BE: We’re getting somewhat off the track. You were talking about the twenty-page rule. You implied it didn’t last long. How’d that change?
CAN: Well, I kept being told to keep more focus on the sexual inter-play. I didn’t have to have more sex scenes, but they could be “seductive” and/or focused on the sexual tease.
BE: Could you give us an example?
CAN: Well, you have this girl who ain’t no virgin. She’s wearing a tight fittin’ dress, very low cut, so there’s a lot of bulging flesh exposed for all to see. Our hero can’t get his eyes off this delicious, mouth-watering sight. If she’s wearing a sweater you can see the tight points of her nipples pressing up against the material. Our hero can’t unglue his eyes, nor the reader’s mind, off her most erotically stimulating biological points of interest—so to speak. One would think he was talking to her breasts.... You use the continual tease so the reader keeps with you through the more routine story development paragraphs.
BE: In other words, you use the tease on to keep the reader hooked line by line.
CAN: [Nodding] Nasty work if you can do it.
BE: And that changed...in what way?
CAN: It got more erotic and the erotic more graphically detailed. Though there periods when editors told us to soft pedal the sex scenes. That was during election time. So we offered up more “message.” In fact the more sex and more message was desirable. Which is neat for the writer—assuming he/she has a message to share Nonetheless, over time more graphic details were demanded—though “four letter words” were still out. It was simply a matter of expanding the “sex scenes” and keeping the topic focused on the sexual content.
BE: More graphic sex, more message?
CAN: Actually, after a while it worked out to more sex less message. But in these beginning years it was “spicy” novels and then...well, things simply got hotter.” The first year I finished around 100 short manuscripts. My agent, Forry Ackerman, sold twenty-four of them during 1960; and most of the others over the next few years. With this kind of output it was necessary to use a number of pen names—even for “submitting” purposes. Publishers want it to look like different writers wrote the stories and articles in any one issue. So I would pick a byline that fit a certain style, or ap-proach to the story; or subject matter.
BE: How did your first story get accepted and published?
CAN: An editor by the name of Larry Maddox offered to buy a story called “Flowers for the Lady” if I was willing to retitle it “Country Boy” and make some changes.
BE: And that was published under...Alexis Charles.
CAN: Yes. The Charles is obvious. Alexis comes from my middle name: Alexander.
BE: How’d it feel to have your first story published under a pen name?
CAN: A real kick. The first sale is always special, of course. The first pen name is even more special. The creation of a pen name is the creation of somebody who is, has, a kind of true reality.
BE: Would you explain that?
CAN: The fictional people in books are quite obviously not real. Creat-ing a pen name is creating a “real” person. And that’s kinda fun. People like Carson Davis became almost real to me. He was, for more than three years, my altered ego. He expressed a lot of my ideas and concepts, mixed with what a “Carson Davis” should believe. There were, of course, differences.
BE: In what way?
CAN: Well, Carson was divorced. This made it possible for him to get involved with some of the women he interviewed.
BE: How...involved?
CAN: Actually he was required, by editorial dictate, to be have intimate relations, from time to time, with the female interviewees. These women would make blunt passes at him. He usually managed to sidestep the issue, but there were times when....Well, what can I say? Carson was merely hu-man, after all. You know, a breast in hand...and all that stuff.
BE: You make him sound quite real.
CAN: Well, in a way, he did seem so. The publisher actually got some fan mail directed to Carson Davis, asking for advice. Though I suspect at least half of that was leg-pulling. Or at best a bit of sexual fantasy from the letter writer. In any case I did a book based on the idea of letters sent to Carson Davis [Sex Files]. The fiction was that Carson answered these let-ters and got replies. Thus a case history was developed with “some” of those “exchanges.” Today it would be like a Chat on the Internet, or an e-mail exchange.
BE: Could you tell us something about the TPOH?
CAN: Actually, this was a kind of running gag between Forry and me. But it was a reality of sorts between me and my pen names. This article should, probably, be called “An Interview with the President of the TPOH.” But...well, never mind that.
