembered this thread as my mind drifted while I tried to figure out how to harness two minor characters with greater efficiency into the current project's plot...and I find a podcast recommendation.

Thanks, Jamesaritchie, I'm on it; starting with number one, as recommended.

But I returned because I suddenly figured out what had settled into my subconscious mind and made me view Dean's career as I do.

This bit is from his afterword to Whispers (1980), a book he says he wrote in 1979:
Although I had been a full-time writer for several years, though I had a file drawer full of good reviews, I had never enjoyed a best-seller and, in fact, had never known enough financial security to guarantee that I would always be able to earn a living at my chosen art and craft. Writing novels was the only work for which I’d ever had a passion. Although I put in sixty- and seventy-hour weeks at the typewriter, I worried that I might eventually have to find new work.
/..../
When the book was delivered to the publisher, I was asked to slash the manuscript in half. I was told that the story was too long and that I was “a mid-list suspense writer” who had overreached. The publisher was smart, successful, and perceptive, but I felt that this particular judgment was wrong. Although I desperately needed to be paid for the acceptance of the manuscript, I found only five pages to cut out of eight hundred pages of manuscript, less than one percent, and I declined to delete any more.
/..../
At last, the publisher reluctantly accepted the book and issued it without enthusiasm in a small printing of 7,000 hardcovers, which wasn’t enough to put even one copy in every bookstore. Fortunately, I was kept afloat by a motion-picture rights sale, a bookclub sale, and the enthusiasm of a paperback publisher who believed WHISPERS could be a major success.
This bit is from his afterword to Strangers (1986), a book he likely wrote in 1985:

When I began STRANGERS, I had enough money in the bank to live for six or eight months, which was the length of time I expected that I would need to write an approximately 500-page manuscript. This was madness. Money never lasts as long as it ought to, and books can seldom be finished when you expect. Six months later, working 60-hour weeks, having amassed 450 manuscript pages, I realized that I hadn’t yet reached the midpoint of the novel.
/..../
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.
And this bit is from his afterword to Midnight (1989), a book he likely wrote in 1988:

My agent said, “Honey, just be grateful you’ll get rich from all this before it’s over.” I said that I had already made more money from writing than I’d ever dreamed of earning, and I tried to explain that I wanted a larger audience because communication mattered to me, because I wanted to touch hearts in the way that mine had been touched–and changed–by novelists when I was a lonely child growing up in the threatening shadow of a violent alcoholic father. She said, “That’s very sweet,” but there was an unmistakable note of impatience in her voice.
Now, in 1979 (after 11 years of writing 40 speculative and thriller short paperbacks, and 1-2 fat ones), it sounds as if the household has the income equivalent of a neither-here-nor-there day-job, where a delay in payment is already a potential catastrophe. In 1985 (after five years of consistently well-selling fat thriller/horror paperbacks), it sounds as if the household has the income equivalent of a fairly good day-job, where a year without new major payments, on savings and royalties alone, is possible; while in 1988 (after two years of hardcover bestsellers), it sounds as if permanent financial security has already been achieved, or has been as-good-as achieved, once the payments on Midnight start coming in.

I guess this is the type of implied info that made me view the man's career through the stages of early back-breaking work for crappy pay, then a bit later for better pay, then, after book 50--the utter success.

OK, now that I've managed to unearth this from the basement of my mind, I'm going back to writing and listening to the podcast.
 
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