Strangers

the midpoint of the novel. I had begun writing without an outline, without plot notes, with the identities of my two main characters vaguely fixed in mind, and otherwise with only a situation and certain themes that engaged me emotionally and intellectually. This plunge-off-the-cliff approach was enormously liberating and inspired creative exuberance. My male and female leads came alive for me, and soon I had a cast of twelve major characters in a story of far greater complexity than anything I had tackled before. Instead of six months, I required eleven months and three weeks to complete the novel. Somehow my wife, Gerda, stretched the money, somehow we found double the window of time I thought I could afford to write unpaid. I'm sure we experienced moments when finances were shaky, but I don't remember any; all I remember is the thrill I felt as the novel came together better day by day, taking on a life of its own, sweeping me into a narrative tornado so that I seemed to be not the creator but a full participant in the storm.
        When I delivered Strangers, the publisher reacted as I hoped. The script was read on a weekend; Monday we received an offer two and a half times greater than the amount I had been paid for my previous book. Furthermore, guarantees were made as to print run and advertising budget. I accepted. I celebrated. I bought an antique spoon.
        Now to the incontrovertible second proof of my departure from full sanity. Because Strangers was so long, and because the length would add typesetting, paper, and shipping costs to the publication budget, I was offered an additional six-figure amount that would be payable only if I could cut the manuscript by 30 percent. This bonus, after taxes, was enough to cover our living expenses for two years-which is a tempting amount of freedom. (It would also have allowed me to order a custom-crafted Jell-O mold in the shape of a jackass; that neighbor was still begging to be Cuisinarted.) After a year of working for nothing, a sane person would have accepted this offer at once. I demurred, explaining that I was so close to the book that I couldn't see where such drastic cuts could be accommodated.
        The publisher graciously acknowledged that she, too, was not entirely sure how this goal could be achieved, and that she found each of the large cast of characters to be essential-making it impossible to cut pages by trimming the cast. She assured me, nevertheless, that the new editor being assigned to me would show me how to slim down the book without damaging it.
        The editor was Alan Williams. Charming, intelligent, witty, he came to Strangers with years of experience editing both literary and popular fiction, including many bestsellers. After working six weeks on the manuscript, Alan sent me his line notes, plus his suggested cuts. To trim the manuscript by 30 percent, I would have needed to lose three hundred pages (as it was 960). Alan's total suggested cuts amounted to just five pages. He had found the characters, story lines, and even the descriptive passages so intertwined narratively and thematically that he didn't feel he could snip anything without unraveling the book. But to tweak me, he wrote: "You will see here and there a suggestion for the deletion of a line, sometimes as much as a paragraph, totaling about five pages. With these examples as your guide, I'm sure you'll find another 295 pages in short order." I thought he was serious, until I phoned him in a state of high anxiety and heard his laughter.
        I cut Strangers by only ten pages, and I never earned that additional six-figure sum; however, this failure to behave in an entirely sane and responsible manner eventually paid off. For one thing, I ended up with the book I wanted, as it had been given to me. Its warts are warts that either I love or I can live with; I don't have to look at it and wince with regret over lost characters, missing scenes. Furthermore, Strangers became my first hardcover bestseller, was well received by critics, and was translated into virtually all languages except Urdu (but we're still hopeful that some Urduian publisher will see the light). I have never since given a publisher an outline or sample chapter in order to make a deal; we contract for three novels of an unknown nature. When I deliver a book, the publisher discovers what it's about. Likewise, I have begun every book since Strangers by leaping off that cliff, with little more than