Styron 's production of novels has been slow, particularly compared to most of his contemporaries. He began writing Lie Down in Darkness in 1947, and he has produced only three full-length novels in thirty years, this in the face of a tendency among American critics to measure an artist not only by the quality of his work but by the quantity as well. It is significant that Styron has resisted the pressure to produce his fiction more rapidly, for it is improbable that he could turn out the high quality work that he has at a faster rate. He has stated in interviews that writing is an agonizing process for him, that he must wrestle with every word, and that he cannot go on to the next paragraph until he has perfected the present one. In the four or five hours he devotes to writing each day, he usually produces only two legal-sized pages of holograph manuscript. At times he has had to halt work on a novel for considerable periods to resolve technical problems before continuing his composition. Styron has thus limited his production, but his labors are evident in the highly polished prose of all his work.
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