PERRY SMITH

HOW TO WRITE A NON-FICTION NOVEL

“Imagination, of course, 
can open any door—turn 
the key and let all the 
terror walk right in.”
—Truman Capote, "Unspoiled Monsters"
Answered Prayers The Unfinished Novel
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I thought I was just writing a novel
but then it started writing me

I thought I was just doing non-fiction
using literary techniques storytelling it
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But the story had a life of its own that’s
when I became just another character

I thought I was just doing reportage
but the deja-vu monster was waiting 
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I began to have doubts about this style
my approach & the texture of my writing

Because the writing was writing itself 
without me, accelerating my alarm
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The energy of esthetic excitement was
there & growing with every page

But as Colin Clive exclaimed in James
Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN—“It’s ALIVE!!!
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Nothing lessened my noir depression
in fact, it began getting worse & worse

There was no simple answer to the
growing apparently unsolvable problem
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But I couldn’t stop wondering to myself
if I wasn’t the author then who was?

At first I blamed it on bleak gothic Kansas
stuck out there in a gaunt Garden City motel
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The cold, the midwestern noir depressing
lifestyle was surely squelching my style

It wasn’t just New Journalism taking hold
it was like Perry Smith had invaded me
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And yet I kept on writing & seeing him
falling under his ex-con hypnotic influence

My novel was not longer a novel but moving
more toward a film script and something unreal
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It was looking for something to say and I was
the way the crime drama was unfolding 

My imagination had turned the key & unlocked
the door to something terrible that walked in