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.”
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