The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - Dennis Wheatley’s Writing Technique

Experimentation

'Such Power Is Dangerous' (1933) Edgar Wallace had written a book in a week;
DW found the fastest he could write one was in two weeks

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Books with almost identical beginnings

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Books written in the first person

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Books with (for the times) unusual heroes/heroines

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Books in diary form

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A book lacking a Table of Contents

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DW liked the challenge himself when he was writing, and to do different things. Since he had already become a bestseller, it seems likely that he was doing these things more as a challenge to himself and for his own amusement than because of the demands of his audience.

His first experiment after the success of 'The Forbidden Territory' was to see how fast he could write. He had heard that Edgar Wallace could write a book in a week; so he borrowed a cottage from his friend Joe Links, and set out to see how fast he could write his next book. It took him two weeks. He was not, however, to repeat this experiment.

If one looks for other experiments and/or innovations made by DW over the years, one might include:

• Writing three de Richleau books with almost identical beginnings ('The Forbidden Territory', 'The Devil Rides Out' and 'Strange Conflict'). DW only stopped doing this because it occurred to him that people might pick up a book with a similar beginning to one they had read, mistakenly think they had read it, and put it back on the shelf.
• Writing books in the first person rather than the customary third. DW did this with four books ('The Quest of Julian Day', 'The Sword of Fate', 'The Haunting of Toby Jugg' and 'The Ka of Gifford Hillary').
• Starting a book near the end of the story, and then going back to the beginning ('The Sword of Fate')
• Writing in diary form with dates replacing the usual chapter headings ('The Haunting of Toby Jugg' and 'The Ka of Gifford Hillary'). DW wrote chapter numbers in the synopsis for 'The Haunting of Toby Jugg', but later changed these to dates, which was far more effective.
• Omitting a Table of Contents from the start of a book ('The Haunting of Toby Jugg')
• Writing stores across many different genres (straightforward adventure stories, a detective story, novels incorporating contemporary events, historical novels, mythology, Science Fiction, books using a backdrop of the Occult...)
• Writing books with unconventional heroes (for the time). One of DW's principal characters was Jewish (Simon Aron), two were female (Molly Fountain and Linda Lee), and one was a young man with learning difficulties (Robbie Grenn)

One cannot help but think that not all of these experiments and innovations were done for his audience's benefit; it looks much more as if DW was writing these books as much to 'see if he could.'