Ray Bradbury: A Collector of Words

              Ray Bradbury, author of works such as Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes, was a self-proclaimed collector. It all started when he began collecting Buck Rogers comic strips in the fourth grade. Around that same time, Bradbury fell in love with carnivals and writing. Some of his favorite writers that he drew inspiration from were Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Thomas Wolfe. He also loved reading H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe. He tried to write stories influenced by these writers but was too busy imitating their language and style to make anything truly his own. Concerning Gardner and his discussion about the “relationship between an individual and the work in he is engaged” and “between an individual and other persons in his or her world,” Bradbury collected and imitated the styles of other writers before finding his own like Eliot did with The Waste Land. Once he found his own style, however, Bradbury was off and running. Or writing, rather. His interactions with others also largely inspired what would soon become his process for writing stories. Another thing Gardner mentions is how “creative architects” have more commitment to their work than their less creative peers, which is evident in Bradbury. He likened writing to playing the piano: you must practice every day to maintain your skill. Additionally, he spent nine days and $9.80 in dimes to write “The Fireman” which would later become Fahrenheit 451 in the basement of UCLA’s library, where he could rent a typewriter for ten cents per half-hour.

              I call Bradbury a collector of words because of the process with which Bradbury wrote many of his famous stories. He would make lists of words, mostly nouns, that could be a title of a story. As mentioned earlier, he would sometimes take words from experiences in his everyday life, like doctor’s appointments. The words were meant to be provocative, which Bradbury believed influenced better writing on his part. The lists included words such as “The Lake,” “The Skeleton,” “The Carnival,” and “The Basement.” The mention of Bradbury’s love of carnivals might have been random earlier, but it now serves a purpose. His love of carnivals and the word’s presence on the list is what ultimately led to writing Something Wicked This Way Comes. The process by which these words that made up the list were turned into stories is simple to explain, according to Bradbury. He would go down the list, pick one of the nouns, then write a long prose-poem-essay on it, which would eventually turn into a story. Bradbury describes it as a character appearing and making a statement of some sort, then finishing the story for him. In this way, Bradbury was a ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ writer, meaning he let the story (or character) go where it may without much planning. This process is how he wrote “The Lake” at age twenty-two and finished it in under two hours.

              In his collection of essays, Zen in the Art of Writing, Bradbury describes his writing formula. He asks himself (and advises fellow writers to ask the same questions), “What do you want more than anything else in the world? What do you love, or what do you hate?” He then says to find a character, perhaps much like yourself, and give them something to want: “Give him running orders…. Then follow him as fast as you can go.” Bradbury said the character is what, or who, will get you to the end of the story. He also wholeheartedly believes in honesty while writing. He said, “The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping.” Bradbury’s writing process was fast-paced and thoughtless, and yet he has written some of the most intriguing and thought-provoking books I have ever read. Perhaps this is because Bradbury saw writing as a reminder that we are alive and believed that life was a gift and privilege, not a right.

              

              To conclude, I will use some of Bradbury’s own words, since they are beautifully written and would better be said outright rather than summarized: “While our art cannot … save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us…. Writing is survival. Any art, any good work … is that.”

Sources:

http://raybradbury.ru/stuff/zen_in_the_art_of_writing.pdf

https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/06/ray-bradbury-and-the-dime-at-a-time-typewriter-of-fahrenheit-451.html