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+Project Gutenberg's If You Don't Write Fiction, by Charles Phelps Cushing
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: If You Don't Write Fiction
+
+Author: Charles Phelps Cushing
+
+Release Date: September 8, 2008 [EBook #26557]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IF YOU DON'T WRITE FICTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Carla Foust and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    +----------------------------------------------------+
+    |Transcriber's note                                  |
+    |                                                    |
+    |Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without|
+    |notice. The author's spelling has been maintained.  |
+    +----------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+     IF YOU DON'T
+     WRITE FICTION
+
+     By
+     CHARLES PHELPS CUSHING
+
+     [Illustration]
+
+     NEW YORK
+     ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
+     1920
+
+
+
+
+     Copyright, 1920, by
+     ROBERT M. McBRIDE & CO.
+
+     _Printed in the
+     United States of America_
+
+     Published. June, 1920
+
+
+
+
+                              TO
+                           COUSIN ANN
+
+who "doesn't write fiction," but who is ambitious to market magazine
+articles, this little book is affectionately dedicated. If it can save
+her some tribulations along the road that leads to acceptances, the
+author will feel that his labors have been well enough repaid.
+
+
+
+
+The author thanks the editors of _The Bookman_, _Outing_ and the _Kansas
+City Star_ for granting permission to reprint certain passages that here
+appear in revised form.
+
+                                                           C. P. C.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The publisher assures me that no one but a book reviewer ever reads
+prefaces, so I seize upon the opportunity to have a tête-à-tête with my
+critics. Gentlemen, my cards are face up on the table. I have declared
+to the publisher that nearly every American who knows how to read longs
+to find his way into print, and should appreciate some of the dearly
+bought hints herein contained upon practical journalism. And, as I kept
+my face straight when I said it, he may have taken me seriously. Perhaps
+he thinks he has a best seller.
+
+But this is just between ourselves. As he never reads prefaces, he won't
+suspect unless you tell him. My own view of the matter is that Harold
+Bell Wright need not fear me, but that the editors of the Baseball Rule
+Book may be forced to double their annual appropriation for advertising
+in the literary sections.
+
+As the sport of free lance scribbling has a great deal in common with
+fishing, the author of this little book may be forgiven for suggesting
+that in intention it is something like Izaak Walton's "Compleat
+Angler," in that it attempts to combine practical helpfulness with a
+narrative of mild adventures. For what the book contains besides advice,
+I make no apologies, for it is set down neither in embarrassment nor in
+pride. Many readers there must be who would like nothing better than to
+dip into chapters from just such a life as mine. Witness how Edward
+FitzGerald, half author of the "Rubaiyat," sighed to read more lives of
+obscure persons, and that Arthur Christopher Benson, from his "College
+Window," repeats the wish and adds:
+
+"The worst of it is that people often are so modest; they think that
+their own experience is so dull, so unromantic, so uninteresting. It is
+an entire mistake. If the dullest person in the world would only put
+down sincerely what he or she thought about his or her life, about work,
+love, religion and emotion, it would be a fascinating document."
+
+But, you may protest, by what right do the experiences of a magazine
+free lance pass as "adventures"?
+
+Then, again, I shall have to introduce expert testimony:
+
+"The literary life," says no less an authority than H. G. Wells, "is one
+of the modern forms of adventure."
+
+And this holds as true for the least of scribblers as it does for great
+authors. While the writer whose work excites wide interest is seeing the
+world and meeting, as Mr. Wells lists them, "philosophers, scientific
+men, soldiers, artists, professional men, politicians of all sorts, the
+rich, the great," you may behold journalism's small fry courageously
+sallying forth to hunt editorial lions with little butterfly nets. The
+sport requires a firm jaw and demands that the adventurer keep all his
+wits about him. Any novice who doubts me may have a try at it himself
+and see! But first he had better read this "Compleat Free Lancer." Its
+practical hints may save him--or should I say _her_?--many a needless
+disappointment.
+
+                                                           C. P. C.
+
+
+
+
+     CONTENTS
+
+
+     CHAPTER                               PAGE
+
+             PREFACE                          v
+
+          I. ABOUT NOSES AND JAWS             1
+
+         II. HOW TO PREPARE A MANUSCRIPT     10
+
+        III. HOW TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS         16
+
+         IV. FINDING A MARKET                25
+
+          V. A BEGINNER'S FIRST ADVENTURES   32
+
+         VI. IN NEW YORK'S "FLEET STREET"    43
+
+        VII. SOMETHING TO SELL               54
+
+       VIII. WHAT THE EDITOR WANTS           61
+
+         IX. AND IF YOU DO--                 72
+
+          X. FOREVER AT THE CROSSROADS       79
+
+
+
+
+IF YOU DON'T WRITE FICTION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ABOUT NOSES AND JAWS
+
+
+A foxhound scents the trail of his game and tracks it straight to a
+killing. A lapdog lacks this capability. In the same way, there are
+breeds of would-be writers who never can acquire a "nose for news," and
+others who, from the first day that they set foot in editorial rooms,
+are hot on the trail that leads to billboard headlines on the front page
+of a newspaper or acceptances from the big magazines.
+
+Many writers who are hopelessly clumsy with words draw fat pay checks
+because they have a faculty for smelling out interesting facts. In the
+larger cities there are reporters with keen noses for news who never
+write a line from one year's end to another, but do all of their work by
+word of mouth over the telephone.
+
+To the beginner such facts as these seem to indicate that any one can
+win in journalism who has the proper kind of nose. This conclusion is
+only a half-truth, but it is good for the novice to learn--and as soon
+as possible--that the first requisite toward "landing" in the newspapers
+and magazines is to know a "story" when he sees one.
+
+In the slang of the newspaper shop a "story" means non-fiction. It may
+be an interview. It may be an account of a fire. It may be a page of
+descriptive writing for the Sunday magazine section. It may be merely a
+piece of "human interest."
+
+As my own experience in journalism covers barely fifteen years, the
+writer would not be bold enough to attempt to define a "story" further
+than to state that it is something in which an editor hopes his public
+will be interested at the time the paper or magazine appears upon the
+newsstands. To-morrow morning or next month the same readers might not
+feel the slightest interest in the same type of contribution.
+
+Timeliness of some sort is important, yet a "story" may have little to
+do with what in the narrower sense is usually thought of as "news"--such
+as this morning's happenings in the stock markets or the courts, or the
+fire in Main Street. The news interest in this restricted sense may
+dangle from a frayed thread. The timeliness of the contribution may be
+vague and general. We may not be able to do more than sense it. This is
+one reason why men of academic minds, who love exact definitions, never
+feel quite at ease when they attempt to deal with the principles of
+journalism.
+
+We practical men, who earn a living as writers, feel no more at ease
+than the college professors when we attempt to deal with these
+principles. When we are cub reporters we are likely to conceive the
+notion that a "story" is anything startling enough, far enough removed
+from the normal, to catch public attention by its appeal to curiosity.
+Later, we perceive that this explains only half of the case. The other
+half may baffle us to the end. Instance the fact that a great many
+manuscripts sell to newspapers and magazines upon the merits of that
+mysterious element in writing known as "human interest." If a reward
+were offered for an identification of "human interest" no jury could
+agree upon the prize-winning description. A human interest story
+sometimes slips past the trained nose of a reporter of twenty years'
+experience and is picked up by a cub. It is something you tell by the
+scent.
+
+This scent for the trail of a "story" may be sharpened by proper
+training, and one of the best places for a beginner to acquire such
+training--and earn his living in the meantime--is in a newspaper
+office. Yet nothing could be further from the present writer's intention
+than to advise all beginners in journalism to apply for jobs as
+reporters. Some of the most successful magazine contributors in America
+have never set foot inside of a newspaper plant except to pay a
+subscription to the paper or to insert a want ad for a chauffeur or a
+butler.
+
+If you have nose sense for what the public is eager to read, newspaper
+experience can teach you nothing worth while unless it is a deeper
+knowledge of human nature. As a reporter you will view from behind the
+scenes what the people of an American community are like and catch some
+fleeting glimpses of the more unusual happenings in their lives. You
+may, or may not, emerge from this experience a better writer than you
+were when you went in. Your style may become simpler and more forceful
+by newspaper training. Or it may become tawdry, sloppy and inane.
+
+"Newspapers," observed Charles Lamb, "always excite curiosity. No one
+ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment." That was true a
+hundred years ago, and appears to be just as true to-day.
+
+Fortunately, the men who write the news get more out of the work than do
+their readers. The reporter usually can set down only a fraction of the
+interesting facts that he picks up about a "story." His work may be
+eternally disappointing to the public, but it is rarely half so dull to
+the man who does the writing.
+
+No life into which the average modern can dip is so rich in interest for
+the first year or two as that of the reporter working upon general
+assignments. A fling at hobo life, ten voyages at sea and more than two
+years of army life (a year and a half of this time spent in trekking all
+over the shattered landscape of France) do not shake my conviction that
+the adventurer most to be envied in our times is the cub reporter
+enjoying the first thrills and glamors of breaking into print. There is
+a scent in the air, which, though it be only ink and paper, makes the
+cub's blood course faster the minute he steps into the office corridor;
+and as he mounts the stairs to the local room the throbbing of the
+presses makes him wonder if this is not literally the "heart of the
+city."
+
+He makes his rounds of undertakers' shops, courtrooms, army and navy
+recruiting offices, railway stations, jails, markets, clubs, police and
+fire headquarters. He is sent to picnics and scenes of murders. He is
+one of the greenest of novices in literary adventure, but, quite like an
+H. G. Wells, he meets in his community "philosophers, scientific men,
+soldiers, artists, professional men, politicians of all sorts, the rich,
+the great."
+
+He is underpaid and overworked. He has no time to give his writings
+literary finish; and, in the end, unless he develops either into a
+specialist or an executive, he may wear himself out in hard service and
+be cast upon the scrap heap. At first, the life is rich and varied.
+Then, after a while, the reporter finds his interest growing jaded. The
+same kind of assignment card keeps cropping up for him, day after day.
+He perceives that he is in a rut. He tells himself: "I've written that
+same story half a dozen times before."
+
+Then is the time for him to settle himself to do some serious thinking
+about his future. Does he have it in him to become an executive? Or does
+he discover a special taste, worth cultivating, for finance, or sport,
+or editorial writing? If so, he has something like a future in the
+newspaper office.
+
+But if what he really longs to do is to contribute to the magazines or
+to write books, he is at the parting of the ways. He should seize now
+upon every opportunity to discover topics of wide interest, and in his
+spare time he should attempt to write articles on these topics and ship
+them off to market.
+
+He has laid the first solid foundation of successful freelancing, for if
+he has been able to survive as long as six months in the competition of
+the local room he has a nose for what constitutes a "story."
+
+The next thing he has to learn is that an article for a magazine differs
+chiefly from a newspaper story in that the magazine must make a wider
+appeal--to a national rather than to a local interest. The successful
+magazine writer is simply a reporter who knows what the general public
+likes to read, and who has learned when and where and how to market what
+he produces. Timeliness is as important as ever, so he must look to his
+tenses. The magazine article will not appear until from ten days to six
+months or more after it is accepted. Some of our magazines begin making
+up their Christmas numbers in July, so he must learn to sweat to the
+tinkle of sleigh bells.
+
+I wonder how many hundreds of ambitious newspaper reporters are at this
+very minute urging themselves to extra effort after hours and on their
+precious holidays and Sundays to test their luck in the magazine
+markets? The number must be considerable if my experience as a member of
+the editorial staff of a big national magazine allows me to make a
+surmise. I have read through bushels of manuscripts that had the ear
+marks of the newspaper office all over them. They were typed on the
+cheap kind of "copy paper" that is used only in "city rooms." The first
+sheet rarely had a title, for the newspaper reporter's habit is to leave
+headline writing to a "copy reader." Ink and dust had filled in such
+letters as "a" and "e" and "o." Most of the manuscripts were done with
+characteristic newspaper office haste, and gave indication somewhere in
+the text that the author had not the faintest notion of how far in
+advance of the date line the magazine had to make up its table of
+contents.
+
+Many of these novices showed a promise in skill that might give some
+uneasy moments to our most prosperous magazine headliners. If only there
+were firm jaws back of the promise! These men had the nose for
+journalistic success, but that alone will not carry them far unless it
+is backed with a fighting jaw.
+
+I look back sometimes to cub days and name over the reporters who at
+that time showed the greatest ability. Three of the most brilliant are
+still drudging along in the old shop on general assignments, for little
+more money than they made ten years ago. One did a book of real merit
+and the effort he expended upon it overcame him with ennui. Another made
+the mistake of supposing that he could pin John Barleycorn's shoulders
+to the mat. Another had no initiative. He is dying in his tracks.
+
+Who now are rated as successes on the roll call of those cub reporter
+days? Not our geniuses, but a dozen fellows who had the most
+determination and perseverance. The men who won were the men who tried,
+and tried again and then kept on trying.
+
+Mr. Dooley was quite right about opportunity: "Opporchunity knocks at
+every man's dure wanst. On some men's dures it hammers till it breaks
+down the dure and goes in an' wakes him up if he's asleep, an'
+aftherward it works fur him as a night watchman. On other men's dures it
+knocks an' runs away; an' on the dures of other men it knocks, an' whin
+they come out it hits thim over the head with an ax. But eviry wan has
+an opporchunity. So yez had better kape your eye skinned an' nab it
+before it shlips by an' is lost forevir."
+
+The names on a big magazine's table of contents represent many varieties
+of the vicissitudes of fortune, but the prevailing type is not a lucky
+genius, one for whom Opporchunity is working as a night watchman. The
+type is a firm-jawed plugger. His nose is keen for "good stories," his
+eye equally alert to dodge the ax or to nab Opporchunity's fleeting
+coat-tails.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOW TO PREPARE A MANUSCRIPT
+
+
+If you have a real "story" up your sleeve and know how to word it in
+passable English, the next thing to learn is the way to prepare a
+manuscript in professional form for marketing. In the non-fiction
+writer's workshop only two machines are essential to efficiency and
+economy. The first of these, and absolutely indispensable, is a
+typewriter. The sooner you learn to type your manuscripts, the better
+for your future and your pocketbook.
+
+It is folly to submit contributions in handwriting to a busy editor who
+has to read through a bushel of manuscripts a day. The more legible the
+manuscript, the better are your chances to win a fair reading. I will go
+further, and declare that a manuscript which has all the earmarks of
+being by a professional is not only more carefully read, but also is
+likely to be treated with more consideration when a decision is to be
+made upon its value to the publisher in dollars and cents. Put yourself
+in the editor's place and you will quickly enough grasp the psychology
+of this.
+
+The editor knows that no professional submits manuscripts in
+handwriting, that no professional writes upon both sides of the sheet,
+and that no professional omits to enclose an addressed stamped envelope
+in which to return the manuscript to its author if it proves unavailable
+for the magazine's use. Why brand yourself as a novice even before the
+manuscript reader has seen your first sentence? Remember you are
+competing for editorial attention against a whole bushel of other
+manuscripts. The girl who opens the magazine's mail may be tempted to
+cast your contribution into the rejection basket on general principles,
+if you are foolish enough to get away to such a poor start. What an
+ignominious end to your literary adventure is this--and all because you
+were careless, or didn't know any better!
+
+The writer who really means business will not neglect in any detail the
+psychology of making his manuscript invite a thorough reading. It may be
+bad form to accept a dinner invitation in typewriting, but it is
+infinitely worse form to fail to typewrite an invitation to editorial
+eyes to buy your manuscript. Good form also dictates that the first page
+of your contribution should bear in the upper left hand corner of the
+sheet your name, upon the first line; the street address, on the second;
+the town and state, on the third. In the upper right hand corner should
+be set down an estimate of the number of words contained in the
+manuscript.
+
+Leave a blank down to the middle of the page. There, in capitals, write
+the title of the article; then drop down a few lines and type your pen
+name (if you use one) or whatever version of your signature that you
+wish to have appear above the article when it comes out in print. Drop
+down a few more lines before you begin with the text, and indent about
+an inch for the beginning of each paragraph. Here is a model for your
+guidance:
+
+
+      Frank H. Jones,                                 about 3000
+      2416 Front St.,                                   words
+      Oswego, Ohio
+
+                    CAMPING ON INDIAN CREEK
+
+                              By
+
+                        Frank Henry Jones
+
+     It took us two minutes by the clock to pack everything we
+     needed--and more, for the camper-out always takes twice as
+     much junk as he can use. All that was left to do after that
+     etc.,
+
+
+There are sound reasons for all this. The first is that, likely enough,
+your title may not altogether suit the editor, and he will require some
+of the white space in the upper part of the page for a revised version.