BE: What did TPOH stand for? I mean, obviously it—
CAN: Well, I was an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. More importantly I lived in Tarzana. So as a gag, since I was using so many pen names at the time, and continued to do that throughout my career, I gave myself a “title” so to speak. I was a hack. My “business” was a group of “hacks” and I lived in Tarzana. So, thusly: Tarzana Pool of Hacks came into existence. Silly as it sounds, it had harsh reality behind it. I was a group of “pen names” and they were a pool of hacks. A way to remind me that business came first.
BE: And that was writing.
CAN: Yes. My business was to buy ten reams of paper (500 sheets per) and fill them up with words. I paid as little as possible for the paper. I sold every sheet I could fill with saleable words for as much money as possible. I was, in effect, in the paper selling business. I would take a sheet of type-writer paper and put it in the typewriter and type Page 1, then create off the top of your head some title, such as What’s It All About, Charlie? Now comes the hard part. A byline. In this case I couldn’t use the name Charles Nuetzel. Albert Nuetzel might be reasonable. But that was my father’s name. I could change the title, but that would be cheating and it would take time, and another sheet of paper would be breaking the rules. I was trying to do first draft writing, only. Well, where possible. To be business-like I figured I paid so much for paper, ink and stuff. So to save de money I tried not to use any more of this “stuff” than necessary. Sure, I rewrote. The trick was to attempt NOT to revise. Thus: avoid using a second sheet of paper. To complicate matters: I could write a new original page almost as fast as I could retype a page. Time and money. And, well, quite frankly they weren’t payin’ no million bucks for my stuff.
BE: So to avoid using another sheet of paper you picked a pen name, rather than reused the “Charles” in the title as part of the byline. Right?
CAN: I would pick a name like, say, John Davidson (before the singer came into existence and dumped that name for me). Once the title and the byline has been created, one drops down a few lines and begins typing as fast as they can, ’cause, remember you gotta fill pages quickly. Time is money.
BE: And how would you begin to fill them?
CAN: By typing something like: “Charlie Davis was frightened. The minute he saw the woman at the bar, he knew she’d be his for the night. Yet he was frightened. One look at that lovely, voluptuous body was enough to send the blood pumping through his manhood.”
BE: [laughing] That sure sounds rustic….
CAN: You might laugh, today—
BE: No. No. It is not only the use of “manhood”—it’s a bit outdated.... And certainly Politically In-Correct.
CAN: I suppose so. Though “personhood” would be confusing. Con-sider “She rubbed her personhood against his personhood.”
BE: Would even he/she be PC?
CAN: I imagine not. Of course things did change quite a bit over the years. In the early ’60s that “manhood” thing was really pushing it. I mean: hips rubbing up against one another was just about as fer as you could go before letting the curtain quickly yanked over the juicy stuff. Oh, you could kiss her nipples and “other parts” so to speak. You know: “His tongue moved all over her, discovering the secret depths of her passions.?
?? You could get away with sucking nipples. You could fondle her “womanhood” or probe the very depths of her womanhood. Well, you had to be careful with that kind of probing.
BE: Could you tell us a little something about this structure of the sex scenes within the pages of a novel?
CAN: Well, a book would usually open with a sex scene, introducing some main characters of the book interacting with one another. In the con-versation the names, dates, location, desire, destinations and other such plotlines could be revealed/develop. The first scene would end only after the major problem of the book has been at least partly devised. You couldn’t reveal everything but you could certainly suggest enough to keep the reader...well, reading. In other words, while holding the reader’s atten-tion with the sexual action, you “inserted” the information necessary to in-trigue and hook them into reading more words. Remember that the main point of writing is to keep the reader hooked from page to page. And you do that by offering more questions than you answer, while teasing them with whatever action might turn them on. When starting a book the writer might have very little other than have a few names and some general idea how the opening scene will be developed.
