Dennis Wheatley’s writing technique
Novels with historical backgrounds: a note on what DW himself said about his method of construction
DW’s Cantor lecture to the Royal Society of Arts
(As published in the RSA Journal No. 4908 of 18 September 1953, ‘The Novelist’s Task’, page 762)
'... I, too, have been most fortunate in that respect [i.e. becoming a favourite of that part of the public that reads serious books - CB], but only owing to a most laborious technique which consists of writing two separate books and dovetailing them into one another.
For example, in my book The Second Seal I covered the period from April to September 1914. First I wrote a 100,000 word history of those six world-shaking months, giving all the outstanding facts about the murders at Sarajevo and the diplomatic crisis that led to the outbreak of the First World War, together with an account of the strategy and battles on all fronts up to the major defeats suffered by the Austrian and Russian armies in the East, and ending with the turn of the tide in the West when the Germans were halted at the Battle of the Marne. Then, without altering a single relevant date or fact, I welded into this account characters of my own invention, making them the vehicles for both a spy story and a love story.'
DW in ‘Drink and Ink’ page 251
'My books were, on average, about 160,000 words, which is over twice the length of the ordinary thriller. But in the fact that my books were not ordinary thrillers lies the secret of their success. Actually to create each book I wrote a combined two. One of these would consist of a history of Ceylon or Mexico, or of a period in the Napoleonic or Hitler wars. Into these factual accounts I wove a spy story, desperate situations and boy jumping into bed with girl.'
While in his Cantor lecture, DW explicitly stated that for ‘The Second Seal’ ‘First I wrote a 100,000 word history... then... I welded’, it is clear that DW is saying that he wrote the history book first, and then added the fiction.
This is not however supported by what is in the manuscript packs. Either there include the dual-planning stages described above, or , in the rare occasions where the synopsis stages are missing (presumably because they were not assembled into the packs rather than because they never existed , just the complete (and completely integrated ) pencil manuscript.
In no case does the manuscript pack contain two manuscripts - one for the factual only element and a later one for the fictional one.
In DW’s description of his writing technique in ‘Drink and Ink’ above, he is much more vague about how he accomplished things, and what he says is much more consistent with what is found in the manuscript packs.
In my account of how DW wrote his historical novels, I have chosen to ‘go with the evidence’, and I wonder if it is possible that in order to keep what he said to the JSA, he unintentionally misled.
In practical terms, there would seem to be objections to writing the way DW described to the RSA. If he wrote a complete factual history and then wove his tale into it, ‘info dumps’ aside, it is hard to see how he could have achieved a seamless interface; whereas if he used the method I have described, and which is supported by the evidence, he would not only have achieved the seamless narrative that is evident in the books, but also found it much easier to ‘live the novel’ while he was writing it.
To support his, it is clear from his other writings that DW would always ‘live his novel’, which is evident in his method of writing.
Of course if my explanation is accepted, DW must have had a prodigious memory, but as those who have played his Board games will attest, DW (and perhaps those of all his fellow people in the days before the advent of modern search engine technology made memory less essential) was possessed of a prodigious memory.