+Also, he will need some space upon which to pencil his directions to the
+printers about how to set the type.
+
+Double space your lines. If you leave no room between lines, you make it
+extremely difficult for the editor to write in any corrections in the
+text. Moreover, a solid mass of single-spaced typewriting is much harder
+to read than material that is double-spaced.
+
+Use good white paper, of ordinary letter size, eight by eleven inches,
+and leave a margin of about an inch on either side of the text and at
+both top and bottom. Number each page. Don't write your "copy" with a
+ribbon which is too worn to be bright; and, while you are about it,
+clean up those letters on the typebars that have a tendency to fill up
+with ink and dust. You may have noticed, for example, that "a," "e,"
+"o," "s," "m," and "w" are not always clear-cut upon the page.
+
+You are doing all this to make the reading of your contribution as easy
+a task as possible from the purely physical side. You are simply using a
+little common sense in the process of addressing yourself to the
+favorable attention of a force of extremely busy persons who are paid
+to "wade through" a formidable stack of mail.
+
+If you have an overpowering distaste for doing your own typewriting, you
+may hire a typist to turn your handwritten "copy" into something easier
+to read. This procedure, however, may prove to be rather too costly for
+a beginner's purse. It is the part of wisdom to learn to operate a
+machine yourself. At first the task may seem rather a tough one, but
+even after so short a time as a month of practice you are likely to be
+surprised at the progress you will make. Before long you will be able to
+write much faster upon a machine than with a pencil or a pen.
+
+The danger then lies in a temptation to haste and carelessness. This is
+one reason why many fastidious magazine writers always do the first
+draft of an article in longhand and turn to the typewriter only when
+they are ready to set down the final version. Temperament and habit
+should decide the matter. Nearly any one can learn to compose newspaper
+"copy" at the keyboard, but not so many of us dare attempt to do
+magazine articles at the same high rate of speed. Particularly does this
+hold true of the first page of a magazine manuscript. The opening
+paragraph of such a manuscript is likely to make a much more exacting
+demand upon the writer's skill than the "lead" of a newspaper "story."
+All that the newspaper usually demands is that the reporter cram the
+gist of his facts into the first few sentences. The magazine insists
+that the first paragraph of a manuscript not only catch attention but
+also sound the keynote of many words to follow, for the "punch" of the
+magazine story is more often near the end of the article than the
+beginning.
+
+Though the technique of newspaper and magazine writing may differ on
+this matter of the "lead," do not make the mistake of supposing that the
+magazine introduction need not be just as chock full of interest as the
+opening of a newspaper "story." You are no longer under any compulsion,
+when you write for the magazines, to cram the meat of the story into the
+first sentence, but one thing you must do--you must rouse the reader to
+sit up and listen. You can well afford to spend any amount of effort
+upon that opening paragraph. Write your lead a dozen times, a hundred
+times, if necessary, until you make it rivet the attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HOW TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS
+
+
+After he has bought or rented a typewriter, the would-be free lance in
+the non-fiction field has his workshop only half equipped. One more
+machine is an urgent necessity. Get a camera.
+
+Few of our modern American newspapers and magazines are published
+without pictures; so anybody ought to be able to perceive how absurd it
+is to submit an unillustrated manuscript to an illustrated periodical.
+Good photographs have won a market for many a manuscript that scarcely
+would have been given a reading if it had arrived without interesting
+pictures; and many a well-written article has been reluctantly returned
+by the editor because no photographs were available to illustrate it.
+
+There is only one way to dodge this issue. Just as you can hire a typist
+to put your manuscript into legible form, you can pay a professional
+photographer to accompany you wherever you go and take the illustrations
+for your text. But the same vital objection holds here as in the case
+of the professional typist--the costs will cut heavily into your
+profits. With a little practice you can learn to do the work yourself.
+After that, you can operate at a small fraction of the expense of hiring
+a professional.
+
+Your work soon enough will be of as high a quality as anything that the
+average commercial photographer can produce, and, better yet, it will
+not have any flat and stale commercial flavor about it. Nothing is more
+static and banal than the composition that the ordinary professional
+will produce if you fail to prevent him from having his own way. Ten to
+one, all the lower half of the picture will be empty foreground, and not
+a living creature will appear in the entire field of vision.
+
+It cost the present writer upward of $150 to discover this fact. Then he
+bought a thirty dollar postcard kodak and a five dollar tripod and told
+the whole tribe of professionals to go to blazes. The only time since
+then that he has ever had to hire commercial aid was when he had to have
+heavy flashlights made of large rooms.
+
+So save yourself money now, instead of eventually. Even if thirty
+dollars takes your last nickel, don't hesitate. For a beginning, if you
+are inexperienced in photography, rent a cheap machine with which to
+practice--a simple "snapshot box" with no adjustments on it will do
+while you are picking up the first inklings of how to compose a picture
+and of how much light is required for different classes of subjects.
+
+After you have practiced with this for a while, go out and buy a folding
+kodak. If you have the journalistic eye for what is picturesque and
+newsy the camera will quickly return 100 per cent. upon the investment.
+
+The one great difficulty for the beginner in photography is that he does
+not know how to "time" the exposure of a picture. The books on
+photography are all too technical. They discuss chemicals and printing
+papers and all the finer shadings of processes carried on in
+laboratories under a ruby light. But what the novice longs to know is
+simply how to _take_ pictures--what exposure to allow for a portrait,
+what for a street scene, what for a panorama. He usually fails to give
+the portrait enough light, and he gives the panorama too much. He is
+willing to allow a professional finisher to do his developing and
+printing. What the beginner wants to read is a chapter on exposure. As
+an operator, he is seeking for a _rule of how_ and some examples of its
+application.
+
+If you lack a simple working theory, here is one now, in primer terms:
+
+The closer the object which you wish to photograph is to your lens, the
+_more_ light it requires; the farther away it is, the _less_ light it
+requires.
+
+This may sound somewhat unreasonable, but that is how a camera works. A
+portrait head, or anything else that must be brought to within a few
+feet of the lens, requires the greatest width of shutter aperture (or,
+what comes to the same thing, the longest exposure); and a far-away
+mountain peak or a cloud requires the smallest aperture (or the shortest
+exposure).
+
+To understand thoroughly what this means, take off the back of your
+kodak and have a look at how the wheels go round. Set the pointer of the
+time dial on the face of your camera at "T" (it means "time exposure")
+and then press the bulb (or push the lever) which opens the shutter.
+Looking through the back of your camera, make the light come through the
+largest width of the lens. You can do this by pushing the other pointer
+on the face of your kodak to the extreme left of its scale--the lowest
+number indicated. On a kodak with a "U. S." scale this number is "4."
+
+You will see now that the light is coming through a hole nearly an inch
+in diameter. If it were a bright day you could take portrait heads
+outdoors through this sized aperture with an exposure of one
+twenty-fifth of a second.
+
+Using this same amount of time, the size of the shutter aperture should
+be reduced to a mere pin hole of light to make a proper exposure for
+far-away mountain tops, clouds, or boats in the open sea.
+
+Suppose we make our problem as simple as possible by leaving the timer
+at one twenty-fifth of a second for all classes of subjects. We will
+vary only the size of the hole through which the light is to enter.
+
+For a close-up, a portrait head, we operate with the light coming
+through the full width of the lens.
+
+Now push to the right one notch the pointer which reduces the size of
+the hole. This makes the light come through a smaller diameter, which on
+a "U. S." scale will be marked "8." Only half as much light is coming
+through now as before. This is the stop at which to take full length
+figures and many other views in which the foreground is unusually
+prominent. Buildings which are not light in color should also be taken
+with this stop. In general, it is for heavy foregrounds.
+
+Push the pointer on to "16." If your scale is "U. S." you will notice
+that this is midway between the largest and the smallest stops. It is
+the happy medium stop at which, on bright days, you can properly expose
+for the great majority of your subjects, those hundreds of scenes not
+close enough to the lens to be classified as "heavy foregrounds" nor yet
+far enough away to be panoramas. Buildings which are light in color and
+sunny street scenes fall into this division of exposures. When in doubt,
+take it at one twenty-fifth of a second with stop "16." You can't miss
+it far, one way or another.
+
+Push the pointer on to "32" and the object to be photographed ought to
+be at some distance away. This is the stop for the open road and the
+sunlit fields--anything between an "average view" and a "panorama."
+
+At "64" the scale is set for the most distant of land views, beach
+scenes and boats in the middle distance off-shore. You will learn by
+costly overexposures that water views require much less light than
+landscapes. Photographers have an axiom that "water is as bright as the
+sky itself." So at "64," which is proper exposure for the most distant
+of land panoramas, you begin to take waterscapes.
+
+That tiniest pin hole of a stop, at the extreme right of the scale, is
+never to be used except for such subjects as the open sea and snowcapped
+mountain tops.
+
+There you have the theory. Apply it with common sense and you will meet
+with few failures. You scarcely need to be cautioned that if an object
+is dark in color it will require proportionately more exposure than the
+same object if it is white. Through various weathers and seasons,
+experience will keep teaching you how to adapt the rule to changing
+conditions of light. Certain handbooks and exposure meters will be of
+service while you are learning the classifications of subjects.
+
+You have been told how the rule works. Press the "T" bulb again to click
+your shutter shut and prepare to set out on a picture taking excursion.
+Set the time scale at one twenty-fifth of a second, and leave it there.
+Load up a film. Replace the back of the camera. Take along a tripod.
+Don't forget that tripod! With that you insure yourself against getting
+your composition askew, or losing a good picture on account of a shaky
+hand.
+
+Suppose the expedition is gunning somewhere in the backwoods. Down the
+stony winding road saunters one of the natives in a two-piece suit.
+Overalls and a hickory shirt constitute his entire outfit. He grows a
+beard to save himself the labor of shaving. His leathery feet scarcely
+feel the sharp stones of the highway. Here is a picture worth
+preserving, for the "cracker" type is becoming a rarity, almost extinct.
+Set your pointer at "8" and take his full length. If you wish a close-up
+of his head, set the pointer at "4."
+
+A little farther and the road plunges into a shady valley. Under the
+trees ahead is a log cabin, dappled with the sunlight and the shade of
+dancing leaves. Use your judgment about whether such a scene requires
+"8" or "4." If in doubt, use "4," for the danger here is that you may
+under-expose.
+
+In a clearing where the shade of the trees has little effect, stands an
+old water power mill. It is simply an "average view," and you can safely
+snap it with a "16" stop.
+
+The friendly razorback hogs under the mail hack make a picture with a
+heavy foreground. They fall into the "8" classification--half in shade,
+half in sunlight.
+
+The road leads us at last to a river. An old-fashioned ferry boat is
+making a crossing in midstream. From the hilltop where we first survey
+it the scene is a landscape, distant view, and can be taken with a "32."
+But when you get down to the water's edge and shoot across the shining
+river, beware of overexposure. Stop down another notch.
+
+Do you see now how the theory works? Give it a fair trial and you will
+agree that taking pictures--the mere _taking_, with no bothering your
+head about developing, printing, toning and the like--is a matter no
+more baffling than the simple art of learning to punch the letters on
+the keyboard of a typewriter. Keep at it, never neglecting an
+opportunity to practice. Keep experimenting, until you can fare forth in
+any sort of weather and know that you will be able to bring back
+something printable upon your film or plate. If the day is not bright,
+shove your timer over to one-tenth of a second, or to one-fifth.
+
+Certain experts in photography will bitterly deride this advice to keep
+the time set at one twenty-fifth of a second and to vary nothing but the
+size of the lens aperture. They will point out--and be quite right about
+it--that the smaller the aperture the sharper the image, and that a more
+professional method of procedure is to vary the timing so as to take all
+pictures with small stops.
+
+To which I can only answer that this is all well enough for the trained
+photographer and that in these days of my semi-professionalism I
+practice that same sort of thing myself. But in the beginning I was duly
+grateful to the man who gave me the golden maxim of "the closer the
+object, the larger the stop; the more distant the object, the smaller
+the stop"--a piece of advice which enabled a novice, with only one
+simple adjustment to worry about, to take a passably sharp, properly
+exposed picture. So I pass the word along to you for whatever it may be
+worth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FINDING A MARKET
+
+
+A nose for news, some perseverance, a typewriter and a camera have thus
+far been listed as the equipment most essential to success for a writer
+of non-fiction who sets out to trade in the periodical market as a free
+lance. Rather brief mention has been made of the matter of literary
+style. This is not because the writer of this book lacks reverence for
+literary craftsmanship. It is simply because, with the facts staring him
+in the face, he must set down his conviction that a polished style is
+not a matter of tremendous importance to the average editor of the
+average American periodical.
+
+Journalists so clumsy that, in the graphic phrase of a short grass poet,
+"they seem to write with their feet," sell manuscripts with clock-like
+regularity to first-class markets. The magazines, like the newspapers,
+employ "re-write men" to take crude manuscripts to pieces, rebuild them
+and give them a presentable polish. The matter of prime importance to
+most of our American editors is an article's content in the way of
+vital facts and "human interest." Upon the matter of style the typical
+editor appears to take Matthew Arnold's words quite literally:
+
+"People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have
+something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only
+secret of style."
+
+No embittered collector of rejection slips will believe me when I
+declare that the demand for worth-while articles always exceeds the
+supply in American magazine markets. None the less it is true, as every
+editor knows to his constant sorrow. The appetite of our hundreds of
+periodicals for real "stories" never has been satisfied. The menu has to
+be filled out with a regrettable proportion of bran and _ersatz_.
+
+The fact that a manuscript lacks all charm of style will not blast its
+chances of acceptance if the "story" is all there and is typed into a
+presentable appearance and illustrated with interesting photographs. A
+good style will enhance the manuscript's value, but want of verbal skill
+rarely will prove a fatal blemish. Not so long as there are "re-write
+men" around the shop!
+
+It is not a lack of artistry that administers the most numerous defeats
+to the novice free lance. It is a lack of market judgment. When he has
+completed his manuscript he sits down and hopefully mails it out to the
+first market that strikes his fancy. He shoots into the dark, trusting
+to luck.
+
+A huge army of disappointed scribblers have followed that haphazard plan
+of battle. They would know better than to try to market crates of eggs
+to a shoe store, but they see nothing equally absurd in shipping a
+popular science article to the _Atlantic Monthly_ or an "uplift" essay
+to the _Smart Set_. They paper their walls with rejection slips, fill up
+a trunk with returned manuscripts and pose before their sympathetic
+friends as martyrs.
+
+Many of these defeated writers have nose-sense for what is of national
+interest. They write well, and they take the necessary pains to make
+their manuscripts presentable in appearance. If they only knew enough to
+offer their contributions to suitable markets, they soon would be
+scoring successes. What they can't get into their heads is that the
+names in an index of periodicals represent needs as widely varied as the
+names in a city directory.
+
+Take, for example, five of our leading weeklies: _The Saturday Evening
+Post_, _Collier's_, _Leslie's_, _The Outlook_ and _The Independent_.
+They all use articles of more or less timeliness, but beyond this one
+similarity they are no more alike in character than an American, an
+Irishman, an Englishman, a Welshman and a Scot. Your burning hot news
+"story" which _The Saturday Evening Post_ turned down may have been
+rejected because the huge circulation of the _Post_ necessitates that
+its "copy" go to press six or seven weeks before it appears upon the
+newsstands. You should have tried _The Independent_, which makes a
+specialty of getting hot stuff into circulation before it has time to
+cool. Your interview with a big man of Wall Street which was returned by
+_The Outlook_ might find a warm welcome at _Leslie's_. A character
+sketch of the Democratic candidate for President might not please
+_Leslie's_ in the least, but would fetch a good price from _Collier's_.
+Your article on the Prairie Poets might be rejected by three other
+weeklies, but prove quite acceptable to _The Outlook_.
+
+When you have completed a manuscript, forget the inspiration that went
+into its writing and give cold and sober second thought to this matter
+of marketing. _The Outlook_ might have bought the article that
+_Collier's_ rejected. _Collier's_ might have bought the one that _The
+Outlook_ rejected. Every experienced writer will tell you that this sort
+of thing happens every day.
+
+Don't snort in disdain because the editor of _The Ladies' Home Journal_
+rejects a contribution on economics. Maybe the lady's husband would like
+it. So try it on _The World's Work_, or _Leslie's_ or _System_. It might
+win you a place of honor, with your name blazoned on the cover.
+
+Too many discouraged novices believe that the bromide of the rejection
+slip--"rejection implies no lack of merit"--is simply a piece of
+sarcasm. It is nothing of the sort. In tens of thousands of instances it
+is a solemn fact. Don't sulk and berate the editors who return your
+manuscript, but carefully read the contribution again, trying to forget
+for the moment that it is one of your own precious "brain children."
+Cold-bloodedly size it up as something to sell. Then you may perceive
+that you have been trying to market a crate of eggs at a shoe store.
+Eggs are none the less precious on that account. Try again--applying
+this time to a grocer. If he doesn't buy, it will be because he already
+has all the eggs on hand that he needs. In that event, look up the
+addresses of some more grocers.
+
+The same common sense principles apply in selling manuscripts to the
+magazines and newspapers as in marketing any other kind of produce. The
+top prices go to the fellow who delivers his goods fresh and in good
+order to buyers who stand in need of his particular sort of staple.
+Composing a manuscript may be art, but selling it is business.
+
+Naturally, it requires practice to become expert in picking topics of
+wide enough appeal to interest the public which reads magazines of
+national circulation. Every beginner, except an inspired genius, is
+likely to be oppressed with a sense of hopelessness when he is making
+his first desperate attempts to "break in." The writer can testify
+feelingly on this point from his own experience. Kansas City was then my
+base of operations, and it seemed as if I never possibly could find
+anything in that far inland locality worthy of nation-wide attention.
+Everything I wrote bounced back with a printed rejection slip.
+
+At last, however, I discovered a "story" that appeared to be of
+undeniable national appeal. Missouri, for the first time in thirty-six
+years, had elected a Republican governor. I decided that the surest
+market for this would be a magazine dealing with personality sketches.
+If a magazine of that type would not buy the "story," I was willing to
+own myself whipped.
+
+On the afternoon when we were all sure that Herbert Hadley had won, I
+begged a big lithographed portrait of the governor-elect from a cigar
+store man who had displayed it prominently in his front window. There
+was no time, then, to search for a photograph. A thrill of conviction
+pervaded me that at last my fingers were on a "story" that no magazine
+editor, however much he might hate to recognize the worth of new
+authors, could afford to reject.
+
+The newspaper office files of clippings gave me all the information
+necessary for a brief biography; the lithograph should serve for an
+illustration. By midnight that Irresistible Wedge for entering the
+magazines was in the mails.... Sure enough, the editors of _Human Life_
+bought it. And, by some miracle of speed in magazine making never
+explained to this day, they printed it in their next month's issue.
+
+The moral of this was obvious--that in the proper market a real "story,"
+even though it be somewhat hastily written, will receive a sincere
+welcome. The week after this Irresistible Wedge appeared in print I
+threw up my job as a reporter and dived off of the springboard into free
+lancing. A small bank account gave me assurance that there was no
+immediate peril of starving, and I wisely kept a connection with the
+local newspaper. In case disaster overtook me, I knew where I could find
+a job again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A BEGINNER'S FIRST ADVENTURES
+
+
+What happened to me in making a beginning as a free lance producer of
+non-fiction might happen to any one else of an equal amount of
+inexperience. My home town had no professional magazine writer to whom I
+could turn for advice; and though I devoured scores of books about
+writing, they were chiefly concerned either with the newspaper business
+or with the technique of fiction, and they all failed to get down to
+brass tacks about my own pressing problem, which was how to write and
+sell magazine articles. I was not seeking any more ABC advice about
+newspaper "stories," nor did I feel the least urge toward producing
+fiction. I thirsted to find out how to prepare and market a manuscript
+to _The Saturday Evening Post_ or _Collier's_, but the books in the
+public library were all about the short story and the novel, Sunday
+"features," the evolution of the printing press or the adventures of a
+sob sister on an afternoon daily.
+
+So I had to go out and get my education as a magazine writer in a school
+of tough experiences. A few of these experiences are here recorded, in
+the hope that some of the lessons that were enforced upon me may be of
+help to other beginners.
+
+The immediate results of my plunge into free lancing were:
+
+JANUARY--not one cent.
+
+FEBRUARY--$50.46. Seven dollars of this was for the magazine article. No
+other magazine acceptances had followed the Wedge. I had not yet caught
+the national viewpoint, nor had I picked up much practical information
+about the magazine markets.
+
+By March it was becoming painfully evident that a fledgling free lance
+should, if he is wise, depend for a while upon a local newspaper for the
+larger part of his income. In a school of hard knocks I learned to sell
+"stories" of purely local interest to the Kansas City market, topics of
+state-wide interest to the St. Louis Sunday editors, and contributions
+whose appeal was as wide as the Gulf of Mexico to newspapers in Chicago
+and New York.
+
+Also I learned that if the free lance hopes to make any of these markets
+take a lively interest in him, he will introduce his manuscripts with
+interesting photographs. I rented a little black cube of a camera for
+twenty-five cents a day. It had a universal focus and nothing to bother
+about in the way of adjustments. To operate it you peeked into the range
+finder, then threw a lever. Its lens was so slow that no pictures could
+be taken with it except in bright sunlight.
+
+I wrote about motor cars, willow farms, celebrities, freaks of nature in
+the city parks, catfish and junk heaps--anything of which I could snap
+interesting photographs and find enough text to "carry" the picture.
+
+March saw me earn $126.00 by doing assignments for the city editor in
+the mornings and "stories" at space rates in the afternoons for the
+Sunday section. At night I plugged away at manuscripts hopefully
+intended for national periodicals. But not until late in September did I
+"land" in a big magazine. Then--the thrill that comes once in a
+lifetime--I sold an article to _Collier's_. It required tremendous
+energy to keep up such a pace, but there was sweet comfort in the
+thought that, technically at least, I was now my own boss. Gradually, I
+broke away from assignment work until I was free to write what I liked
+and to go where I pleased.
+
+From finding material in the city, I adventured into some of the near-by
+towns in Missouri and Kansas, and soon was arguing a theory that in
+every small town the local correspondents of big city newspapers are
+constantly overlooking pay streaks of good "feature stories." Usually I
+would start out with twenty-five dollars and keep moving until I went
+broke. A railway journey no longer meant, as in reportorial days, a
+banquet in the dining-car and a chair on the observation platform,
+charged up on an expense account. Often enough I slept in a day coach,
+my head pillowed on a kodak wrapped in a sweater vest. The elevation was
+just right for a pillow; and at the same time the traveler was insured
+against theft of his most precious possession, a brand new folding
+camera of post card size.
+
+For the little snapshot box soon showed its weakness in an emergency and
+had to be replaced with a better machine which had an adjustable
+diaphragm, a timing apparatus, a focusing scale and a front like an
+accordion. One afternoon it had happened that while two hundred miles
+from a city and twenty from the nearest railroad, the snapshot box had
+been useless baggage for two hours, while an anxious free lance sat
+perched on the crest of an Ozark mountain studying an overcast sky and
+praying for some sunlight. At last the sun blazed out for half a minute
+and the lever clicked in exultation.
+
+This experience enforced a lesson: "Learn to take any sort of picture,
+indoors or out, on land or water, in any sort of weather." After I got
+the new machine, with a tripod to insure stability and consequent
+sharpness of outline, a piece of lemon-colored glass for cloud
+photography and another extra lens for portrait work, I began snapping
+at anything that held out even the faintest promise of allowing me to
+clear expenses in the course of acquiring needed experience. I
+photographed the neighbors' children, houses offered for sale, downtown
+street scenes and any number of x-marks-the-spot-of-the-accident.
+
+When a cyclone cut a swath through one of our suburbs, I rushed
+half-a-dozen photographs to _Leslie's_, feeling again some of the same
+thrilling sort of confidence that had accompanied the first Irresistible
+Wedge. Back came three dollars for a single print. Rather a proud day,
+that! Never before had one of my prints sold for more than fifty cents.
+
+There were evenings after that when I meditated giving the writing game
+good-by in favor of photography; and many a time since then the old
+temptation has recurred. The wonder of catching lovely scenery in a box
+and of watching film and print reproduce it in black and white keeps
+ever fresh and fascinating to me, gratifying an instinct for composition
+in one whose fingers are too clumsy to attempt to draw or paint. In
+those early days of my adventures in photography an editor came very
+near the literal truth when he sarcastically observed: "Young man, life
+to you seems to be just one long undeveloped film."
+
+Parallel with improvement in skill as a photographer, I developed a
+working plan to insure more profitable excursions afield. My interested
+friends among editors and reporters gladly gave me hints about possible
+out-of-town sources of "stories," and I studied the news columns, even
+to the fine type of the Missouri and Kansas state notes, with all the
+avidity of an aged hobo devouring a newspaper in the public library. For
+every possibility I made out a card index memorandum, as--
+
+     KANAPOLIS, KAS.
+
+     Geographical center of the country. Once proposed as the
+     capital of the nation--and of the state of Kansas. Now a
+     whistling station and a rock salt plant.
+
+For each memorandum I stuck a pin in the state maps pasted on the wall
+of my workshop. When there were several pins in any neighborhood, I
+would sling my kodak over my shoulder, the carrying case strapped to the
+tripod-top, like a tramp with a bundle at the end of a stick. And then
+away, with an extra pair of socks and a harmonica for baggage. Besides
+the material that I felt certain of finding through advance information,
+luck always could be trusted to turn up some additional "stories." The
+quickest way to find out what there was to write about in a town was
+simply to walk into the local newspaper office, introduce myself and ask
+for some tips about possible "features." I cannot recall that any one
+ever refused me, or ever failed to think of something worth while.
+
+I do not know yet whether what I discovered then is a business or not,
+but I made a living out of it. Whereas reporting on a salary had begun
+to be something of a grind, the less profitable roamings of a free lance
+furnished a life that had color and everlasting freshness.
+
+Sometimes, trusting in the little gods of the improvident, I was lured
+into the backwoods of the Ozarks by such a name as "Mountain Home,"
+which caught my fancy on the map; and with no definite "stories" in mind
+I would go sauntering from Nowhere-in-Particular in Northern Arkansas to
+Someplace Else in Southern Missouri, snapping pictures by the roadside
+and scribbling a few necessary notes. One of those excursions, which
+cost $24.35, has brought a return, to date, of more than $250, which of
+course does not include the worth of a five days' lark with a young
+Irishman who went on the trip as a novel form of summer vacation.
+
+He found all the novelty he could have hoped for. After some truly lyric
+passages of life in Arkansas, when we felt positively homesick about
+leaving one town to go on to another, we reached a railroad-less county
+in Missouri infested with fleas; and to secure a discount on the stage
+fare on the thirty-five-mile drive from Gainsville to West Plains (we
+_had_ to have a discount to save enough to buy something to eat that
+night) we played the harmonica for our driver's amusement until we
+gasped like fish. His soul was touched either by the melody or by pity,
+and he left us enough small change to provide a supper of cheese and
+crackers.
+
+Some happenings that must sound much more worth while in the ears of the
+mundane have followed, but those first days of free lancing seem to me
+to be among the choicest in a journalistic adventurer's experience.
+Encounters with a variety of celebrities since then have proved no whit
+more thrilling than the discovery that our host, Jerry South of Mountain
+Home, was lieutenant-governor of Arkansas; and though I have roamed in
+five nations, no food that I ever have tasted so nearly approaches that
+of the gods as the strawberry shortcake we ate in Bergman.
+
+Even in the crass matter of profits, I found the small town richer in
+easily harvestable "stories" than the biggest city in the world. A few
+years later I spent a week in London, but I picked up less there to
+write about than I found in Sabetha, Kansas, in a single afternoon.
+Sabetha furnished:
+
+Half of the material for a motor car article. (When automobiles were
+still a novelty to the rural population.) This sold to _Leslie's_.
+
+An article on gasoline-propelled railway coaches, for _The Illustrated
+World_.
+
+A short contribution on scientific municipal management of public
+utilities in a small town, for _Collier's_.
+
+A character sketch about a local philanthropic money lender, for
+_Leslie's_ and the Kansas City _Star_.
+
+An account of the Kansas Amish, a sect something like the Tolstoys, for
+Kansas City, St. Louis and New York newspapers.
+
+Short Sunday specials about a $40,000 hospital and a thoroughly modern
+Kansas farm house for Kansas City and St. Louis Sunday sections.
+
+The profits of these excursions were not always immediate, and until
+after I had worked many weeks at the trade there were periods of
+serious financial embarrassment. To cite profitable trips too early is
+to get ahead of my story, but the time is none the less propitious to
+remark that a country town or a small city certainly is as good a place
+for the free lance to operate (once he knows a "story" when he sees it)
+as is New York or Chicago, Boston, New Orleans or San Francisco. I often
+wonder if I would not have been better off financially if I had kept on
+working from a Kansas City headquarters instead of emigrating to the
+East.
+
+I might have gone on this way for a long time, in contentment, for my
+profits were steadily mounting and my markets extending. But one day my
+wanderings extended as far as Chicago, and there I ran across an old
+friend of student days. He had been the cartoonist of the college
+magazine when I was its editor. He wore, drooping from one corner of his
+face, a rah-rah bulldog pipe; an enormous portfolio full of enormities
+of drawing was under one arm, and, dangling at the end of the other, was
+one of the tiniest satchels that ever concealed a nightgown.
+
+In answer to questions about what he was doing with himself, he
+confessed that he was not making out any better than most other newly
+graduated students of art. I argued that if Chicago did not treat him
+considerately, he ought to head for New York, where real genius, more
+than likely, would be more quickly appreciated. Also, if this was to his
+liking, I would invite myself to go along with him.
+
+We went. Now sing, O Muse, the slaughter!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN NEW YORK'S "FLEET STREET"
+
+
+The inexperienced free lance who attempts to invade New York, as we did,
+with no magazine reputation and no friends at court among the experts of
+the periodical market, may be assured that he will receive a surprising
+amount of courtesy. But this courtesy is likely to be administered to
+help soften the blows of a series of disappointments. Anybody but a
+genius or one of fortune's darlings may expect that New York, which has
+a deep and natural distrust of strangers, will require that the newcomer
+earn his bread in blood-sweat until he has established a reputation for
+producing the goods. Dear old simple-hearted Father Knickerbocker has
+been gold-bricked so often that a breezy, friendly manner puts him
+immediately on his guard.
+
+Most of the editors with whom you will have to deal are home folks, like
+yourself, from Oskaloosa and Richmond and Santa Barbara and Quincy. Few
+are native-born New Yorkers, and scarcely any of them go around with
+their noses in the air in an "upstage Eastern manner." Most of them are
+graduates of the newspaper school, and remnants of newspaper cynicism
+occasionally appear in their outspoken philosophy. But be not deceived
+by this, for even in the newspaper office the half-baked cub who is
+getting his first glimpses of woman's frailties and man's weak will is
+the only cynic who means all he says. All reporters who are worth their
+salt mellow with the years; and editors who amount to much usually are
+ex-reporters trained to their jobs by long experience. The biggest
+editors and the ones with the biggest hearts have the biggest jobs. Most
+of the snubs you will receive will come from little men in little jobs,
+trying to impress you with a "front." The biggest editors of the lot are
+plain home folks whom you would not hesitate to invite to a dinner in a
+farmhouse kitchen.
+
+What you ought to know when you invade New York without much capital and
+no reputation to speak of is that you are making a great mistake to move
+there so early, and that most of the editors to whom you address
+yourself know you are making a mistake but are too soft-hearted to tell
+you so.
+
+Like most other over-optimistic free lances, we invaded New York with an
+expeditionary force which was in a woeful state of unpreparedness.
+
+In a street of brownstone fronts in mid-town Manhattan, a hurdy-gurdy
+strummed a welcome to us in the golden November sunlight, and a canary
+in a gilt cage twittered ecstatically from an open window. This moment
+is worthy of mention because it was the happiest that was granted to us
+for a number of months thereafter. We rented a small furnished room, top
+floor rear, and went out for a stroll on Broadway, looking the city over
+with the appraising eyes of conquerors. We were joyously confident.
