A Terry Pratchett newsletter #4
Hi,
The story so far: I am writing a biography of Terry Pratchett, due to be published on July 20, 2020. At some point you said you'd like news. Here is that news. There's an excerpt from the book at the end of the newsletter if you want to skip the waffle.
Well, here's the big headline - I think, think, withabitoflucktouchwoodohgod that the final draft of the book is done. My brilliant editor Kate did her pass, and it went far better than I'd hoped. In fact, I agreed with pretty much all of her decisions, though I'm mourning some of the jokes that got lost along the way – that said, Kate actually kept more of the footnotes than I was expecting, including one I was sure went way over the line. All in we lost about 3,000 words of a 110,000-word book, which I'm assured is pretty good going. My publishers also seem happy to publish a longer book, which is nice as it came out 25% longer than my contract specified. BUT THERE WAS SUCH A LOT TO COVER. The painful thing was still what I had to miss out. Lords and Ladies, for example, is one of my favourite books, but as it's not an especially important work in Terry's evolution as a writer (except perhaps as the first time he really nails action scenes in the Discworld series), or the commercial/artistic development of his career, it doesn't get much of a mention. The poor Unadulterated Cat is confined to the footnotes. And that's a book no toilet should be without.*
And of course, just because I've stopped writing doesn't mean I've stopped learning. Research has become such an instinctive habit I haven't quite managed to stop. For example, a Discworld fan emailed me with a scan of a letter they'd received from Terry in 1992 that contained a little nugget about his writing approach that I'd never read before, anywhere: that Terry considered many of his characters (Mort, Teppic, Victor Tugelbend) to be essentially parts written to be played by the same actor. That makes a lot of sense, especially when you think of other characters in the early Discworld books that seem to have been pulled from the same stock pool (Conina, Bethany, Ptraci, and Ginger, or Nijel, Eric and Twoflower. Pretty much all of the wizards.) As his work evolves, and especially as he gets better at writing young adults, that sense of the "archetype characters" starts to fade away. In the first five or six books there's definitely a hero with a thousand faces, all of them looking slightly confused. Luckily there was still time to build this into the book.
Elsewhere, Terry's long-time agent and friend for nearly fifty years, Colin Smythe, was kind enough to do a fact-check of the whole manuscript for me, which led to an interesting phone call where we discussed a few details. Colin has been really helpful throughout the process, but we'd never spoken in person – I really enjoyed the conversation. He helped me smooth out a few factual details, and it was with a huge relief to find that his notes were all very minor, mostly clarifications rather than corrections. In fact he only found two genuine factual errors in the whole book, one of which came from a misquote in an old interview. The other, unfortunately, was the city of Colin Smythe's birth. Still – at least we can be confident his correction is right. I really appreciated him taking the time to go through it, especially as, for a friend of Terry's I imagine the closing chapters would have been difficult to read (they certainly were difficult to write). Those involved or deeply invested in Terry's work can, quite naturally, be suspicious of what I'm doing – it's encouraging that once they actually read my work they tend to be reassured and helpful. Which is good, because the next stage is a reading by the Pratchett estate. The estate can't actually stop me publishing the book unless I've breached libel or copyright laws (which I'm pretty sure I haven't), but obviously if they were to be openly hostile toward us it's not going to help. It's nerve-wracking, but I'm confident about the work and proud of what I've produced. Hopefully, they'll see the affection and attention to detail that has gone into writing this book. We should know by the end of the year.
In the meantime ... aside from sorting some images out, I don't have a book to work on for the first time in almost a year, and I have no idea what to do with my spare time. I might write a stand up show. Or another biography. Or a novel. Or an album. I am not short of ideas.
Thanks for reading - and i'll keep you posted as soon as there's some solid release news. Please reply to this email, mail me directly on twentiethcenturymarc@gmail.com, or find me on Twitter at @20thCenturyMarc if you have any thoughts, ideas or feedback – it's always lovely to hear from Discworld fans.
Marc
x
* And not in a "lovely soft paper way". Unless you're desperate.
AN EXCERPT FROM THE MAGIC OF TERRY PRATCHETT
Please note, as ever, this is not a finished product - the book still has to go to a professional proof-reader to sort out the typos etc (no need to email me about them, though I appreciate the help!) and this still all could change!
