First, by depressing one of a series of master buttons, the writer made
his primary decision; historical, satirical, philosophical, political, roman
tic, erotic, humorous, or straight. Then, from the second row (the basic but
tons), he chose his theme: army life, pioneer days, civil war, world war, ra
cial problem, wild west, country life, childhood memories, seafaring, the se
a bottom and many, many more. The third row of buttons gave a choice of lite
rary style: classical, whimsical, racy, Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, feminine
, etc. The fourth row was for characters, the fifth for wordage--and so on a
nd so on--ten long rows of pre-selector buttons.
But that wasn't all. Control had also to be exercised during the actual w
riting process (which took about fifteen minutes per novel), and to do this t
he author had to sit, as it were, in the driver's seat, and pull (or push) a
battery of labelled stops, as on an organ. By so doing, he was able continual
ly to modulate or merge fifty different and variable qualities such as tensio
n, surprise, humour, pathos, and mystery. Numerous dials and gauges on the da
shboard itself told him throughout exactly how far along he was with his work.
Finally, there was the question of 'passion'. From a careful study of th
e books at the top of the best-seller lists for the past year, Adolph Knipe
had decided that this was the most important ingredient of all--a magical ca
talyst that somehow or other could transform the dullest novel into a howlin
g success at any rate financially. But Knipe also knew that passion was powe
rful, heady stuff, and must be prudently dispensed--the right proportions at
the right moments; and to ensure this, he had devised an independent contro
l consisting of two sensitive sliding adjustors operated by foot-pedals, sim
ilar to the throttle and brake in a car. One pedal governed the percentage o
f passion to be injected, the other regulated its intensity. There was no do
ubt, of course and this was the only drawback--that the writing of a novel b
y the Knipe methods was going to be rather like flying a plane and driving a
car and playing an organ all at the same time, but this did not trouble the
inventor. When all was ready, he proudly escorted Mr Bohlen into the machin
e house and began to explain the operating procedure for the new wonder.
"Good God, Knipe! I'll never be able to do all that! Dammit man, it'd be e
asier to write the thing by hand!"
"You'll soon get used to it, Mr Bohlen, I promise you. In a week or two, yo
u'll be doing it without hardly thinking. It's just like learning to drive."
Well, it wasn't quite as easy as that, but after many hours of practice, M
r Bohien began to get the hang of it, and finally, late one evening, he told K
nipe to make ready for running off the first novel. It was a tense moment, wit
h the fat little man crouching nervously in the driver's seat, and the tall to
othy Knipe fussing excitedly around him.
"I intend to write an important novel, Knipe."
"I'm sure you will, sir. I'm sure you will."