The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More(82)

        All the stories I wrote in those early days were fiction, except for that first one I did with C. S. Forester. Non-fiction, which means writing about things that have actually taken place, doesn’t interest me. I enjoy least of all writing about my own experiences. And that explains why this story is so lacking in detail. I could quite easily have described what it was like to be in a dog-fight with German fighters fifteen thousand feet above the Parthenon in Athens, or the thrill of chasing a Junkers 88 in and out the mountain peaks in Northern Greece, but I don’t want to do it. For me, the pleasure of writing comes with inventing stories.

        Apart from the Forester story, I think I have only written one other non-fiction piece in my life, and I did this only because the subject was so enthralling I couldn’t resist it. The story is called ‘The Mildenhall Treasure’, and it’s in this book.

        So there you are. That’s how I became a writer. Had I not been lucky enough to meet Mr Forester, it would probably never have happened.

        Now, more than thirty years later, I’m still slogging away. To me, the most important and difficult thing about writing fiction is to find the plot. Good original plots are very hard to come by. You never know when a lovely idea is going to flit suddenly into your mind, but by golly, when it does come along, you grab it with both hands and hang on to it tight. The trick is to write it down at once, otherwise you’ll forget it. A good plot is like a dream. If you don’t write down your dream on paper the moment you wake up, the chances are you’ll forget it and it’ll be gone for ever.

        So when an idea for a story comes popping into my mind, I rush for a pencil, a crayon, a lipstick, anything that will write, and scribble a few words that will later remind me of the idea. Often, one word is enough. I was once driving alone on a country road and an idea came for a story about someone getting stuck in an elevator between two floors in an empty house. I had nothing to write with in the car. So I stopped and got out. The back of the car was covered with dust. With one finger I wrote in the dust the single word ELEVATOR. That was enough. As soon as I got home, I went straight to my work-room and wrote the idea down in an old red-covered school exercise-book which is simply labelled ‘Short Stories’.

        I have had this book ever since I started trying to write seriously. There are ninety-eight pages in the book. I’ve counted them. And just about every one of those pages is filled up on both sides with these so-called story ideas. Many are no good. But just about every story and every children’s book I have ever written has started out as a three- or four-line note in this little, much-worn red-covered volume. For example: