Phyllis Whitney, RIP

I was surprised to read in today’s RWA eNotes that longtime author Phyllis A. Whitney–she retired from writing at 94!–died last Thursday, February 8, at age 104 (read the NYT obit here). Ms. Whitney’s Guide to Fiction Writing–out of print, but available on the resale market–was one of the first useful writing reference books I ever read. (As an aside, the first writing reference book I ever bought was Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, which I found about as helpful and palatable as styrofoam packing peanuts.)

If you love a good ol’ Gothic romance, complete with a heroine-in-peril, a creepy house, and an inscrutable male who may be the hero but is as likely to be the villain, then you owe it to yourself to pick up a Whitney. What I respect about her books is the incredible sense of place she creates in each one. Ms. Whitney was born in Japan and grew up overseas in her early years, and she traveled throughout her life. Every new place she went, she set a book that fairly breathed the environment. Check out Sedona’s red rocks in Vermilion or Palm Beach’s famed Mar-a-Lago in Poinciana to see what I mean. I also learned a lot about little things from her books. Like Dick Francis (another favorite), Whitney had the ability to slip in research about a mind-boggling range of subjects without your ever feeling that you were reading boring encyclopedic prose.

What I ended up liking most about her, though was her optimism and cheerful spirit regarding the writing life. Whitney’s Guide is stuffed with practical information, well-seasoned with nudges any aspiring author would appreciate. “Never mind the rejections, the discouragement, the voices of ridicule (there can be those too),” she wrote in Guide to Fiction Writing. “Work and wait and learn, and that train will come by. If you give up, you’ll never have a chance to climb aboard.” (quote from the NYT obit)

I’m still waiting for the train. Thanks for the reminder that I have a ticket.