BE: What about a plot outline?
CAN: Some writers go for and develop a detailed outline. I found that counter productive. I would dive into the opening page with little more than a general concept. Details might have been in my “subconscious”—whatever that means—but for the most part I let things develop as I went along. This made writing much like reading, except I was in the typin’ seat, creatively.
BE: Any examples of how this worked?
CAN: Well, in Three Parts Evil the only thing I knew before writing a word was that a man’s wife is killed, gangland style, while in her own bed. Chapter One presented hero and wife in bed together. Conversation re-vealed they had been high school lovers, though a long ten year period had taken place while she went to Hollywood to try to make a career for her-self. On her return home they renewed their friendship, fell in love and married. In the conversational exchange we learn she’s pregnant. They, of course, make love. Then, afterwards, there is a noise on the other side of the house and the hero goes off to investigate. While in the kitchen he hears the sound guns firing in the bedroom. He rushes back to find his wife’s blood splattered dead body in the bed. Now, of course, he has to discover why she had been killed, whodunit and get revenge. By the time he learns the truth he has fallen for another women. Ah, the fickle fate of true love!
BE: I was wondering about that. Kinda casual of him. One love dies and....
CAN: He’s back into action again. That’s the way of the fictional world of adult books. You gotta have other women around to toss in and outta de bed. And fall in love with.
BE: Are they all that....
CAN: Casual concerning love and sex? Well…sometimes. I guess. Take Blues for a Dead Lover. If you must. It developed from the question: What would happen if a man’s lover dies in a plane crash.
BE: I’ll bite. What happened?
CAN: He dives into a bottle of booze. Booze, sin and babes. The open-ing pages of the book told of his relationship with the woman; her death; then his dive into the babes and booze. I complicated the plot design by making him an up and comin’ jazz musician. That offered a lotta naked broads. You gotta have a fling that’ll end in recovery and romance.
BE: Is this how you always set up a book?
CAN: Well, usually I needed a simple idea complicated by some re-sistance and the opening sex scene to get the reader’s attention. Plus fol-lowing that rule of a sex scene every twenty pages. It worked out fine and dandy. You could talk about anything. You name it: morality, religion, pol-itics. The settings could be worldly or other worldly (though I always felt that sex and sci-fi were not a very commercial mix at that time). You could do Westerns, Detective, Contemporary, Sci-Fi, Horror, Adventure, whatev-er. I did a lot of “Hollywood” stories, since I had lived in Hollywood and knew something about “show business.” But, the field changed. More sex-ual content was demanded until it was hard to find a place to develop the “plot” lines.
BE: At what point in time did that take place?
CAN: By the 1970s it had become hard core. From then on I thought of it as being: “Start with an orgasm on the very first word and then let it build—erotically speaking—for the next 200 pages.”
BE: A neat trick, I assume, if you can do it.
CAN: You either found a way or stopped selling books. Before this time, the sex was not as graphically detailed as it was in the romantic fic-tion that took over the publishing world in the ’70s. What we did in the ’60s was tame compared to what was served up to the female readership of so-called “gothic” novels and “historical romances.” In this these books, the woman was, many times, raped on the very first page. This kind of sexual abuse continued throughout the book until they found true blue romance and love with the man of their life. The graphic details in these books were more highly developed than the “sex” scenes of the early 1960s “Adult” fiction.
[There was a break to turn the tape around and we got involved in a private conversation. When the recorder started again, we picked it up in this manner.]
BE: You were just telling me something about plot.
CAN: Yes, about what Larry Maddox said concerning how he plotted by way of page number. Since most magazine stories ran around twelve pages it was necessary to start bringing the story to an end by page ten.
BE: That’s cool, cold or at least...cut and dry.
CAN: He was very professional. And he hacked it out pretty fast, too. He was the first author I knew who cranked out 10,000 words a week—and that was published words.
BE: For most people that would seem difficult to believe.
