Strange Highways (80 page)
Authors: Dean Koontz
Well, hey, kismet. I seemed destined to write the story. It would be a nice break between long novels. Nothing could be easier, huh?
Every writer is an optimist at heart. Even if his work trades in cynicism and despair, even if he is genuinely weary of the world and cold in his soul, a writer is always sure that the end of the rainbow will inevitably be found on the publication date of his next novel. “Life is crap,” he will say, and seem to mean it, and a moment later will be caught dreamily ruminating on his pending elevation by critics to the pantheon of American writers
and
to the top of the
New York Times
best-seller list.
The aforementioned magazine had certain requirements for the novella. It had to be between twenty-two and twenty-three thousand words. It had to divide naturally into two parts, slightly past the midpoint. No problem. I set to work, and in time I delivered to specifications, without having to strain or contort the tale.
The editors loved the piece. Couldn’t wait to publish it. They virtually pinched my cheeks with pleasure, the way your grandma does when she hears that you received a good report card and that you are not into satanic rock ‘n’ roll or human sacrifices, the way that other eight-year-olds are.
Then a few weeks passed, and they came back and said, “Listen, we like this so much that we don’t want the impact of it to be diluted by spreading it over two issues. It should appear in a single issue. But we don’t have
room
for quite this much fiction in one issue, so you’ll have to cut it.” Cut it? How much? “In half.”
Having been commissioned to produce a two-parter of a certain length, I might have been justified if I had responded to this suggestion with anger and a sullen refusal to discuss the matter further. Instead, I banged my head against the top of my desk, as hard as I could, for … oh, for about half an hour. Maybe forty minutes. Well, maybe even forty-five minutes, but surely no longer. Then, slightly dazed and with oak splinters from the desk embedded in my forehead, I called my agent and suggested an alternative. If I put in another week or so on the piece, with much effort, I might be able to pare it down as far as eighteen to nineteen thousand words, but that would be all I could do if I was to hold fast to the story values that made me want to write “Trapped” in the first place.
The magazine editors considered my proposal and decided that if the story could be printed in slightly smaller type than they usually employed, the new length would fit within their space limitations. I sat down at my word processor again. A week later the work was done—but I had even more oak splinters in my head, and the top of the desk looked like hell.
When the new version was finished—and just as it was being submitted—the editors decided that eighteen to nineteen thousand words were still too many, that the solution offered by a smaller than usual type size was too problematic, and that about four or five thousand
more
words would have to come out. “Not to worry,” I was assured, “we’ll cut it for you.”
Fifteen minutes later, my desk collapsed from the additional pounding (and to this day, it is necessary for me to apply lemon-oil polish to my forehead once a week, because the ratio of wood content to flesh is now so high that the upper portion of my facial structure is classified as furniture by federal law).
Apparently, major magazines often fiddle with writers’ prose, and writers don’t care much. But I sure care, and I can’t bear to relinquish authorial control to anyone. Therefore, I asked that the script be returned, told them that they could keep their money, and put “Trapped” on the shelf, telling myself that I had not really
wasted
weeks and weeks of my time but had, in fact, come out of the affair with a valuable lesson:
Nota bene
—never write for a major national magazine, on commission, unless you are able to hold the editor’s favorite child hostage through publication date of the issue that contains your work.
Shortly thereafter, a fine suspense writer named Ed Gorman called to say that he was editing an anthology of stories about stalkers and people being stalked. “Trapped” came instantly to my mind.
Kismet.
Maybe it makes sense to be an eternal optimist.
Anyway, that’s how “Trapped” came to be written, that’s why it contains elements familiar to readers of
Watchers
, and that’s why, if you see me some day, you’ll notice that my forehead has a lovely oaken luster.