+
+One reason why we thought we would do well here was that the latter
+months of the period preceding our supposedly triumphal entry had seen
+me arrive at the point of earning almost as much money at free lancing
+as I could have made as a reporter. Meantime, I had thrilled to see my
+name affixed to contributions in _Collier's_, _Leslie's_, _Outlook_ and
+_Outing_, not to mention a few lesser magazines. I thought I knew a
+"story" when I saw one. I knew how to take photographs and prepare a
+manuscript for marketing, and New York newspapers and magazines had been
+treating me handsomely. What we did not realize was that while the New
+York markets were hospitable enough to western material, they required
+no further assistance in reporting the activities of Manhattan Island.
+We had moved away from our gold mine.
+
+Our home and workshop now was a cubbyhole so small that every piece of
+furniture in the place was in close proximity to something else. My
+battered desk was jam against my roommate's drawing table, and his chair
+backed against a bed. Then, except for a narrow aisle to the door, there
+was a chair which touched another bed, which touched a trunk; the trunk
+touched ends with a washstand, which was jam against a false mantel
+pasted onto the wall, and the mantel was in juxtaposition with a bureau
+which poked me in the back. The window looked south, and adjacent
+buildings allowed it to have sunlight for almost half an hour a day.
+
+Yet it would have been a cheerful enough place if our mail had not been
+so depressing. Everything we sent out came right back with a bounce,
+sometimes on the same day that we posted it. With indefatigable zeal we
+wrote feature "stories" about big topics in America's biggest city and
+furnished illustrations for the text. But the manuscripts did not sell.
+For two bitter months we kept at it before we discovered what was wrong.
+You may wonder how we could have been so blind. But there was no one to
+tell us what to do. We had to find out by experience.
+
+In November our income was $60.90, all of it echoes from the past for
+material written in the west.
+
+"How that crowd in the old office would laugh at us when we trailed back
+home, defeated!"
+
+That was the thought which was at once a nightmare and a goad to further
+desperate effort. Day after day the Art Department and the kodak and I
+explored New York's highways and centers of interest. The place was ripe
+with barrels and barrels of good "feature stories," and I knew it; and
+the markets were not unfriendly, for by mail I had sold to them before.
+But now we could not "land."
+
+On Christmas Day there was a dismal storm. Our purses were almost flat,
+and my box from home failed to arrive. To get up an appetite for dinner
+that night we went for a walk in a joy killing blizzard. I wanted to die
+and planned to do so. The only reason I did not jump off of a pier was
+the providential intervention of several stiff cocktails. (I am
+theoretically a prohibitionist, but grateful to the enemy for having
+saved my life.) The black cloud that shut out all sunlight was our
+measly total for December--$18.07.
+
+One glimmer of hope remained in a growing suspicion that perhaps some of
+the "stories" we had submitted had seen print shortly before we
+arrived. Possibly some other free lances--I would now estimate the
+number as somewhere between nine hundred and a thousand--had gone over
+the island of Manhattan with a fine tooth comb? I began haunting the
+side streets to seek out the most hidden possibilities, and ended in
+triumph one afternoon in a little uptown bird store.
+
+For two hours the young woman who was the proprietor of the store
+submitted to a searching interview, and I emerged with enough material
+for a full page spread. Then, taking no chances of being turned down
+because the contribution was too long, I condensed the "story" into a
+column. The manuscript went to the Sunday Editor of the New York _Sun_,
+with a letter pleading that "just this once" he grant me the special
+favor of a note to explain why he would not be able to use what I had to
+offer.
+
+"Well enough written," he scribbled on the rejection slip, "but Miss
+Virginia has been done too many times before."
+
+With that a great light dawned. Further investigation discovered that we
+had run into the same difficulty on numerous other occasions. We
+newcomers had no notion of how thoroughly and often the city had been
+pillaged for news. We could not tell old stuff from new. Manhattan
+Island is, indeed, the most perilous place in all America for the green
+and friendless free lance to attempt to earn a living. There is a
+wonderful abundance of "stories," but nearly all of them that the eye of
+the beginner can detect have been marketed before. Any other island but
+Manhattan! When dog days came around, I took a vacation on Bois Blanc in
+the Straits of Mackinac, and found more salable "stories" along its
+thinly populated shores than Manhattan had been able to furnish in three
+months. Everything I touched on Bois Blanc was new, and all my own.
+Anything on Manhattan is everybody's.
+
+But to return to our troubles in New York. The only hope I could see was
+to create a line of writing all our own. This determination resulted in
+a highly specialized type of "feature" for which we found a market in
+the morning New York _World_. It combined novelty with the utmost
+essence of timeliness. For example, precluding any possibility of being
+anticipated on the opening of Coney Island's summer season, we wrote
+early in February:
+
+"If reports from unveracious employees of Coney Island are to be
+trusted, the summer season of 1910 is going to bring forth thrilling
+novelties for the air and the earth and the tunnels beneath the earth."
+
+We listed then the Biplane Hat Glide (women were wearing enormous hats
+that season) and Motor Ten Pins--get in a motor car and run down
+dummies which count respectively, a child, ten points; a blind man,
+five; a newsboy, one. Then the Shontshover. We explained the Shontshover
+in detail because it was supposed to have a particularly strong appeal
+to the millions who ride in the subway:
+
+"New York's good-natured enjoyment of its inadequate subway service is
+responsible for the third novelty of the season. In honor of a gentleman
+who once took a ride in one of his own subway cars during the rush hour,
+the device has been named the 'Shontshover' (from 'Shonts' and
+'shover'). It is the sublimation of a subway car, a cross between a
+cartridge and a sardine can. The passengers are packed into the shell
+with a hydraulic ram, then at high speed are shot through a pneumatic
+tube against a stone wall. Because of the great number of passengers the
+Shontshover can carry in a day, the admission price to the tube is to be
+only twenty-five cents."
+
+We suggested on other occasions that new churches should have floors
+with an angle of forty-five degrees, on account of the prevailing
+fashion of large hats among women; that City Hall employees were
+outwitting Mayor Gaynor's time clock by paying the night watchman to
+punch it for them at sunrise, and that beauty had become a bar to a job
+as waitress in numerous New York restaurants. (O shades of George
+Washington, forgive us that one, at least!) These squibs did nobody any
+harm, and did us on the average, the good of the price of a week's room
+rent. We never meant them to be taken seriously or ever supposed that
+any one in the world would swallow them whole. But among our readers was
+a square-headed German; and one of the most absurd of our imaginings
+turned out, as a result, to be a physical possibility.
+
+"Ever since it was announced, a few days ago, that hazing in a modified
+modernized form is to be permitted at West Point," we related, "a
+reporter for the _World_ has been busily interviewing people of all ages
+and interests to find the latest ideas on the subject.... Some small
+boys in Van Cortlandt Park yesterday afternoon, diabolo experts,
+suggested 'plebe diabolo.' It is simply diabolo for grown-ups. A rope
+takes the place of the customary string and a first year man is used for
+a spool. Any one can see at a glance what a great improvement this would
+be over the old-fashioned stunt of tossing the plebe in a blanket."
+
+A few months later I picked up a copy of the _Scientific American_ and
+chortled to read the account of a German acrobat who was playing in
+vaudeville as the "Human Diabolo."
+
+But this sort of thing was merely temporizing, and we finally had to
+abandon it for subjects more substantial. By a slow and harrowing
+process we learned our specialties and made a few helpful friends in New
+York's Fleet Street. The fittest among the many manuscripts turned out
+by our copy mill survived to teach us that the surest way into print is
+to write about things closest to personal knowledge--simple and homely
+themes close to the grass roots. We turned again to middle western
+topics and the magazines opened their doors to us. We plugged away for
+six months and cleared a profit large enough to pay off all our debts
+and leave a little margin. Then we felt that we could look the west in
+the face again, and go home, if we liked, without a consciousness of
+utter defeat. For though we had not won, neither had we lost. Our books
+struck a balance.
+
+When the Wanderlust began calling again in May, I sat many an evening in
+the window of our little room, gazing down into the backyard cat arena
+or up at the moon, and dragging away at a Missouri corncob pipe in a
+happy revery. Some of my manuscript titles of editorial paragraphs
+contributed to _Collier's_ trace what happened next:
+
+     Longings at the Window.
+     Packing Up.
+     A Mood of Moving Day.
+     From Cab to Taxi.
+     Outdoor Sleeping Quarters.
+     Shortcake.
+
+Which is to say that it was sweet to see the home folks again, to eat
+fried chicken and honest homemade strawberry shortcake and to slumber on
+a sleeping porch. Our forces had beat a strategic retreat, but the
+morale was not gone. Our determination was firm to assault New York
+again at the first favorable opportunity. Meanwhile, we had learned a
+thing or two.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOMETHING TO SELL
+
+
+Six months back home, toiling like a galley slave, furnished requisite
+funds for another fling at New York. If ever a writer _burned_ with
+zeal, this one did. Mississippi Valley summers often approach the
+torrid; this one was a record breaker; and I never shall forget how
+often that summer, after a hard day's work as a reporter, I stripped to
+the waist like a stoker and scribbled and typed until my eyes and
+fingers ached.
+
+It was wise--and foolish. Wise, because it furnished the capital with
+which every free lance ought to be well supplied before he attempts to
+operate from a New York headquarters. Foolish, because it took all joy
+of life out of my manuscripts while the session of strenuousness lasted
+and left me wavering at the end almost on the verge of a physical
+breakdown. Nights, Sundays and holidays I plugged and slogged, nor did I
+relent even when vacation time came round. I sojourned to the Michigan
+pine woods, but took along my typewriter and kept it singing half of
+every day.
+
+The new year found me in New York again, alone this time and installed
+in a comfortable two-room suite instead of an attic. A reassuring bank
+account bolstered up my courage while the work was getting under way.
+
+This time I made a go of it; and such ups and downs as have followed in
+the ten years succeeding have not been much more dramatic than the mild
+adventures that befall the everyday business man. "Danger is past and
+now troubles begin." That phrase of Gambetta's aptly describes the
+situation of the average free lance when, after the first desperate
+struggles, he has managed to gain a reasonable assurance of
+independence.
+
+Confidence comes with experience, and when you no longer have any grave
+fears about your ability to make a living at the trade, your mind turns
+from elementary problems to the less distracting task of finding out how
+to make your discovered degree of talent count for all that it may be
+worth. After trying your hand at a variety of subjects, you will find
+your forte. But take your time about it. Every adventure in composition
+teaches you something new about yourself, your art and the markets
+wherein you gain your daily bread. The way to learn to write--the only
+way--is by writing, and you never will know what you might do unless you
+dare and try.
+
+Both as a matter of expediency and of getting as much fun out of the
+work as possible, it is well in the beginning to be versatile.
+Eventually, the free lance faces two choices: He may become a specialist
+and put in the remainder of his life writing solely about railroads, or
+about finance, or about the drama. Or he may, as Robert Louis Stevenson
+did, turn his hand as the mood moves him, to fiction, verse, fables,
+biography, criticism, drama or journalism--a little of everything. For
+my own part, I have always had something akin to pity for the fellow who
+is bound hand and foot to one interest. Let the fame and the greater
+profits of specialization go hang; "an able bodied writin' man" can best
+possess his soul if he does not harness Pegasus to plow forever in one
+cabbage patch.
+
+Like the Ozark Mountain farmer who also ran a country store, a saw mill,
+a deer park, a sorghum mill, a threshing machine and preached in the
+meetin' house on Sunday mornings, I have turned my pen to any honest
+piece of writing that appealed strongly enough to my fancy--travel,
+popular science, humor, light verse, editorials, essays, interviews,
+personality sketches and captions for photographs. Genius takes a short
+cut to the highroad. But waste not your sympathy on the rest of us, for
+the byways have their own charm.
+
+While one is finding his footing in the free lance fields, he had best
+not hold himself above doing any kind of journalistic work that turns an
+honest dollar. For he becomes richer not only by the dollar, but also by
+the acquaintances he makes and the valuable experience he gains in
+turning that dollar. There was a time--and not so long ago--when, if the
+writer called at the waiting room of the Leslie-Judge Company, the girl
+at the desk would try to guess whether he had a drawing to show to the
+Art Editor, a frivolous manuscript for _Judge_ or a serious article for
+_Leslie's_. At the Doubleday, Page plant the uncertainty was about
+whether the caller sought the editor of _World's Work_, _Country Life_,
+the _Red Cross Magazine_ or _Short Stories_--he had, at various times,
+contributed to all of these publications.
+
+Smile, if you like, but there is no better way to discover what you can
+do best than to try your 'prentice hand at a great variety of topics and
+mediums. The post-graduate course of every school of journalism is a
+roped arena where you wrestle, catch as catch can, for the honors
+bestowed by experience.
+
+This experience, painfully acquired, should be backed up by an
+elementary knowledge of salesmanship. Super-sensitive souls there are
+who shudder at the mere mention of the word; and why this is so is not
+difficult to understand--their minds are poisoned with sentimental
+misapprehensions. Get rid of those misapprehensions just as swiftly as
+you can. If you have something to sell, be it hardware or a manuscript,
+common sense should dictate that you learn a little about how to sell
+it.
+
+Expert interviewers prepare themselves both for their topic and their
+man before they go into a confab--a practice which should be followed to
+some extent by every writer who sets out to interview an editor about a
+manuscript. What you have to offer should be prepared to suit the needs
+of the editor to whom the contribution is addressed. So you should study
+your magazine just as carefully as you do the subject about which you
+are writing. In your interview with the editor or in the letter which
+takes the place of an interview, state briefly whatever should be useful
+to his enlightenment. That is all. There you have the first principles
+of what is meant by "an elementary knowledge of salesmanship." If you
+don't know what you are talking about or anything about the possible
+needs of the man to whom you are talking, how can you expect to interest
+him in any commodity under heaven? Say nothing that you don't
+believe--he won't believe it, either. Never fool him. If you do, you may
+sell him once, but never again.
+
+There is no dark art to salesmanship; it is simply a matter of
+delivering the goods in a manner dictated by courtesy, sincerity, common
+sense and common honesty. Be yourself without pose, and don't forget
+that the editor--whether you believe it or not--is just as "human" as
+you are, and quick to respond to the best that there is in you. Shake
+off the delusion that you need to play the "good fellow" to him, like
+the old-fashioned type of drummer in a small town. Simply and sincerely
+and straight from the shoulder--also briefly, because he is a busy
+man--state your case, leave your literary goods for inspection and go
+your way.
+
+He will judge you and your manuscript on merits; if he does not, he will
+not long continue to be an editor. The two greatest curses of his
+existence (I speak from experience) are the poses and the incurable
+loquaciousness of some of his callers and correspondents. Don't attempt
+to spring any correspondence school salesmanship on a real editor. Learn
+what real salesmanship is, from a real salesman--who may sell bacon, or
+steel or motor cars instead of manuscripts. He lives down your street,
+perhaps. Have a talk with him. He will tell you of the profits in a
+square deal and in knowing your business, and what can be accomplished
+by a little faith.
+
+If you are temperamentally unfit to sell your own writings, get a
+competent literary agent to do the job for you. But don't too quickly
+despair, for after all, there is nothing particularly subtle about
+salesmanship. Sincerity, however crude, usually carries conviction. If
+you know a "story" when you see it, if you write it right and type it in
+professional form and give it the needed illustrations; then if you
+offer it in a common sense manner to a suitable market, you can be
+trusted to handle your own products as successfully as the best salesman
+in America--as successfully as Charles Schwab himself. For, above all,
+remember this: the editor is just as eager to buy good stuff as you are
+to sell it. Nothing is simpler than to make a sale in the literary
+market if you have what the editor wants.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHAT THE EDITOR WANTS
+
+
+Suppose you were the manager of an immense forum, a stadium like the one
+in San Diego, California, where with the aid of a glass cage and an
+electrical device increasing the intensity of the human voice, it is
+possible to reach the ears of a world's record audience of 50,000
+persons. What sort of themes would you favor when candidates for a place
+on your speaking program asked you what they ought to discuss? "The
+Style of Walter Pater?" "The Fourth Dimension?" "Florentine Art of the
+Fourteenth Century?" Not likely! You would insist upon simple and homely
+themes, of the widest possible appeal.
