Mary McCarthy
THE FACT IN FICTlON*
I am scheduled, I find, to talk to you about "Prob–
lems of Writing a Novel." Where this title originated no one
seems to know-doubtless in the same bureau that supplies
titles for schoolchildren's compositions: "How I Spent my
Summer Vacation" or "Adventures of a Penny" or simply
"Why?" The problems of writing a novel, to those who do not
write, can be reduced to the following questions: "Do you
write in longhand or on the typewriter?" "Do you use an out–
line or do you invent as you go along?" "Do you draw your
characters from real life or do you make them up or are they
composites?" "Do you start with an idea, a situation, or a
character?" "How many hours a day do you spend at your
desk?" "Do you write on Sundays?" "Do you revise as you go
along or finish a whole draft first?" And, finally, "Do you use
a literary agent or do you market your stuff yourself?" Here
curiosity fades; the manufacture and marketing of the product
complete the story of a process, which is not essentially different
from the "story" of flour as demonstrated to a class of boys
and girls on an educational trip through a flour mill (from the
grain of wheat to the sack on the grocer's shelf) or the "story"
of a bottle of claret or of a brass safety pin. This is the craft
of fiction, insofar as it interests the outsider, who may line up,
after a lecture like this, to get the author's autograph, in lieu
*
This is the text of a lecture delivered to several British audiences.
