Beginnings, "Human Things," and the Magical Moment

KEYNOTE ADDRESS BEGINNINGS, "HUMAN THINGS," AND THE MAGICAL MOMENT Betsy Byars No project is undertaken with greater hope and a deeper sense of insecurity than the writing of a book. I once heard an author say, "I write the first sentence and trust to God Almighty for the second." Also, I'll never forget Robert Benchley telling that once, when he couldn't think of anything to write, a friend told him to sit down at the typewriter, type the word the, and wait. He did that, stared at the word the for an hour, typed "hell with it," and got up and left. I have begun my books in at least a dozen different ways . After the Goat Man began with a newspaper article. A highway was coming through the area in which I live, and this part of West Virginia is a rural, coal-mining area; the people have lived back in the hills for hundreds of years. These people were being displaced by the new highway, and it was a tragic thing. Every week there would be stories about people who were fighting to save their homes. The story that seemed the most poignant to me was a man known as the Goat Man because of the goats he kept. As soon as I saw his picture in the newspaper, I knew I would do a book about that. The 18th Emergency began in my girlhood. I went to a country school, and the terrors of the school were the Fletcher brothers. Everyone — including the teachers and principal — was terrified of them. I can't remember anything that the Fletcher brothers actually did, but the thought of what they might do kept me awake. at night. Later I consolidated the Fletcher brothers into the dreaded Marv Hammerman of The 18th Emergency. Actually I wanted to call the bully Fletcher, but those Fletcher boys are still out there somewhere. The Pinballs actually began with an outline, or as much of an outline as I ever have done with a book. I never make outlines because I rarely have enough knowledge of my story to do that. The story grows as I write, and I have never done a book that didn't take some surprising turn as the story developed . So, the first chapter of The Pinballs was my outline. I set up the situation and the characters, and I intended that this information, which I needed to have straight in my own mind, would later be revealed to the reader through the story, and I could throw away the first chapter. I was never able to do that. The first chapter set the tone, the style of the book, and I realised that the important thing was not revealing, through the story, what had happened to the characters, but what they were going to do about it. So that opening sentence, "One summer two boys and a girl went to a foster home to live together," was never changed. When I actually have my book under way at last, I think the things that give me the greatest pleasure are the characters themselves. None of my characters are real people, but I frequently see people — strangers — who interest me and become part of my book. I once saw two old twins in South Carolina in a grocery store. They were in their seventies, and they were dressed exactly alike; this fascinated me. I knew as soon as I saw them that I would put them in a book, and when I was writing The Pinballs, I wanted one of the characters, Thomas J, to have an odd family, and it seemed to me that he could hardly have an odder family than eighty-two year old twins who were still dressing alike. On occasion a character is so strong that she actually takes over the book and pulls it her way. I did a book some years ago called Trouble River which you haven't seen, and I'll tell you why. It's the pioneer story of a boy and his grandmother who have to escape from the Indians. The only way of escape is a...