+
+A parallel case is that of the editor of a magazine of general
+circulation. He manages a forum so much larger than the famous stadium
+at San Diego that the imagination is put to a strain to picture it. On
+the generally accepted assumption that each sold copy of a popular
+magazine eventually reaches an average of five persons, there is one
+forum in the magazine world of America which every week assembles a
+throng of ten million or more assorted citizens, gathered from
+everywhere, coast to coast, men and women, young and old, every walk of
+life. A dozen other periodicals address at least half that number, and
+the humblest of the widely known magazines reaches a quarter of a
+million--five times as many persons as jammed their way into the San
+Diego stadium one time to hear a speech by the President of the United
+States.
+
+Put yourself into the shoes of the manager of one of these forums, and
+try to understand some of his difficulties.
+
+A dozen times a day the editor of a popular periodical is besieged by
+contributors to make some sort of answer to the question: "What kind of
+material are you seeking?"
+
+What else can he reply, in a general way, but "something of wide appeal,
+to interest our wide circle of readers"?
+
+There are times, of course, when he can speak specifically and with
+assurance, if all he happens to require at the moment to give proper
+balance to his table of contents is one or two manuscripts of a definite
+type. Then he may be able to say, off-hand: "An adventure novelette of
+twenty thousand words," or, "An article on the high cost of shoe
+leather, three thousand five hundred words." But this is a happy
+situation which is not at all typical. Ordinarily, he stands in constant
+need of half a dozen varieties of material; but to describe them all in
+detail to every caller would take more time than he could possibly
+afford to spare.
+
+He cannot stop to explain to every applicant that among what Robert
+Louis Stevenson described as "the real deficiencies of social
+intercourse" is the fact that while two's company three's a crowd; that
+with each addition to this crowd the topics of conversation must broaden
+in appeal, seeking the greatest common divisor of interests; and that a
+corollary is the unfortunate fact that the larger the crowd the fewer
+and more elemental must become the subjects that are possible for
+discussion.
+
+Every editor knows that a lack of judgment in selecting themes of broad
+enough appeal to interest a nation-wide public is one of the novice
+scribbler's most common failings. It is due chiefly to a lack of
+imagination on the part of the would-be contributor, who appears to be
+incapable of projecting himself into the editorial viewpoint. I can
+testify from my own experience that a single day's work as an editor,
+wading through a bushel of mail, taught me more about how to make a
+selection of subjects than six months of shooting in the dark as a free
+lance.
+
+Every editor knows that nine out of ten of the unsolicited manuscripts
+which he will find piled upon his desk for reading to-morrow morning
+will prove to be wholly unfitted for the uses of his magazine. The man
+outside the sanctum fails utterly to understand the editor's dilemma.
+
+This is the situation which has produced the "staff writer," and has
+brought down upon the editor the protests of his more discriminating
+readers against "standardized fiction" and against sundry uninspired
+articles produced to measure by faithful hacks. The editor defends his
+course in printing this sort of material upon the ground that a magazine
+made up wholly of unsolicited material would be a horrid mélange, far
+more distressing to the consumer than the present type of popular
+periodical which is so largely made to order. All editors read
+unsolicited material hopefully and eagerly. Many an editor gives this
+duty half of his working day and part of his evenings and Sundays. All
+of the reward of a discoverer is his if he can herald a new worth-while
+writer. Moreover, the interest of economy bids him be faithful in the
+task, for the novice does not demand the high rates of the renowned
+professional.
+
+Yet even on the largest of our magazines, where the stream of
+contributions is enormous, the most diligent search is not fruitful of
+much material that is worth while. The big magazines have to order most
+of their material in advance, like so much sausage or silk; and much of
+the contents is planned for many months ahead. Scarcely any dependence
+can be placed upon the luck of what drifts into the office in the mails.
+
+Inevitably, the magazines must have large recourse to "big names," not
+because of inbred snobbishness on the part of the editors but because
+the "big name," besides carrying advertising value, is more likely than
+a little one to stand for material with a "big" theme, handled by a
+writer of experience. A surer touch in selecting and handling topics of
+nation-wide appeal is what counts most heavily in favor of the writer
+with an established reputation. Often enough it is not his vastly
+superior craftsmanship. I know of several famous magazine writers who
+never in their lives have got their material into print in the form in
+which it originally was submitted. They are what the trade calls
+"go-getters." They deliver the "story" as best they can, and a more
+skillful stylist completes the job.
+
+Success in marketing non-fiction to popular magazines appears to hinge
+largely upon the quality of the thinking the writer does before he sets
+pen to paper. A classic anecdote of New York's Fleet Street may
+illustrate the point:
+
+The publisher of a national weekly was hiring a newspaper man as editor.
+
+"Is this a writing job?" the applicant inquired.
+
+"No!" growled the publisher, "a thinkin' job!"
+
+The writer of non-fiction is in the same boat with the editor who buys
+his articles; he calls himself a writer, but primarily he is up against
+a thinking job. The actual writing of his material is secondary to good
+judgment in selecting what is known as a "compelling" theme. If he can
+produce a "real story" and get it onto paper in some sort of intelligent
+fashion, what remains to be done in the way of craftsmanship can be
+handled inside the magazine office by a "re-write man." Make sure, first
+of all, that what you have to say is something that ought to interest
+the large audience to which you address it.
+
+Nobody with a grain of common sense would attempt to discuss "The Style
+of Walter Pater" to fifty thousand restless and croupy auditors in the
+vast San Diego stadium, but the average free lance sees nothing of equal
+absurdity about attempting to cram an essay on Pater down the throats of
+a miscellaneous crowd in a stadium which is from a hundred to two
+hundred times as large--the forum into which throng the thousands who
+read one of our large popular magazines.
+
+Much as we may regret to acknowledge it, there is no way to get around
+the fact that the larger and more general the circulation of a
+periodical, the more universal must be the appeal of the material
+printed and the fewer the mainstays of interest, until in a magazine
+with a circulation of more than a million copies the chief
+classifications of non-fiction material required can easily be counted
+upon the fingers. The editor of such a publication necessarily is
+limited to handling rather elemental topics; so it is not to be wondered
+at when we hear that the largest publication of them all makes its
+mainstays two such universally interesting and world-old themes as
+business and "the way of a man with a maid."
+
+Examine any popular magazine which has a circulation of general readers,
+speaking to a forum of anywhere from a quarter of a million to ten
+million assorted readers, and you will find that the non-fiction
+material which it is most eager to buy may easily be classified into
+half a dozen types of articles, all concerned with the ruling passions
+of the average American, as:
+
+     1. His job.
+     2. His hearthstone.
+     3. His politics.
+     4. His recreations.
+     5. His health.
+     6. Happenings of national interest.
+
+Examine a few of these types of contributions to arrive at a clearer
+understanding of why they are so justly popular. Your average American
+is, first of all, keenly interested in his job. It is much more to him,
+usually, than just a way to make a living. It fascinates him like a
+game, and you often hear him describe it as a "game." What, then, is
+more natural than that he should eagerly read articles of practical
+helpfulness concerned with his activities in office or store, factory or
+farm? The largest of our popular magazines never appear without
+something which touches this sort of interest, stimulating the man of
+affairs to strive after further successes and advancement in his chosen
+occupation. Many specialized business and trade publications and more
+than a score of skillfully edited farm magazines thrive upon developing
+this class of themes to the exclusion of all other material.
+
+A second vital interest is the hearthstone--suggesting such undying
+topics as love and the landlord, marriage and divorce, the training of
+children, the household budget, the high cost of living, those
+compelling themes which have built up the women's magazines into
+institutions of giant stature and tremendous power.
+
+Politics is another field of almost universal interest, broadening every
+day now that women have the ballot and now that our vision is no longer
+limited to the homeland horizon, but finds itself searching eagerly
+onward into international relationships. Once we were content, as a
+national body politic, to discuss candidates for the Presidency or what
+our stand should be upon currency and the tariff. To-day we are also
+gravely concerned to know what is to become of Russia and Germany, or
+how the political and social unrest in France and Italy and England will
+affect the peace of the world.
+
+As a fourth point, your average American these days is quick to respond
+to anything worth while concerning his recreations. As a consequence,
+much space is reserved in the big magazines for articles on society,
+travel, the theater and the movies, motor cars, country life, outings,
+and such popular sports as golf, baseball and tennis. Every one of these
+topics, besides being dealt with in the general magazines, has its own
+special mouthpiece.
+
+Health always has been a subject constantly on the tip of everybody's
+tongue, but never before has so much been printed about the more
+important phases of it than appears in the popular magazines of to-day.
+Knowledge of the common sense rules of diet, exercise, ventilation and
+the like are becoming public possession--thanks largely to the magazines
+and the newspaper syndicates.
+
+A sixth mainstay of the magazines is in the presentation of articles
+dealing with happenings of national interest or personalities prominent
+in the day's news. This task grows increasingly difficult as the
+newspapers tighten their grip upon the public's attention and as the
+news pictorials of the moving picture screen gain in popular esteem by
+improved technical skill and more intelligent editing. The magazine of
+large circulation must go to press so long before the newspapers and the
+films that much perishable news must be thrown out, even though it is of
+nation wide appeal. The magazines are coming to find their greatest
+usefulness in the news field in gathering up the loose ends of scattered
+paragraphs which the daily newspapers have no time to weave together
+into a pattern. In the magazine the patchwork of daily journalism is
+assembled into more meaningful designs. Local news is sifted of its
+provincialism to become matter of national concern. Topics which you
+rapidly skimmed in the afternoon newspaper three or four weeks ago are
+re-discussed in the weekly or monthly magazines in a way which often
+makes you feel that here, for the first time, they become of personal
+import.
+
+The purpose of the suggestions sketched above is not to supply canned
+topics to ready writers, but to set ambitious scribblers to the task of
+doing some thinking for themselves. Instead of shiftlessly tossing the
+whole burden of responsibility for choice of topics to a hard driven
+editor, and whining, "Please give me an idea!", search around on your
+own initiative for a theme worth presenting to the attention of a throng
+of widely assorted listeners--for a "story" that ought to appeal to
+America's multitudes. If your topic is big enough for a big audience,
+your chances are prime to get a hearing for it. Dig up the necessary
+facts, the "human interest" and the national significance of the case.
+Then, rest assured, that "story" is what the editor wants.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AND IF YOU DO--
+
+
+Something in the misty sunshine this morning made you restless. Vague
+longings, born of springtime mystery, stirred your blood, quickened the
+imagination. Roads that never were, and mayhap never will be, beckoned
+you with their sinuous curves and graceful shade trees toward velvety
+fields beyond the city's skyline. The sweet fragrance of blossoming
+orchards tingled in your nostrils and thrilled you with wanderlust.
+Haunting melodies quavered in your ears. Your old briar pipe never
+tasted so sweet before. Adventure never seemed so imminent. A golden
+day. What will you do with it?
+
+You could write to-day, but if you did, you know you could support no
+patience for prosy facts, statistics and photographs. Whatever urge you
+feel appears to be toward verse or fiction. Well, why not? Try it! You
+never know what you might do in writing until you dare.
+
+Verse is largely its own reward.
+
+Fiction, when it turns out successfully, fetches a double reward. It
+pays both in personal satisfaction, as a form of creative art, and also
+as a marketable commodity, which always is in great demand, and which
+can be cashed in to meet house rent and grocers' bills.
+
+It is not within the scope of this little book--nor of its author's
+abilities--to attempt a discussion of fiction methods. Too many other
+writers, better qualified to speak, have dealt with fiction in scores of
+worth while volumes. Too many successful story tellers have related
+their experiences and treated, with authority, of the short story, the
+novelette and the long novel.
+
+The purpose here can be only to urge that an attempt to write fiction is
+a logical step ahead for any scribbler who has won a moderate degree of
+success in selling newspaper copy and magazine articles. The eye that
+can perceive the dramatic and put it into non-fiction, the heart that
+knows human interest, the understanding that can tell a symbol, the
+artist-instinct that can catch characteristic colors, scents and sounds,
+all should aid a skilled writer of articles to turn his energies, with
+some hope of achievement, toward producing fiction. The hand that can
+fashion a really vivid article holds out promise of being able to
+compose a convincing short story, if grit and ambition help push the
+pen.
+
+The temptation to dogmatize here is strong, for the witness can testify
+that he has seen enviable success crown many a fiction writer who,
+apparently, possessed small native talent for story telling, and who won
+his laurels through sheer pluck and persistence. One of these pluggers
+declares he blesses the rejection slip because it "eliminates so many
+quitters."
+
+But of course it would be absurd to believe that any one with unlimited
+courage and elbow grease could win at fiction, lacking all aptitude for
+it. Just as there are photographers who can snap pictures for twenty
+years without producing a single happy composition (except by accident),
+and reporters who never develop a "nose for news," there are story
+writers who can master all the mechanics of tale-telling, through sheer
+drudgery, and yet continually fail to catch fiction's spark of life.
+They fail, and shall always fail. Yet it is better to have strived and
+failed, than never to have tried at all.
+
+Why? For the good of their artists' consciences, in the first place.
+And, in the second, because no writer can earnestly struggle with words
+without learning something about them to his trade advantage.
+
+A confession may be in order: your deponent testifies freely, knowing
+that anything he may say may be used against him, that for years he has
+been a tireless producer of unsuccessful fiction, yet he views his
+series of rebuffs in this medium calmly and even somewhat humorously.
+For, by trade, he is a writer of articles, and he earnestly believes
+that the mental exercise of attempting to produce fiction acts as a
+healthy influence upon a non-fictionist's style. It stimulates the
+torpid imagination. It quickens the eye for the vivid touches, the
+picturesque and the dramatic. It is a groping toward art.
+
+"Art," writes one who knows, "is a mistress so beautiful, so high, so
+noble, that no phrases can fitly characterize her, no service can be
+wholly worthy of her."
+
+Perhaps such art as goes into the average magazine article is not likely
+to merit much high-sounding praise. In our familiar shop talk we are
+prone to laugh about it. But even the most commercial-minded of our
+brotherhood cherishes deep in his heart a craftsman's pride in work well
+done. So your deponent testifies in his own defense that his copybook
+exercises in fiction, half of which end in the wastebasket, seem well
+worth the pains that they cost, so long as they help keep alive in his
+non-fiction bread-winners a hankering after (if not a flavor of)
+literary art.
+
+And now must he apologize further for using a word upon which writers in
+these confessedly commercial days appear to have set a _taboo_? Then a
+passage from "The Study of Literature" (Arlo Bates) may serve for the
+apology:
+
+"Life is full of disappointment, and pain, and bitterness, and that
+sense of futility in which all of these evils are summed up; and yet
+were there no other alleviation, he who knows and truly loves literature
+finds here a sufficient reason to be glad he lives. Science may show a
+man how to live; art makes living worth his while. Existence to-day
+without literature would be a failure and a despair; and if we cannot
+satisfactorily define our art, we at least are aware how it enriches and
+ennobles the life of every human being who comes within the sphere of
+its gracious influence."
+
+So, we repeat: for the good of the artist's self-respect as well as for
+his craftsmanship it is worth while to attempt fiction. If only as a
+tonic! If only to jog himself out of a rut of habit!
+
+If he succeeds with fiction he has bright hopes of winning much larger
+financial rewards for his labor than he is likely to gain by writing
+articles. Non-fiction rarely brings in more than one return upon the
+investment, but a good short story or novel may fetch several. First,
+his yarn sells to the magazine. Then it may be re-sold ("second serial
+rights") to the newspapers. Finally, it may fetch the largest cash
+return of all by being marketed to a motion picture corporation as the
+plot for a scenario. In some instances even this does not exhaust all
+the possibilities, for if British magazines and bookmen are interested
+in the tale, the "English rights" of publication may add another payment
+to the total.
+
+Not all of the features of this picture, however, should be painted in
+rose-colors. A disconcerting and persistent rumor has it that what once
+was a by-product of fiction--the sale of "movie rights"--is now
+threatening to run off with the entire production. The side show, we are
+warned, is shaping the policy of the main tent. Which is to say that
+novelists and magazine fiction writers are accused of becoming more
+concerned about how their stories will film than about how the
+manuscripts will grade as pieces of literature. To get a yarn into print
+is still worth while because this enhances its value in the eyes of the
+producers of motion pictures. But the author's real goal is "no longer
+good writing, so much as remunerative picture possibilities."
