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[FONT="]Why Koontz is one of my literary heroes[/FONT][FONT="]:
[/FONT]
[FONT="]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="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]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="]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="]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="]
[/FONT][FONT="]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="]
[/FONT][FONT="]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="]
[/FONT][FONT="]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="]crazy talent plus crazy luck--the other--crazy determination.[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]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.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]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="] 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.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Cue Eye of the Tiger.[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT][FONT="]This story also works with Jack Higgins in the role of Koontz, and Frederic Forsyth in the role of King.[/FONT]
[FONT="]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="]can see how upgra[FONT="]ding elements A, B, and C, can be enough to hide the deficiencies of D and E.
[FONT="]Love it.[/FONT]
[/FONT][/FONT] [/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]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="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]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="]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="]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="]
[/FONT][FONT="]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="]
[/FONT][FONT="]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="]
[/FONT][FONT="]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="]crazy talent plus crazy luck--the other--crazy determination.[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]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.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]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="] 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.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Cue Eye of the Tiger.[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT][FONT="]This story also works with Jack Higgins in the role of Koontz, and Frederic Forsyth in the role of King.[/FONT]
[FONT="]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="]can see how upgra[FONT="]ding elements A, B, and C, can be enough to hide the deficiencies of D and E.
[FONT="]Love it.[/FONT]
[/FONT][/FONT] [/FONT]
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