Ernest Hemingway's Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald

 
Key West
28 May 1934
 
Dear Scott:
 
I liked it and I didn’t. It started off with that marvelous 
description of Sara and Gerald (goddamn it Dos took it with 
him so I can’t refer to it. So if I make any mistakes—). 
Then you started fooling with them, making them come from 
things they didn’t come from, changing them into other people
 and you can’t do that, Scott. If you take real people and 
write about them you cannot give them other parents than 
they have (they are made by their parents and what happens 
to them) you cannot make them do anything they would not do. 
You can take you or me or Zelda or Pauline or Hadley or Sara 
or Gerald but you have to keep them the same and you can only 
make them do what they would do. You can’t make one be another. 
Invention is the finest thing but you cannot invent anything
 that would not actually happen.
 
That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best—make 
it all up—but make it up so truly that later it will happen that 
way.

 
Goddamn it you took liberties with peoples’ pasts and futures 
that produced not people but damned marvellously faked case
 histories. You, who can write better than anybody can, who 
are so lousy with talent that you have to—the hell with it. 
Scott for gods sake write and write truly no matter who or 
what it hurts but do not make these silly compromises. You 
could write a fine book about Gerald and Sara for instance 
if you knew enough about them and they would not have any 
feeling, except passing, if it were true.
 
There were wonderful places and nobody else nor none of the 
boys can write a good one half as good reading as one that 
doesn’t come out by you, but you cheated too damned much in 
this one. And you don’t need to.
 
In the first place I’ve always claimed that you can’t think. 
All right, we’ll admit you can think. But say you couldn’t 
think; then you ought to write, invent, out of what you know 
and keep the people’s antecedants straight. Second place, a 
long time ago you stopped listening except to the answers 
to your own questions. You had good stuff in too that it 
didn’t need. That’s what dries a writer up (we all dry up. 
That’s no insult to you in person) not listening. That is 
where it all comes from. Seeing, listening. You see well 
enough. But you stop listening.
 
It’s a lot better than I say. But it’s not as good as you can do.
 
You can study Clausewitz in the field and economics and 
psychology and nothing else will do you any bloody good 
once you are writing. We are like lousy damned acrobats 
but we make some mighty fine jumps, bo, and they have all 
these other acrobats that won’t jump.
 
For Christ sake write and don’t worry about what the boys 
will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what. I 
write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. 
I try to put the shit in the wastebasket. You feel you have 
to publish crap to make money to live and let live. All write
 but if you write enough and as well as you can there will be 
the same amount of masterpiece material (as we say at Yale). 
You can’t think well enough to sit down and write a deliberate 
masterpiece and if you could get rid of Seldes and those guys 
that nearly ruined you and turn them out as well as you can and 
let the spectators yell when it is good and hoot when it is not
 you would be all right.
 
Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start 
and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write 
seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat 
with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think 
anything is of any importance because it happens to you or 
anyone belonging to you.
 
About this time I wouldn’t blame you if you gave me a burst. 
Jesus it’s marvellous to tell other people how to write, live, 
die etc.
 
I’d like to see you and talk about things with you sober. 
You were so damned stinking in N.Y. we didn’t get anywhere. 
You see, Bo, you’re not a tragic character. Neither am I.
 All we are is writers and what we should do is write. Of
 all people on earth you needed discipline in your work and
 instead you marry someone who is jealous of your work, wants
 to compete with you and ruins you. It’s not as simple as that 
and I thought Zelda was crazy the first time I met her and you 
complicated it even more by being in love with her and, of course
 you’re a rummy. But you’re no more of a rummy than Joyce is and 
most good writers are. But Scott, good writers always come back. 
Always. You are twice as good now as you were at the time you think 
you were so marvellous. You know I never thought so much of Gatsby
 at the time. You can write twice as well now as you ever could. 
All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate 
of it is.
 
Go on and write.
 
Anyway I’m damned fond of you and I’d like to have a chance to 
talk sometimes. We had good times talking. Remember that guy 
we went out to see dying in Neuilly? He was down here this 
winter. Damned nice guy Canby Chambers. Saw a lot of Dos. 
He’s in good shape now and he was plenty sick this time 
last year. How is Scotty and Zelda? Pauline sends her love. 
We’re all fine. She’s going up to Piggott for a couple of 
weeks with Patrick. Then bring Bumby back. We have a 
fine boat. Am going good on a very long story. Hard one to write.
 
Always your friend
 
Ernest