+
+We set this down not because we believe it true of the majority of our
+brother craftsmen, but because evidences of such influences are
+undeniably present, and do not appear to have done the art of writing
+fiction any appreciable benefit. If your trade is non-fiction, and you
+turn to fiction to improve your art rather than your bank account, good
+counsel will admonish you not to aim at any other mark than the best
+that you can produce in the way of literary art. For there lies the
+deepest satisfaction a writer can ever secure--"art makes living worth
+his while."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+FOREVER AT THE CROSSROADS
+
+
+Keep studying. Keep experimenting. Set yourself harder tasks. Never be
+content with what you have accomplished. Match yourself against the men
+who can outplay you, not against the men you already excel. Keep
+attempting something that baffles you. Discontent is your friend more
+often than your enemy.
+
+From the moment that he is graduated out of the cub reporter class,
+every writer who is worth his salt is forever at the crossroads,
+perplexed about the next turn. Nowhere is smugness of mind more deadly
+than in journalism. To progress you must forever scale more difficult
+ascents. The bruises of rebuffs and the wounds of injured vanity will
+heal quickly enough if you keep busy. Defeated or undefeated, the writer
+who always is trying to master something more difficult than the work he
+used to do preserves his self-respect and the respect of his worth-while
+neighbors. The fellow with the canker at his heart is not the battler
+but the envious shirker who is too "proud" to risk a fall.
+
+Swallow what you suppose to be your pride; it really is a false sense of
+dignity. Make a simple beginning in the university of experience by
+learning with experiments what constitutes a "story" and by drudging
+with pencil and typewriter to put that "story" into professional
+manuscript form. Get the right pictures for it; then ship it off to
+market. If the first choice of markets rejects you, try the second, the
+third, fourth, fifth and sixth--even unto the ninety-and-ninth.
+
+Few beginners have even a dim notion of the great variety of markets
+that exist for free lance contributions. There are countless trade
+publications, newspaper syndicates, class journals, "house organs," and
+magazines devoted to highly specialized interests. Nearly all of these
+publications are eager to buy matter of interest to their particular
+circles of readers. Every business, every profession, every trade, every
+hobby has its mouthpiece.
+
+Remember this when you are a beginner and the "big magazines" of general
+circulation are rejecting your manuscripts with a clock-like regularity
+which drives you almost to despair. Try your 'prentice hand on
+contributions to the smaller publications. That is the surest way to
+"learn while you earn" in free lancing. These humble markets need not
+cause you to sneer--particularly if you happen to be a humble beginner.
+
+Every laboratory experiment in manuscript writing and marketing, though
+it be only a description of a shop window for a dry goods trade paper,
+or an interview with a boss plumber for the _Gas Fitter's Gazette_, will
+furnish you with experience in your own trade, and set you ahead a step
+on the long road that leads to the most desirable acceptances. The one
+thing to watch zealously is your own development, to make sure that you
+do not too soon content yourself with achievements beneath your
+capabilities. Start with the little magazines, but keep attempting to
+attain the more difficult goals.
+
+Meanwhile, you need not apologize to any one for the nature of your
+work, so long as it is honest reporting and all as well written as you
+know how to make it. Stevenson, one of the most conscientious of
+literary artists, declared in a "Letter to a Young Gentleman Who
+Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art," that "the first duty in this
+world is for a man to pay his way," and this is one of your confessed
+purposes while you are serving this kind of journalistic apprenticeship.
+
+Until he arrives, the novice must, indeed, unless he be exceptionally
+gifted, "pay assiduous court to the bourgeois who carries the purse.
+And if in the course of these capitulations he shall falsify his talent,
+it can never have been a strong one, and he will have preserved a better
+thing than talent--character. Or if he be of a mind so independent that
+he cannot stoop to this necessity, one course is yet open: he can desist
+from art, and follow some more manly way of life."
+
+In short, so long as you _keep moving_ toward something worth attaining,
+there is nothing to worry about but how to keep from relapsing into
+smugness or idleness. The besetting temptation of the free lance is to
+pamper himself. He is his own boss, can sleep as late as he likes, go
+where he pleases and quit work when the temptation seizes him. As a
+result, he usually babies himself and turns out much less work than he
+might safely attempt without in the least endangering his health.
+
+When he finds out later how assiduously some of the best known of our
+authors keep at their desks he becomes a little ashamed of himself.
+Though they may not work, on the average, as long hours as the business
+man, they toil far harder, and usually with few of the interruptions and
+relaxations from the job that the business man is allowed. Four or five
+hours of intense application a day stands for a great deal more
+expenditure of energy and thought than eight or nine hours broken up
+with periods when one's feet are literally or metaphorically on the desk
+and genial conversation is flowing. Most of the men and women who make a
+living out of free lancing earn every blessed cent of it; and the amount
+upon which they pay an income tax is, as a rule, proportioned rather
+justly to the amount of concentrated labor that they pour into the
+hopper of the copy mill.
+
+You who happen to have seen a successful free lance knock off work in
+mid-afternoon to play tennis, or to skim away toward the country club in
+his new motor car are too likely to exclaim that "his is the existence!"
+Forgetting, of course, the lonesome hours of more or less baffling
+effort that he spent that day upon a manuscript before he locked up his
+workshop. And the years he spent in drudgery, the bales of rejection
+slips he collected, the times that he had to pawn his watch and stick
+pin to buy a dinner or to pay the rent of a hall bedroom.
+
+Young Gentlemen Who Propose to Embrace the Career of Art might be
+shocked to learn--though it would be all for their own good--that a
+great many writers who are generally regarded with envy for their "luck"
+take the pains to follow the market notes in the Authors' League
+_Bulletin_, the _Bookman_ and the _Editor Magazine_ with all the care
+of a contractor studying the latest news of building operations. Not
+only do these writers read the trade papers of their calling; they also,
+with considerable care, study the magazines to which they sell--or hope
+to sell--manuscripts. They do not nearly so often as the novice make the
+_faux pas_ of offering an editor exactly the same sort of material that
+he already has printed in a recent or a current issue. They follow the
+new books. They keep card indexes on their unmarketed manuscripts, and
+toil on as much irksome office routine as a stock broker. A surprisingly
+large number of the "arrived" do not even hold themselves above keeping
+note books, or producing, chiefly for the beneficial exercise of it,
+essays, journals, descriptions, verse and fiction not meant to be
+offered for sale--solely copybook exercises, produced for
+self-improvement or to gratify an impulse toward non-commercial art.
+
+For instances I can name a fiction writer who turns often to the essay
+form, but never publishes this type of writing, and an editorial writer
+who, for the "fun of it" and the good he believes it does his style,
+composes every year a great deal of verse. A group of six Michigan
+writers publish their own magazine, a typewritten publication with a
+circulation of six.
+
+These men are not content with their present achievements. They regard
+themselves always as students who must everlastingly keep trying more
+difficult tasks to insure a steady progress toward an unattainable goal.
+"Most of the studyin'," Abe Martin once observed, "is done after a
+feller gets out of college," and these gray-haired exemplars are--as all
+of us ought to be--still learning to write, and forever at the
+crossroads.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FINIS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of If You Don't Write Fiction, by 
+Charles Phelps Cushing
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of If You Don't Write Fiction, by Charles Phelps Cushing.
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's If You Don't Write Fiction, by Charles Phelps Cushing
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: If You Don't Write Fiction
+
+Author: Charles Phelps Cushing
+
+Release Date: September 8, 2008 [EBook #26557]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IF YOU DON'T WRITE FICTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Carla Foust and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<h3>Transcriber's note</h3>
+<p>Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without notice. The author's
+spelling has been maintained.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h1>IF YOU DON'T WRITE FICTION</h1>
+
+<h3>By</h3>
+<h2>CHARLES PHELPS CUSHING</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 125px;"><a name="i001" id="i001"></a>
+<img src="images/i001.jpg" width="125" height="179" alt="i001" title="i001"/></div>
+
+
+<h2>NEW YORK</h2>
+<h2><span class="smcap">Robert M. McBride &amp; Company</span></h2>
+<h2>1920</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>
+Copyright, 1920, by<br /></h2>
+<h2><span class="smcap">Robert M. McBride &amp; Co.</span><br /></h2>
+<p><br /></p>
+<h3><i>Printed in the<br />
+United States of America</i><br />
+<br /></h3>
+<h3>Published. June, 1920<br /></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>
+<span class="smcap">To<br />
+Cousin Ann</span><br />
+</h4>
+
+<p>who "doesn't write fiction," but who is ambitious to market magazine
+articles, this little book is affectionately dedicated. If it can save
+her some tribulations along the road that leads to acceptances, the
+author will feel that his labors have been well enough repaid.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>The author thanks the editors of <i>The Bookman</i>, <i>Outing</i> and the <i>Kansas
+City Star</i> for granting permission to reprint certain passages that here
+appear in revised form.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span style="padding-right: 2.5em;">C. P. C.</span>
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+
+<p>The publisher assures me that no one but a book reviewer ever reads
+prefaces, so I seize upon the opportunity to have a t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te with my
+critics. Gentlemen, my cards are face up on the table. I have declared
+to the publisher that nearly every American who knows how to read longs
+to find his way into print, and should appreciate some of the dearly
+bought hints herein contained upon practical journalism. And, as I kept
+my face straight when I said it, he may have taken me seriously. Perhaps
+he thinks he has a best seller.</p>
+
+<p>But this is just between ourselves. As he never reads prefaces, he won't
+suspect unless you tell him. My own view of the matter is that Harold
+Bell Wright need not fear me, but that the editors of the Baseball Rule
+Book may be forced to double their annual appropriation for advertising
+in the literary sections.</p>
+
+<p>As the sport of free lance scribbling has a great deal in common with
+fishing, the author of this little book may be forgiven for suggesting
+that in intention it is something like Izaak Walton's
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>
+
+"Compleat Angler," in that it attempts to combine practical helpfulness with a
+narrative of mild adventures. For what the book contains besides advice,
+I make no apologies, for it is set down neither in embarrassment nor in
+pride. Many readers there must be who would like nothing better than to
+dip into chapters from just such a life as mine. Witness how Edward
+FitzGerald, half author of the "Rubaiyat," sighed to read more lives of
+obscure persons, and that Arthur Christopher Benson, from his "College
+Window," repeats the wish and adds:</p>
+
+<p>"The worst of it is that people often are so modest; they think that
+their own experience is so dull, so unromantic, so uninteresting. It is
+an entire mistake. If the dullest person in the world would only put
+down sincerely what he or she thought about his or her life, about work,
+love, religion and emotion, it would be a fascinating document."</p>
+
+<p>But, you may protest, by what right do the experiences of a magazine
+free lance pass as "adventures"?</p>
+
+<p>Then, again, I shall have to introduce expert testimony:</p>
+
+<p>"The literary life," says no less an authority than H. G. Wells, "is one
+of the modern forms of adventure."</p>
+
+<p>And this holds as true for the least of scribblers as it does for great
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>
+authors. While the writer whose work excites wide interest is seeing the
+world and meeting, as Mr. Wells lists them, "philosophers, scientific
+men, soldiers, artists, professional men, politicians of all sorts, the
+rich, the great," you may behold journalism's small fry courageously
+sallying forth to hunt editorial lions with little butterfly nets. The
+sport requires a firm jaw and demands that the adventurer keep all his
+wits about him. Any novice who doubts me may have a try at it himself
+and see! But first he had better read this "Compleat Free Lancer." Its
+practical hints may save him&mdash;or should I say <i>her</i>?&mdash;many a needless
+disappointment.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span style="padding-right: 2.5em;">C. P. C.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+<table summary="CONTENTS">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">CHAPTER</td>
+<td class="tdr page" colspan="2">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">Preface</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span style="smcaps">I.</span></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">About Noses and Jaws</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span style="smcaps">II.</span></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">How to Prepare a Manuscript</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span style="smcaps">III.</span></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">How to Take Photographs</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span style="smcaps">IV.</span></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">Finding a Market</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span style="smcaps">V.</span></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">A Beginner's First Adventures</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span style="smcaps">VI.</span></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">In New York's "Fleet Street"</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span style="smcaps">VII.</span></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">Something to Sell</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span style="smcaps">VIII.</span></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">What the Editor Wants</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span style="smcaps">IX.</span></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">And if You Do--</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span style="smcaps">X.</span></td>
+<td class="tdl"><span style="smcaps">Forever at the Crossroads</span></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IF_YOU_DONT_WRITE_FICTION" id="IF_YOU_DONT_WRITE_FICTION"></a>IF YOU DON'T WRITE FICTION</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>ABOUT NOSES AND JAWS</h3>
+
+
+<p>A foxhound scents the trail of his game and tracks it straight to a
+killing. A lapdog lacks this capability. In the same way, there are
+breeds of would-be writers who never can acquire a "nose for news," and
+others who, from the first day that they set foot in editorial rooms,
+are hot on the trail that leads to billboard headlines on the front page
+of a newspaper or acceptances from the big magazines.</p>
+
+<p>Many writers who are hopelessly clumsy with words draw fat pay checks
+because they have a faculty for smelling out interesting facts. In the
+larger cities there are reporters with keen noses for news who never
+write a line from one year's end to another, but do all of their work by
+word of mouth over the telephone.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To the beginner such facts as these seem to indicate that any one can
+win in journalism who has the proper kind of nose. This conclusion is
+only a half-truth, but it is good for the novice to learn&mdash;and as soon
+as possible&mdash;that the first requisite toward "landing" in the newspapers
+and magazines is to know a "story" when he sees one.</p>
+
+<p>In the slang of the newspaper shop a "story" means non-fiction. It may
+be an interview. It may be an account of a fire. It may be a page of
+descriptive writing for the Sunday magazine section. It may be merely a
+piece of "human interest."</p>
+
+<p>As my own experience in journalism covers barely fifteen years, the
+writer would not be bold enough to attempt to define a "story" further
+than to state that it is something in which an editor hopes his public
+will be interested at the time the paper or magazine appears upon the
+newsstands. To-morrow morning or next month the same readers might not
+feel the slightest interest in the same type of contribution.</p>
+
+<p>Timeliness of some sort is important, yet a "story" may have little to
+do with what in the narrower sense is usually thought of as "news"&mdash;such
+as this morning's happenings in the stock markets or the courts, or the
+fire in Main Street. The news interest in this restricted sense may
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+
+dangle from a frayed thread. The timeliness of the contribution may be
+vague and general. We may not be able to do more than sense it. This is
+one reason why men of academic minds, who love exact definitions, never
+feel quite at ease when they attempt to deal with the principles of
+journalism.</p>
+
+<p>We practical men, who earn a living as writers, feel no more at ease
+than the college professors when we attempt to deal with these
+principles. When we are cub reporters we are likely to conceive the
+notion that a "story" is anything startling enough, far enough removed
+from the normal, to catch public attention by its appeal to curiosity.