CAN: At the time it seemed impressive. And: I could hardly let him top me. So I learned how to write faster.
BE: How fast?
CAN: [with a wink] That would be telling.
BE: Can’t you just give us a hint, here? A kind of tease?
CAN: Well, there is a difference between what you can do in any ONE day and what you can do over a period of a year. What is the average out-put per day, over a year?
BE: I’ll bite.
CAN: For me it turned out to be seven pages a day, 365 days a year, minus two weeks. And that makes it around 10,000 a week, average. Which brings us back to the original number of words. I’ve done that much in a day, and more. But you can’t keep up this kind of output each and eve-ry day of the year. Of course this wasn’t, sad to say, all first draft, finished copy. Sometimes you had to do a lot of rewriting. Plus there are always the creative dead periods. But, remember, doing 10,000 words in a week would mean—
BE: Fifty-two times that.
CAN: Well, we author types kinda like six-month vacations—
BE: Yeah, yeah. Twice a year. Right?
CAN: Right. But the point is made: when you are putting out that many words you have to use pen names. We’re talking about, what is it...let’s see….
BE: 520,000 words a year.
CAN: Or at least ten books a year. Or over 150 short manuscripts. You need a list of pen names. Sometimes Forry would offer me titles. Once, at a Saturday party, he wrote seven titles on a cocktail napkin [i.e., “Sinning in the Rain,” “Suddenly Lust Summer”—pun titles, for the most part from films]. With the blatant confidence of a young crass writer I left him with: “Well, see ya Monday morning. Seven titles, seven stories.” I nailed myself to the typewriter until I’d finished seven stories. Monday morning I hand delivered them. It was this quick, professional, knock-it-out-fast attitude that caused Forry to call me a few weeks later and announce that a publish-er was desperate for a novel, but needed 20,000 words by next week. Since I’d delivered on the seven stories, would I be interested in trying a novel. Only a mad fellow would have said yes. Hell, I’d never written a novel. The book had to run something like 160-200 pages. Well, I acted as if a book was series of scenes end
ing up with a short story. In other words: the trick was to devise a series of scenes that lead to the climax of the novel. This Climax was, in effect, a “kinda” short story. The idea of a series of unfinished short stories (scenes) seemed easy enough. A short story at the end, as the climax, was almost a “done deal” since I’d finished some 100 such exercises in the past year. I had learned how to do 10,000 words a week, and more. Thus I began what became: Hot Cargo by John Davidson. My working title was Blacky Jenson’s Girls. I wrote thirty to forty pages a day. I used every trick I could. A kind of “style” developed where short statements are isolated into a single paragraph. Even a mere word could be paragraphed. Like this: “But.” This kind of “trick” served two purposes: l) it quite obviously made such a word seem VERY important; and 2) it was a great way to “pad” the book. After all, this was my first attempt at any-thing longer than a novelette. And the deadline was, of course, quite impossible. Each evening I’d deliver my unread, unedited first draft pages to Forry. When I asked him:” How am I doing? “He’d say something like: “Just fine. Keep up the good work.” By that process I finished the first draft in a week. David Zentner accepted the novel; though I ended up doing a second draft.
BE: You sold several books to him after that, didn’t you?
CAN: Quite a few. But other doors opened as a result of my Zentner experience. I actually did some “editorial” work for him, and learned a lot about cover lines, flyleaf copy and such. That’s where I met Bob Pike, who at the time was the editor of Epic Books.
BE: Pike of Pike Books?
CAN: Right. When Bob left Zentner’s to start Pike Books, he ap-proached me for a book. I suggested having my Dad do the cover. Some months later Bob said I should go directly to his distributor to package books, since I was just about doing the whole thing anyway. Thus, Scorpi-on Books was born.
BE: Generous of him to encourage you, wasn’t it?
CAN: Bob was a nice guy. I learned a lot from him, too. Scorpion Books, though, didn’t exist until after Bob was working as an editor for another publisher.