THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410140784
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
If there is a recipe for roast beef, why isn't there a formula for fiction?
Alexandre Dumas of Three Musketeers fame employed a fiction factory. So did Edward Stratemeyer, creator of the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and a legion of other intrepid teens. Erle Stanley Gardner, author of the Perry Mason books, was a fiction factory. Gardner was so prolific, jealous competitors accused him of employing ``plot wheels'' and other artificial devices to serve as a sort of mechanical muse.
His was the Case of the Fecund Fictioneer.
What did Gardner know that less successful writers did not? If anybody had the secret, it was the irrepressible Erle. By the time he was 57, Gardner had turned out 10 million words of professional fiction.
Now Norfolkian John Jarvis claims to have broken the code. He has devised ``the Jarvis Method of teaching fiction.'' He has set forth the Jarvis Method between paper covers, on cassette tape and as full-blown computer software, with the assistance of another Norfolkian, Irwin M. Berent.
Jarvis ``national headquarters'' is an office in the old Ajax building, a cinder block and tile hive on 21st Street in Norfolk. The single room contains some chairs, a computer and a framed certificate of incorporation for StoryCraft, ``products for the sophisticated writer.'' No receptionist, no waiting room, no piped-in subliminal music.
``It is,'' concedes Jarvis, ``kind of a stale environment.''
Jarvis himself is a graying man in a short-sleeved plaid shirt and gray slacks. He has a piratical scar on his forehead from a long-ago automotive mishap. Short, slight and bespectacled, the confirmed bachelor at 54 has degrees in English and humanities from Old Dominion University and a background as a radio announcer and writer for WGH and WHRO.
Jarvis spent a year in Hollywood free-lancing for Ralph Edwards and Stu Billett, producers of ``Family Medical Center'' and ``The People's Court.''
Why should budding authors listen to this man who claims to have devised ``a sophisticated yet user-friendly system to write virtually complete screenplays and novels''?
``I've been at it a long time,'' maintains Jarvis.
Berent, his collaborator, is author (with Rod Evans) of The Right Words, Getting Your Words' Worth and the upcoming Weird Words.
The Jarvis Method breaks down classic stories from Great Expectations to Gone With the Wind into categories of ``action'' or ``theme,'' then walks students through 12 ``structure steps'' that unlock them:
The hero is in the ordinary world; he is presented with a challenge; he receives advice from a mentor; he prepares for a journey; he enters the antagonist's world.
The hero's and the antagonist's minions scrap; the hero and the antagonist scrap; the hero hits bottom; the hero breaks free.
The hero prepares for confrontation with the antagonist; he has the confrontation; he resolves the problem, restoring the ordinary world.
This mythic synopsis is undeniably interesting, with a tip of the metaphorical hat to Joseph Campbell, and Jarvis goes into considerable detail supporting it.
``I've always felt there was a structure and method behind writing,'' he says, ``even if unconscious.''
His printed manual costs $14.95. Then there are further opportunities to invest $29.95 in a 90-minute explanatory cassette and $199.95 in the complete how-to software. Send checks or money orders to StoryCraft Corp., 820 W. 21st St., Norfolk 23517 (beyond the boundaries of Hampton Roads, add $3 for mailing and handling).
``Here you have,'' says collaborator Berent, ``for the first time, a program that allows even the least computer-literate individuals to write the great American novel.''
``I wouldn't say Forrest Gump could do it,'' says Jarvis, ``but a person who is inclined creatively would have no difficulty.''
If he is wrong, Jarvis at least stimulates some critical analysis; but what if he is right? MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia Wesleyan
College. by CNB