From Chapter Two: The Young Writer
Pratchett’s interest in the fantastical side of literature actually predates his discovery of The Wind In The Willows and the glut of reading it inspired. His first taste of the life fantastic came at 9 years old when a boy he met on holiday loaned him a Superman comic. Within a few days he was running faster than a speeding deckchair, and leaping tall sandcastles with a single bound, a red towel tucked into the collar of his shirt and his underwear on the wrong side of his trousers. He purchased the latest issue for the drive home – which at 6d cost most of a week’s pocket money – but it was stolen by a little girl he’d met and whom he’d become attached to during the trip, breaking his schoolboy heart as a result. Nevertheless, the torch had been lit. Superman led to a dalliance with Batman comics and other superheroes of the golden age of comic books, all with their own in-built playground games and make-do outfits.
He would lose interest in Americanised comic book worlds as he grew older, finding Superman too boring and Batman too fanciful. Something had sparked his imagination though; a yearning for the escape that came with the unearthly. It was only a matter of time before that hankering for the fantastic collided with an interest in the night sky inspired by those Brooke Bond tea cards. Handily that collision would take place just in front of the science fiction shelves in Beaconsfield Library. Science fiction, usually shortened to SF by enthusiasts, became an all-consuming passion.
If Terry’s reading had been restricted to the contents of the public library, his descent into fully fledged fanatic might have taken much longer. There is only so much SF two smallish rooms and a mezzanine can contain. There would certainly have been H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Robert A. Heinlein, John Wyndham and Edgar Rice Burroughs. There may also have been Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, L. Ron Hubbard, Arthur C. Clarke and E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith. It’s unlikely there would have been much more.
A chance discovery after school changed everything. Terry happened upon an unobtrusive shed on a wartime bombsite in the Frogmore area of High Wycombe: the sign above the door said ‘The Little Library’. Never one to pass up a chance for new books, he went in to investigate. The shop had a beaded curtain covering the entrance and was run by a little old lady who, in between knitting and drinking tea, made her living supplying high-quality pornography provided in plain brown envelopes to a steady stream of embarrassed-looking men. In order to maintain a veneer of respectability – and so its owner could rightfully claim to run a bookshop as opposed to being a mere peddler of smut – The Little Library also bought and sold a large selection of British and American science fiction, much of it sourced from the US Air Force base situated near the town. Terry, then 12 years old, had little interest in what he thought of as the ‘pinker shelves’, but was breathlessly excited by the cache of otherworldly delights he had discovered in the crates on the floor. He quickly became The Little Library’s only juvenile regular.
The Little Library finally gave Terry access to a depth of material that could satisfy a fanatic. Here he discovered the pulp paperbacks of Fritz Leiber, A. E van Vogt and Henry Kuttner, and the distinctive custard yellow or violent magenta jackets of the Victor Gollancz publishing house, the publishers of Hal Clement, Algis Budrys and Harry Harrison. Terry sank gratefully into all of them, immersing himself in a universe of black holes, lost civilisations, and planetary conquests. Every time he went into The Little Library, which was around three times a week, there was something new to pick up. Possibly the lady who ran the place made sure to renew her stock, having grown quite fond of the short, awkward boy who showed no interest in her primary product but would drool at the sight of a Harry Harrison novel he hadn’t yet read.
Arguably more important, and certainly more affordable than the novels were the anthologies, magazines and amateur fanzines, published in the UK or shipped over from the US. A culture of SF fandom had been active in Britain since the 1930s, built around periodicals and a succession of short-lived associations and societies, and was enjoying a new flush of life in the post-war years. Terry picked up magazines with names such as New Worlds, Science Fantasy, Astounding, Galaxy and Analog. They contained some news and editorial content but were mostly comprised of short stories. Here he found a new generation of writers, including Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss and J. G. Ballard. Most of these publications carried classified ads for mail-order fanzines, written by amateurs and usually hand-typed and duplicated. Pratchett sent off for zines such as Aporrhēta, Zenith and New Frontiers, each one containing more stories from newer writers alongside yet more classified ads and letters. These led to yet more fanzines, more stories and, eventually, to the British Science Fiction Association, and other fans. Terry had not only uncovered a whole slew of new writing; he had made contact with a subculture he felt he could belong to. Much later, when he wrote the Discworld novel Going Postal he would channel his discovery of fandom into Stanley, the obsessive collector of pins and the specialist pin-collectors shop, found under a massage parlour, selling smudged and misspelled fan magazines.