+Later, we perceive that this explains only half of the case. The other
+half may baffle us to the end. Instance the fact that a great many
+manuscripts sell to newspapers and magazines upon the merits of that
+mysterious element in writing known as "human interest." If a reward
+were offered for an identification of "human interest" no jury could
+agree upon the prize-winning description. A human interest story
+sometimes slips past the trained nose of a reporter of twenty years'
+experience and is picked up by a cub. It is something you tell by the
+scent.</p>
+
+<p>This scent for the trail of a "story" may be sharpened by proper
+training, and one of the best places for a beginner to acquire such
+training&mdash;and earn his living in the meantime&mdash;is in a newspaper
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+
+office. Yet nothing could be further from the present writer's intention
+than to advise all beginners in journalism to apply for jobs as
+reporters. Some of the most successful magazine contributors in America
+have never set foot inside of a newspaper plant except to pay a
+subscription to the paper or to insert a want ad for a chauffeur or a
+butler.</p>
+
+<p>If you have nose sense for what the public is eager to read, newspaper
+experience can teach you nothing worth while unless it is a deeper
+knowledge of human nature. As a reporter you will view from behind the
+scenes what the people of an American community are like and catch some
+fleeting glimpses of the more unusual happenings in their lives. You
+may, or may not, emerge from this experience a better writer than you
+were when you went in. Your style may become simpler and more forceful
+by newspaper training. Or it may become tawdry, sloppy and inane.</p>
+
+<p>"Newspapers," observed Charles Lamb, "always excite curiosity. No one
+ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment." That was true a
+hundred years ago, and appears to be just as true to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, the men who write the news get more out of the work than do
+their readers. The
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+
+reporter usually can set down only a fraction of the
+interesting facts that he picks up about a "story." His work may be
+eternally disappointing to the public, but it is rarely half so dull to
+the man who does the writing.</p>
+
+<p>No life into which the average modern can dip is so rich in interest for
+the first year or two as that of the reporter working upon general
+assignments. A fling at hobo life, ten voyages at sea and more than two
+years of army life (a year and a half of this time spent in trekking all
+over the shattered landscape of France) do not shake my conviction that
+the adventurer most to be envied in our times is the cub reporter
+enjoying the first thrills and glamors of breaking into print. There is
+a scent in the air, which, though it be only ink and paper, makes the
+cub's blood course faster the minute he steps into the office corridor;
+and as he mounts the stairs to the local room the throbbing of the
+presses makes him wonder if this is not literally the "heart of the
+city."</p>
+
+<p>He makes his rounds of undertakers' shops, courtrooms, army and navy
+recruiting offices, railway stations, jails, markets, clubs, police and
+fire headquarters. He is sent to picnics and scenes of murders. He is
+one of the greenest of novices in literary adventure, but, quite like an
+H. G. Wells, he meets in his community
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+
+"philosophers, scientific men,
+soldiers, artists, professional men, politicians of all sorts, the rich,
+the great."</p>
+
+<p>He is underpaid and overworked. He has no time to give his writings
+literary finish; and, in the end, unless he develops either into a
+specialist or an executive, he may wear himself out in hard service and
+be cast upon the scrap heap. At first, the life is rich and varied.
+Then, after a while, the reporter finds his interest growing jaded. The
+same kind of assignment card keeps cropping up for him, day after day.
+He perceives that he is in a rut. He tells himself: "I've written that
+same story half a dozen times before."</p>
+
+<p>Then is the time for him to settle himself to do some serious thinking
+about his future. Does he have it in him to become an executive? Or does
+he discover a special taste, worth cultivating, for finance, or sport,
+or editorial writing? If so, he has something like a future in the
+newspaper office.</p>
+
+<p>But if what he really longs to do is to contribute to the magazines or
+to write books, he is at the parting of the ways. He should seize now
+upon every opportunity to discover topics of wide interest, and in his
+spare time he should attempt to write articles on these topics and ship
+them off to market.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He has laid the first solid foundation of successful freelancing, for if
+he has been able to survive as long as six months in the competition of
+the local room he has a nose for what constitutes a "story."</p>
+
+<p>The next thing he has to learn is that an article for a magazine differs
+chiefly from a newspaper story in that the magazine must make a wider
+appeal&mdash;to a national rather than to a local interest. The successful
+magazine writer is simply a reporter who knows what the general public
+likes to read, and who has learned when and where and how to market what
+he produces. Timeliness is as important as ever, so he must look to his
+tenses. The magazine article will not appear until from ten days to six
+months or more after it is accepted. Some of our magazines begin making
+up their Christmas numbers in July, so he must learn to sweat to the
+tinkle of sleigh bells.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder how many hundreds of ambitious newspaper reporters are at this
+very minute urging themselves to extra effort after hours and on their
+precious holidays and Sundays to test their luck in the magazine
+markets? The number must be considerable if my experience as a member of
+the editorial staff of a big national magazine allows me to make a
+surmise. I have read through bushels of manuscripts that had
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+
+the ear
+marks of the newspaper office all over them. They were typed on the
+cheap kind of "copy paper" that is used only in "city rooms." The first
+sheet rarely had a title, for the newspaper reporter's habit is to leave
+headline writing to a "copy reader." Ink and dust had filled in such
+letters as "a" and "e" and "o." Most of the manuscripts were done with
+characteristic newspaper office haste, and gave indication somewhere in
+the text that the author had not the faintest notion of how far in
+advance of the date line the magazine had to make up its table of
+contents.</p>
+
+<p>Many of these novices showed a promise in skill that might give some
+uneasy moments to our most prosperous magazine headliners. If only there
+were firm jaws back of the promise! These men had the nose for
+journalistic success, but that alone will not carry them far unless it
+is backed with a fighting jaw.</p>
+
+<p>I look back sometimes to cub days and name over the reporters who at
+that time showed the greatest ability. Three of the most brilliant are
+still drudging along in the old shop on general assignments, for little
+more money than they made ten years ago. One did a book of real merit
+and the effort he expended upon it overcame him with ennui. Another made
+the mistake of supposing that he could pin John Barleycorn's shoulders
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+
+to the mat. Another had no initiative. He is dying in his tracks.</p>
+
+<p>Who now are rated as successes on the roll call of those cub reporter
+days? Not our geniuses, but a dozen fellows who had the most
+determination and perseverance. The men who won were the men who tried,
+and tried again and then kept on trying.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Dooley was quite right about opportunity: "Opporchunity knocks at
+every man's dure wanst. On some men's dures it hammers till it breaks
+down the dure and goes in an' wakes him up if he's asleep, an'
+aftherward it works fur him as a night watchman. On other men's dures it
+knocks an' runs away; an' on the dures of other men it knocks, an' whin
+they come out it hits thim over the head with an ax. But eviry wan has
+an opporchunity. So yez had better kape your eye skinned an' nab it
+before it shlips by an' is lost forevir."</p>
+
+<p>The names on a big magazine's table of contents represent many varieties
+of the vicissitudes of fortune, but the prevailing type is not a lucky
+genius, one for whom Opporchunity is working as a night watchman. The
+type is a firm-jawed plugger. His nose is keen for "good stories," his
+eye equally alert to dodge the ax or to nab Opporchunity's fleeting
+coat-tails.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>HOW TO PREPARE A MANUSCRIPT</h3>
+
+
+<p>If you have a real "story" up your sleeve and know how to word it in
+passable English, the next thing to learn is the way to prepare a
+manuscript in professional form for marketing. In the non-fiction
+writer's workshop only two machines are essential to efficiency and
+economy. The first of these, and absolutely indispensable, is a
+typewriter. The sooner you learn to type your manuscripts, the better
+for your future and your pocketbook.</p>
+
+<p>It is folly to submit contributions in handwriting to a busy editor who
+has to read through a bushel of manuscripts a day. The more legible the
+manuscript, the better are your chances to win a fair reading. I will go
+further, and declare that a manuscript which has all the earmarks of
+being by a professional is not only more carefully read, but also is
+likely to be treated with more consideration when a decision is to be
+made upon its value to the publisher in dollars and cents. Put yourself
+in the editor's place and
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+
+you will quickly enough grasp the psychology
+of this.</p>
+
+<p>The editor knows that no professional submits manuscripts in
+handwriting, that no professional writes upon both sides of the sheet,
+and that no professional omits to enclose an addressed stamped envelope
+in which to return the manuscript to its author if it proves unavailable
+for the magazine's use. Why brand yourself as a novice even before the
+manuscript reader has seen your first sentence? Remember you are
+competing for editorial attention against a whole bushel of other
+manuscripts. The girl who opens the magazine's mail may be tempted to
+cast your contribution into the rejection basket on general principles,
+if you are foolish enough to get away to such a poor start. What an
+ignominious end to your literary adventure is this&mdash;and all because you
+were careless, or didn't know any better!</p>
+
+<p>The writer who really means business will not neglect in any detail the
+psychology of making his manuscript invite a thorough reading. It may be
+bad form to accept a dinner invitation in typewriting, but it is
+infinitely worse form to fail to typewrite an invitation to editorial
+eyes to buy your manuscript. Good form also dictates that the first page
+of your contribution should bear in the upper left hand corner of the
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+sheet your name, upon the first line; the street address, on the second;
+the town and state, on the third. In the upper right hand corner should
+be set down an estimate of the number of words contained in the
+manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>Leave a blank down to the middle of the page. There, in capitals, write
+the title of the article; then drop down a few lines and type your pen
+name (if you use one) or whatever version of your signature that you
+wish to have appear above the article when it comes out in print. Drop
+down a few more lines before you begin with the text, and indent about
+an inch for the beginning of each paragraph. Here is a model for your
+guidance:</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<table summary="LETTER">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl font15">Frank H. Jones,</td>
+<td class="tdr font15">about 3000</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl font15">2416 Front St.,</td>
+<td class="tdr font15">words</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl font15">Oswego, Ohio</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p class="center font15">CAMPING ON INDIAN CREEK</p>
+<p class="center font15">By</p>
+<p class="center font15">Frank Henry Jones</p>
+
+<p class="textindent">It took us two minutes by the clock
+to pack everything we
+needed&mdash;and more, for the
+camper-out always takes twice as much
+junk as he can use. All that
+was left to do after that etc.,</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There are sound reasons for all this. The first is that, likely enough,
+your title may not altogether suit the editor, and he will require some
+of the white space in the upper part of the page for a revised version.
+Also, he will need some space upon which to pencil his directions to the
+printers about how to set the type.</p>
+
+<p>Double space your lines. If you leave no room between lines, you make it
+extremely difficult for the editor to write in any corrections in the
+text. Moreover, a solid mass of single-spaced typewriting is much harder
+to read than material that is double-spaced.</p>
+
+<p>Use good white paper, of ordinary letter size, eight by eleven inches,
+and leave a margin of about an inch on either side of the text and at
+both top and bottom. Number each page. Don't write your "copy" with a
+ribbon which is too worn to be bright; and, while you are about it,
+clean up those letters on the typebars that have a tendency to fill up
+with ink and dust. You may have noticed, for example, that "a," "e,"
+"o," "s," "m," and "w" are not always clear-cut upon the page.</p>
+
+<p>You are doing all this to make the reading of your contribution as easy
+a task as possible from the purely physical side. You are simply using a
+little common sense in the process of addressing yourself to the
+favorable attention of<span class='pagenum'>
+
+<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+
+a force of extremely busy persons who are paid
+to "wade through" a formidable stack of mail.</p>
+
+<p>If you have an overpowering distaste for doing your own typewriting, you
+may hire a typist to turn your handwritten "copy" into something easier
+to read. This procedure, however, may prove to be rather too costly for
+a beginner's purse. It is the part of wisdom to learn to operate a
+machine yourself. At first the task may seem rather a tough one, but
+even after so short a time as a month of practice you are likely to be
+surprised at the progress you will make. Before long you will be able to
+write much faster upon a machine than with a pencil or a pen.</p>
+
+<p>The danger then lies in a temptation to haste and carelessness. This is
+one reason why many fastidious magazine writers always do the first
+draft of an article in longhand and turn to the typewriter only when
+they are ready to set down the final version. Temperament and habit
+should decide the matter. Nearly any one can learn to compose newspaper
+"copy" at the keyboard, but not so many of us dare attempt to do
+magazine articles at the same high rate of speed. Particularly does this
+hold true of the first page of a magazine manuscript. The opening
+paragraph of such a manuscript is likely to make a much more exacting
+demand upon the writer's skill than the "lead" of a newspaper "story."
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+
+All that the newspaper usually demands is that the reporter cram the
+gist of his facts into the first few sentences. The magazine insists
+that the first paragraph of a manuscript not only catch attention but
+also sound the keynote of many words to follow, for the "punch" of the
+magazine story is more often near the end of the article than the
+beginning.</p>
+
+<p>Though the technique of newspaper and magazine writing may differ on
+this matter of the "lead," do not make the mistake of supposing that the
+magazine introduction need not be just as chock full of interest as the
+opening of a newspaper "story." You are no longer under any compulsion,
+when you write for the magazines, to cram the meat of the story into the
+first sentence, but one thing you must do&mdash;you must rouse the reader to
+sit up and listen. You can well afford to spend any amount of effort
+upon that opening paragraph. Write your lead a dozen times, a hundred
+times, if necessary, until you make it rivet the attention.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>HOW TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS</h3>
+
+
+<p>After he has bought or rented a typewriter, the would-be free lance in
+the non-fiction field has his workshop only half equipped. One more
+machine is an urgent necessity. Get a camera.</p>
+
+<p>Few of our modern American newspapers and magazines are published
+without pictures; so anybody ought to be able to perceive how absurd it
+is to submit an unillustrated manuscript to an illustrated periodical.
+Good photographs have won a market for many a manuscript that scarcely
+would have been given a reading if it had arrived without interesting
+pictures; and many a well-written article has been reluctantly returned
+by the editor because no photographs were available to illustrate it.</p>
+
+<p>There is only one way to dodge this issue. Just as you can hire a typist
+to put your manuscript into legible form, you can pay a professional
+photographer to accompany you wherever you go and take the illustrations
+for your text.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+
+But the same vital objection holds here as in the case
+of the professional typist&mdash;the costs will cut heavily into your
+profits. With a little practice you can learn to do the work yourself.
+After that, you can operate at a small fraction of the expense of hiring
+a professional.</p>
+
+<p>Your work soon enough will be of as high a quality as anything that the
+average commercial photographer can produce, and, better yet, it will
+not have any flat and stale commercial flavor about it. Nothing is more
+static and banal than the composition that the ordinary professional
+will produce if you fail to prevent him from having his own way. Ten to
+one, all the lower half of the picture will be empty foreground, and not
+a living creature will appear in the entire field of vision.</p>
+
+<p>It cost the present writer upward of $150 to discover this fact. Then he
+bought a thirty dollar postcard kodak and a five dollar tripod and told
+the whole tribe of professionals to go to blazes. The only time since
+then that he has ever had to hire commercial aid was when he had to have
+heavy flashlights made of large rooms.</p>
+
+<p>So save yourself money now, instead of eventually. Even if thirty
+dollars takes your last nickel, don't hesitate. For a beginning, if you
+are inexperienced in photography, rent a cheap
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+
+machine with which to
+practice&mdash;a simple "snapshot box" with no adjustments on it will do
+while you are picking up the first inklings of how to compose a picture
+and of how much light is required for different classes of subjects.</p>
+
+<p>After you have practiced with this for a while, go out and buy a folding
+kodak. If you have the journalistic eye for what is picturesque and
+newsy the camera will quickly return 100 per cent. upon the investment.</p>
+
+<p>The one great difficulty for the beginner in photography is that he does
+not know how to "time" the exposure of a picture. The books on
+photography are all too technical. They discuss chemicals and printing
+papers and all the finer shadings of processes carried on in
+laboratories under a ruby light. But what the novice longs to know is
+simply how to <i>take</i> pictures&mdash;what exposure to allow for a portrait,
+what for a street scene, what for a panorama. He usually fails to give
+the portrait enough light, and he gives the panorama too much. He is
+willing to allow a professional finisher to do his developing and
+printing. What the beginner wants to read is a chapter on exposure. As
+an operator, he is seeking for a <i>rule of how</i> and some examples of its
+application.</p>
+
+<p>If you lack a simple working theory, here is one now, in primer terms:
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The closer the object which you wish to photograph is to your lens, the
+<i>more</i> light it requires; the farther away it is, the <i>less</i> light it
+requires.</p>
+
+<p>This may sound somewhat unreasonable, but that is how a camera works. A
+portrait head, or anything else that must be brought to within a few
+feet of the lens, requires the greatest width of shutter aperture (or,
+what comes to the same thing, the longest exposure); and a far-away
+mountain peak or a cloud requires the smallest aperture (or the shortest
+exposure).</p>
+
+<p>To understand thoroughly what this means, take off the back of your
+kodak and have a look at how the wheels go round. Set the pointer of the
+time dial on the face of your camera at "T" (it means "time exposure")
+and then press the bulb (or push the lever) which opens the shutter.
