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Floor Plan |  |
The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - Dennis Wheatley’s Writing Technique
Planning the entire story in advance
Dennis Wheatley being interviewed at Eighty
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DW's preparatory pages ('synopses') for 'The Fabulous Valley' (1934), showing (bottom) that DW's work was not always neat
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Discussing his working method on The Book Programme with Robert Robinson in what was probably his final Television interview, DW gave the following answer to the following question:
| RR: | I seem to remember reading somewhere that when you sit down to write, you don't necessarily start at the beginning. |
| DW: |
No, no. What you've got is this. That I do always know exactly what is going to happen. Many, many writers of course don't. They sit down to a typewriter and ... that way, or this sort of thing, and they go on and let the story take charge of itself. This thing I could never understand at all, because I've got a planner's mind, and before I start on a book, I do perhaps six or eight sheets of foolscap, covering about ten or fifteen valleys, as it were, and hills, and then the end - the solution, or not the solution, because they are not detective stories, but the end of the story, and then I get to work. But I know exactly where I'm going, without hesitation. A lot of people don't you know, they just sit down, and the story takes charge. I don't think that's a good idea. |
This method of writing, unusual as it may have been, was an essential element of DW's writing system from his earliest days1 as a professional writer.
When serialising a book, DW would have the synopsis typed up and sent to the relevant newspaper, so they could see what they were getting themselves into.
It does not appear that in every case DW found writing these synopses straightforward. Often he would agonise over them and refine them, and in one case (when writing 'The Island Where Time Stands Still'), he went so far as to write four different synopses as well as a list of characters and a timeline before he had ended up with something with which he was satisfied, and felt sufficiently ready to begin the process of writing.
Note 1: It is not clear whether DW used this methodology at the beginning when he wrote 'Julie's Lovers'. The compiler of this Exhibition is doubtful.
| References: | Robert Robinson's interview for The Book Programme, 'Dennis Wheatley at Eighty' was aired on BBC2 on 6th January 1977, two days in advance of DW's actual birthday. |
