Writing Through The Ages

by Andrea Colasanto

Gary K. Wolf is the author responsible for creating Roger and Jessica Rabbit, and all of Toontown. His groundbreaking 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? served as the basis for the $950 million blockbuster film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. His newest novel, the highly anticipated third in the Roger Rabbit series, Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? releases in just a few short weeks, on November 29th. This is clearly a guy with some serious and successful writing chops—but have you ever wondered how an author of this magnitude actually writes?

Gary takes some time with Musa to explain his process throughout the years; interestingly enough his first method in the 1970s reflects his exact process today!

I started writing my first Roger Rabbit novel in 1976.

I would write out my passages in longhand on yellow lined paper using a No. 2 pencil. Then I would type them out on the typewriter I got in high school, a portable Remington manual. Portable being a relative term since the thing weighed almost as much as our black and white, tube-type Emerson cabinet television set.

I would edit those typed pages using my pencil. If a passage had to be eliminated, I would cut those lines out of the page and paste the page back together using Scotch tape. If a passage had to be moved, I would cut that passage out and paste it in the proper position, again using my trusty roll of Scotch tape.

This resulted in pages of wildly different lengths. Some only six inches long, some nearly two feet.

I would then retype what I had done, and repeat the process. Doing that over and over and over until the book was done.

I would retype the book one last time in a clean draft using White-Out to cover any typing errors.

Then, to my great delight, along came the miracle of word processing.

I was working as a copywriter for an advertising agency that specialized in promoting hi-tech companies and products. One of my clients was Wang, a major mainframe computer manufacturer. Wang had developed a small computer they called a word processor. They intended to sell it to companies for use by secretaries.

They gave me one of their word processors to try out.

I rapidly discovered that the Wang word processor mimicked exactly the way I worked. I was able to type, cut, and paste. Except without having to physically print, cut, and tape.

My writing speed increased dramatically.

I took nine years to write Who Censored Roger Rabbit? The Wang turned me into a veritable speedball. I pumped out the sequel, Who P-p-p-plugged Roger Rabbit? in four and a half years.

I remember having a meeting with the top execs at Wang. I suggested to them that perhaps they were thinking too small. They should position their word processors as personal computers and sell them to individuals. They looked at me like I had suddenly grown a second head. “Who would want a computer in their house?” asked one of the senior vice presidents. The other executives agreed. What a silly idea.

Which is probably why, today, Wang is a footnote in computer history and Apple rules the world.

But I digress.

I went from the Wang to a series of other word processors and eventually personal computers. I currently use a home-built desktop machine I put together myself with the help of a grade school computer whiz who lives down the street.

I wrote four more novels on those personal computers.

Then I decided to write the long awaited and highly anticipated third Roger Rabbit novel, Who Wacked Roger Rabbit?

For this one I had a set deadline. The previous two Roger novels were published by big New York publishing houses. These publishers were extremely flexible about release dates. Whenever I finished the book, that was when the book got published.

Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? came out as a digital book. The big sales day for digital books is the last Friday in November. What digital book publishers and on-line book sellers call Black Friday. You miss Black Friday, and you might as well consign your book to the digital Buck-a-Book bin because you will have missed the majority of your sales opportunities.

In order to finish the book on time, I had to keep writing it during the eight weeks I spent in China.

Obviously, I couldn’t take my desktop machine.

So I looked into laptops.

Any of those would have worked. Except in my opinion they would have been useless to me when I returned home and went back to my desktop machine.

I decided instead to get an iPad. I could use the iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard, turning it into an ersatz laptop. Then, when I got home, I could either sell the iPad on eBay or use it for whatever people used iPads to do.

To my great surprise, the iPad changed my writing forever.

I swiftly discarded the keyboard. I’m a very fast touch typist, and the keys did not suit my fingers.

Instead, I used the virtual keyboard and a stylus. I wrote the entire novel one letter at a time. I found the experience to be very similar to the way I first started writing, when I used yellow lined paper and a No. 2 pencil.

I carried the iPad around with me in a red fabric shopping bag I bought for the equivalent of a nickel in a Chinese grocery store.

I worked on the book whenever I had spare time. In Chinese airports, in Chinese hotels (usually in the lobbies, the only places with Wi-Fi), on Chinese airplanes, on Chinese boats on the Yangtze River, in Chinese buses, once in a Chinese pedicab.

The book came together quickly and well.

My wife, who accompanied me on the trip and was usually by my side when I wrote, told me that I started talking to myself. Reciting the book out loud as I wrote. I was completely unaware of that. Although I was aware of getting strange looks from people around me as I sat writing in bars and restaurants.

When I got home from China, I continued to work on the iPad, even though I could have gone back to the desktop. I carried the iPad with me everywhere. I worked in libraries, coffee shops, college student unions, yoga studios, gyms, wherever I happened to be.

The book came together so swiftly and so easily, that I can’t ever envision myself going back to writing on the desktop machine.

I even used the iPad to write scenes for the new movie I’m writing.

My programs include Final Draft for screenwriting and Pages for novels. Because Pages won’t support the Track Changes program my editor uses, I also use Office HD.

Yes, in case you’re wondering, I’m writing this on the iPad, too.

Just goes to show, you can teach an old dog, or an old rabbit, new tricks.

Read more about Jessica Rabbit in Gary K. Wolf’s novel Who Wacked Roger Rabbit?, available now in digital-only publication from Musa Publishing.

Gary K. Wolf hass written many short stories and nine novels. He is well known for two kinds of writing. His science fiction novels include Killerbowl, A Generation Removed, The Resurrectionist, Space Vulture an old-school, throwback, pulp science fiction novel which he co-wrote with his childhood friend Catholic Archbishop John J. Myers. His newest is newest Typical Day. Both Killerbowl and The Resurrectionist are currently in production as major motion pictures.

His other kind of writing isn't as easily categorized. Gary calls it fantasy fiction. He was told early on by a marketing executive at a major publishing house that this kind of writing wouldn't sell. Because there was no place for it on the bookstore shelves. It's not a regular novel, not crime, not science fiction, not romance. He was wrong. Who Censored Roger Rabbit? did indeed get published. It went through sixteen printings, and became a visual reality in Disney/Spielberg's $950 million blockbuster film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The film won four Academy Awards and the Hugo Award. Walt Disney Pictures has also purchased film rights to the sequel novel Who P-p-p-plugged Roger Rabbit?

One of his newest novels The Late Great Show! is solidly in the Roger Rabbit style fantasy category. Those who enjoy Toontown tales will most assuredly like The Late Great Show!, too.

Gary K. Wolf currently lives in Boston, but regularly travels around the world.