+Looking through the back of your camera, make the light come through the
+largest width of the lens. You can do this by pushing the other pointer
+on the face of your kodak to the extreme left of its scale&mdash;the lowest
+number indicated. On a kodak with a "U. S." scale this number is "4."</p>
+
+<p>You will see now that the light is coming through a hole nearly an inch
+in diameter. If it were a bright day you could take portrait heads
+outdoors through this sized aperture with an exposure of one
+twenty-fifth of a second.</p>
+
+<p>Using this same amount of time, the size of
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+
+ the shutter aperture should
+be reduced to a mere pin hole of light to make a proper exposure for
+far-away mountain tops, clouds, or boats in the open sea.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose we make our problem as simple as possible by leaving the timer
+at one twenty-fifth of a second for all classes of subjects. We will
+vary only the size of the hole through which the light is to enter.</p>
+
+<p>For a close-up, a portrait head, we operate with the light coming
+through the full width of the lens.</p>
+
+<p>Now push to the right one notch the pointer which reduces the size of
+the hole. This makes the light come through a smaller diameter, which on
+a "U. S." scale will be marked "8." Only half as much light is coming
+through now as before. This is the stop at which to take full length
+figures and many other views in which the foreground is unusually
+prominent. Buildings which are not light in color should also be taken
+with this stop. In general, it is for heavy foregrounds.</p>
+
+<p>Push the pointer on to "16." If your scale is "U. S." you will notice
+that this is midway between the largest and the smallest stops. It is
+the happy medium stop at which, on bright days, you can properly expose
+for the great majority of your subjects, those hundreds of scenes
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+
+not
+close enough to the lens to be classified as "heavy foregrounds" nor yet
+far enough away to be panoramas. Buildings which are light in color and
+sunny street scenes fall into this division of exposures. When in doubt,
+take it at one twenty-fifth of a second with stop "16." You can't miss
+it far, one way or another.</p>
+
+<p>Push the pointer on to "32" and the object to be photographed ought to
+be at some distance away. This is the stop for the open road and the
+sunlit fields&mdash;anything between an "average view" and a "panorama."</p>
+
+<p>At "64" the scale is set for the most distant of land views, beach
+scenes and boats in the middle distance off-shore. You will learn by
+costly overexposures that water views require much less light than
+landscapes. Photographers have an axiom that "water is as bright as the
+sky itself." So at "64," which is proper exposure for the most distant
+of land panoramas, you begin to take waterscapes.</p>
+
+<p>That tiniest pin hole of a stop, at the extreme right of the scale, is
+never to be used except for such subjects as the open sea and snowcapped
+mountain tops.</p>
+
+<p>There you have the theory. Apply it with common sense and you will meet
+with few failures. You scarcely need to be cautioned that if an object
+is dark in color it will require proportionately more exposure than the
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+
+same object if it is white. Through various weathers and seasons,
+experience will keep teaching you how to adapt the rule to changing
+conditions of light. Certain handbooks and exposure meters will be of
+service while you are learning the classifications of subjects.</p>
+
+<p>You have been told how the rule works. Press the "T" bulb again to click
+your shutter shut and prepare to set out on a picture taking excursion.
+Set the time scale at one twenty-fifth of a second, and leave it there.
+Load up a film. Replace the back of the camera. Take along a tripod.
+Don't forget that tripod! With that you insure yourself against getting
+your composition askew, or losing a good picture on account of a shaky
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose the expedition is gunning somewhere in the backwoods. Down the
+stony winding road saunters one of the natives in a two-piece suit.
+Overalls and a hickory shirt constitute his entire outfit. He grows a
+beard to save himself the labor of shaving. His leathery feet scarcely
+feel the sharp stones of the highway. Here is a picture worth
+preserving, for the "cracker" type is becoming a rarity, almost extinct.
+Set your pointer at "8" and take his full length. If you wish a close-up
+of his head, set the pointer at "4."
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A little farther and the road plunges into a shady valley. Under the
+trees ahead is a log cabin, dappled with the sunlight and the shade of
+dancing leaves. Use your judgment about whether such a scene requires
+"8" or "4." If in doubt, use "4," for the danger here is that you may
+under-expose.</p>
+
+<p>In a clearing where the shade of the trees has little effect, stands an
+old water power mill. It is simply an "average view," and you can safely
+snap it with a "16" stop.</p>
+
+<p>The friendly razorback hogs under the mail hack make a picture with a
+heavy foreground. They fall into the "8" classification&mdash;half in shade,
+half in sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>The road leads us at last to a river. An old-fashioned ferry boat is
+making a crossing in midstream. From the hilltop where we first survey
+it the scene is a landscape, distant view, and can be taken with a "32."
+But when you get down to the water's edge and shoot across the shining
+river, beware of overexposure. Stop down another notch.</p>
+
+<p>Do you see now how the theory works? Give it a fair trial and you will
+agree that taking pictures&mdash;the mere <i>taking</i>, with no bothering your
+head about developing, printing, toning and the like&mdash;is a matter no
+more baffling than the simple art of learning to punch the letters on the
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+
+keyboard of a typewriter. Keep at it, never neglecting an
+opportunity to practice. Keep experimenting, until you can fare forth in
+any sort of weather and know that you will be able to bring back
+something printable upon your film or plate. If the day is not bright,
+shove your timer over to one-tenth of a second, or to one-fifth.</p>
+
+<p>Certain experts in photography will bitterly deride this advice to keep
+the time set at one twenty-fifth of a second and to vary nothing but the
+size of the lens aperture. They will point out&mdash;and be quite right about
+it&mdash;that the smaller the aperture the sharper the image, and that a more
+professional method of procedure is to vary the timing so as to take all
+pictures with small stops.</p>
+
+<p>To which I can only answer that this is all well enough for the trained
+photographer and that in these days of my semi-professionalism I
+practice that same sort of thing myself. But in the beginning I was duly
+grateful to the man who gave me the golden maxim of "the closer the
+object, the larger the stop; the more distant the object, the smaller
+the stop"&mdash;a piece of advice which enabled a novice, with only one
+simple adjustment to worry about, to take a passably sharp, properly
+exposed picture. So I pass the word along to you for whatever it may be
+worth.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>FINDING A MARKET</h3>
+
+
+<p>A nose for news, some perseverance, a typewriter and a camera have thus
+far been listed as the equipment most essential to success for a writer
+of non-fiction who sets out to trade in the periodical market as a free
+lance. Rather brief mention has been made of the matter of literary
+style. This is not because the writer of this book lacks reverence for
+literary craftsmanship. It is simply because, with the facts staring him
+in the face, he must set down his conviction that a polished style is
+not a matter of tremendous importance to the average editor of the
+average American periodical.</p>
+
+<p>Journalists so clumsy that, in the graphic phrase of a short grass poet,
+"they seem to write with their feet," sell manuscripts with clock-like
+regularity to first-class markets. The magazines, like the newspapers,
+employ "re-write men" to take crude manuscripts to pieces, rebuild them
+and give them a presentable polish. The matter of prime importance to
+most of our American
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+
+editors is an article's content in the way of
+vital facts and "human interest." Upon the matter of style the typical
+editor appears to take Matthew Arnold's words quite literally:</p>
+
+<p>"People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have
+something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only
+secret of style."</p>
+
+<p>No embittered collector of rejection slips will believe me when I
+declare that the demand for worth-while articles always exceeds the
+supply in American magazine markets. None the less it is true, as every
+editor knows to his constant sorrow. The appetite of our hundreds of
+periodicals for real "stories" never has been satisfied. The menu has to
+be filled out with a regrettable proportion of bran and <i>ersatz</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that a manuscript lacks all charm of style will not blast its
+chances of acceptance if the "story" is all there and is typed into a
+presentable appearance and illustrated with interesting photographs. A
+good style will enhance the manuscript's value, but want of verbal skill
+rarely will prove a fatal blemish. Not so long as there are "re-write
+men" around the shop!</p>
+
+<p>It is not a lack of artistry that administers the most numerous defeats
+to the novice free lance. It is a lack of market judgment. When he has
+completed his manuscript he sits down
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+
+and hopefully mails it out to the
+first market that strikes his fancy. He shoots into the dark, trusting
+to luck.</p>
+
+<p>A huge army of disappointed scribblers have followed that haphazard plan
+of battle. They would know better than to try to market crates of eggs
+to a shoe store, but they see nothing equally absurd in shipping a
+popular science article to the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> or an "uplift" essay
+to the <i>Smart Set</i>. They paper their walls with rejection slips, fill up
+a trunk with returned manuscripts and pose before their sympathetic
+friends as martyrs.</p>
+
+<p>Many of these defeated writers have nose-sense for what is of national
+interest. They write well, and they take the necessary pains to make
+their manuscripts presentable in appearance. If they only knew enough to
+offer their contributions to suitable markets, they soon would be
+scoring successes. What they can't get into their heads is that the
+names in an index of periodicals represent needs as widely varied as the
+names in a city directory.</p>
+
+<p>Take, for example, five of our leading weeklies: <i>The Saturday Evening
+Post</i>, <i>Collier's</i>, <i>Leslie's</i>, <i>The Outlook</i> and <i>The Independent</i>.
+They all use articles of more or less timeliness, but beyond this one
+similarity they are no more alike in character than an American, an
+Irishman, an
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+
+Englishman, a Welshman and a Scot. Your burning hot news
+"story" which <i>The Saturday Evening Post</i> turned down may have been
+rejected because the huge circulation of the <i>Post</i> necessitates that
+its "copy" go to press six or seven weeks before it appears upon the
+newsstands. You should have tried <i>The Independent</i>, which makes a
+specialty of getting hot stuff into circulation before it has time to
+cool. Your interview with a big man of Wall Street which was returned by
+<i>The Outlook</i> might find a warm welcome at <i>Leslie's</i>. A character
+sketch of the Democratic candidate for President might not please
+<i>Leslie's</i> in the least, but would fetch a good price from <i>Collier's</i>.
+Your article on the Prairie Poets might be rejected by three other
+weeklies, but prove quite acceptable to <i>The Outlook</i>.</p>
+
+<p>When you have completed a manuscript, forget the inspiration that went
+into its writing and give cold and sober second thought to this matter
+of marketing. <i>The Outlook</i> might have bought the article that
+<i>Collier's</i> rejected. <i>Collier's</i> might have bought the one that <i>The
+Outlook</i> rejected. Every experienced writer will tell you that this sort
+of thing happens every day.</p>
+
+<p>Don't snort in disdain because the editor of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> <i>The Ladies' Home Journal</i>
+rejects a contribution on economics. Maybe the lady's husband would like
+it. So try it on <i>The World's Work</i>, or <i>Leslie's</i> or <i>System</i>. It might
+win you a place of honor, with your name blazoned on the cover.</p>
+
+<p>Too many discouraged novices believe that the bromide of the rejection
+slip&mdash;"rejection implies no lack of merit"&mdash;is simply a piece of
+sarcasm. It is nothing of the sort. In tens of thousands of instances it
+is a solemn fact. Don't sulk and berate the editors who return your
+manuscript, but carefully read the contribution again, trying to forget
+for the moment that it is one of your own precious "brain children."
+Cold-bloodedly size it up as something to sell. Then you may perceive
+that you have been trying to market a crate of eggs at a shoe store.
+Eggs are none the less precious on that account. Try again&mdash;applying
+this time to a grocer. If he doesn't buy, it will be because he already
+has all the eggs on hand that he needs. In that event, look up the
+addresses of some more grocers.</p>
+
+<p>The same common sense principles apply in selling manuscripts to the
+magazines and newspapers as in marketing any other kind of produce. The
+top prices go to the fellow who delivers his goods fresh and in good
+order to buy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>ers who stand in need of his particular sort of staple.
+Composing a manuscript may be art, but selling it is business.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally, it requires practice to become expert in picking topics of
+wide enough appeal to interest the public which reads magazines of
+national circulation. Every beginner, except an inspired genius, is
+likely to be oppressed with a sense of hopelessness when he is making
+his first desperate attempts to "break in." The writer can testify
+feelingly on this point from his own experience. Kansas City was then my
+base of operations, and it seemed as if I never possibly could find
+anything in that far inland locality worthy of nation-wide attention.
+Everything I wrote bounced back with a printed rejection slip.</p>
+
+<p>At last, however, I discovered a "story" that appeared to be of
+undeniable national appeal. Missouri, for the first time in thirty-six
+years, had elected a Republican governor. I decided that the surest
+market for this would be a magazine dealing with personality sketches.
+If a magazine of that type would not buy the "story," I was willing to
+own myself whipped.</p>
+
+<p>On the afternoon when we were all sure that Herbert Hadley had won, I
+begged a big lithographed portrait of the governor-elect from a cigar
+store man who had displayed it promi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>nently in his front window. There
+was no time, then, to search for a photograph. A thrill of conviction
+pervaded me that at last my fingers were on a "story" that no magazine
+editor, however much he might hate to recognize the worth of new
+authors, could afford to reject.</p>
+
+<p>The newspaper office files of clippings gave me all the information
+necessary for a brief biography; the lithograph should serve for an
+illustration. By midnight that Irresistible Wedge for entering the
+magazines was in the mails.... Sure enough, the editors of <i>Human Life</i>
+bought it. And, by some miracle of speed in magazine making never
+explained to this day, they printed it in their next month's issue.</p>
+
+<p>The moral of this was obvious&mdash;that in the proper market a real "story,"
+even though it be somewhat hastily written, will receive a sincere
+welcome. The week after this Irresistible Wedge appeared in print I
+threw up my job as a reporter and dived off of the springboard into free
+lancing. A small bank account gave me assurance that there was no
+immediate peril of starving, and I wisely kept a connection with the
+local newspaper. In case disaster overtook me, I knew where I could find
+a job again.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>A BEGINNER'S FIRST ADVENTURES</h3>
+
+
+<p>What happened to me in making a beginning as a free lance producer of
+non-fiction might happen to any one else of an equal amount of
+inexperience. My home town had no professional magazine writer to whom I
+could turn for advice; and though I devoured scores of books about
+writing, they were chiefly concerned either with the newspaper business
+or with the technique of fiction, and they all failed to get down to
+brass tacks about my own pressing problem, which was how to write and
+sell magazine articles. I was not seeking any more ABC advice about
+newspaper "stories," nor did I feel the least urge toward producing
+fiction. I thirsted to find out how to prepare and market a manuscript
+to <i>The Saturday Evening Post</i> or <i>Collier's</i>, but the books in the
+public library were all about the short story and the novel, Sunday
+"features," the evolution of the printing press or the adventures of a
+sob sister on an afternoon daily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So I had to go out and get my education as a magazine writer in a school
+of tough experiences. A few of these experiences are here recorded, in
+the hope that some of the lessons that were enforced upon me may be of
+help to other beginners.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate results of my plunge into free lancing were:</p>
+
+<p>JANUARY&mdash;not one cent.</p>
+
+<p>FEBRUARY&mdash;$50.46. Seven dollars of this was for the magazine article. No
+other magazine acceptances had followed the Wedge. I had not yet caught
+the national viewpoint, nor had I picked up much practical information
+about the magazine markets.</p>
+
+<p>By March it was becoming painfully evident that a fledgling free lance
+should, if he is wise, depend for a while upon a local newspaper for the
+larger part of his income. In a school of hard knocks I learned to sell
+"stories" of purely local interest to the Kansas City market, topics of
+state-wide interest to the St. Louis Sunday editors, and contributions
+whose appeal was as wide as the Gulf of Mexico to newspapers in Chicago
+and New York.</p>
+
+<p>Also I learned that if the free lance hopes to make any of these markets
+take a lively interest in him, he will introduce his manuscripts with
+interesting photographs. I rented a little black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> cube of a camera for
+twenty-five cents a day. It had a universal focus and nothing to bother
+about in the way of adjustments. To operate it you peeked into the range
+finder, then threw a lever. Its lens was so slow that no pictures could
+be taken with it except in bright sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>I wrote about motor cars, willow farms, celebrities, freaks of nature in
+the city parks, catfish and junk heaps&mdash;anything of which I could snap
+interesting photographs and find enough text to "carry" the picture.</p>
+
+<p>March saw me earn $126.00 by doing assignments for the city editor in
+the mornings and "stories" at space rates in the afternoons for the
+Sunday section. At night I plugged away at manuscripts hopefully
+intended for national periodicals. But not until late in September did I
+"land" in a big magazine. Then&mdash;the thrill that comes once in a
+lifetime&mdash;I sold an article to <i>Collier's</i>. It required tremendous
+energy to keep up such a pace, but there was sweet comfort in the
+thought that, technically at least, I was now my own boss. Gradually, I
+broke away from assignment work until I was free to write what I liked
+and to go where I pleased.</p>
+
+<p>From finding material in the city, I adventured into some of the near-by
+towns in Missouri and Kansas, and soon was arguing a theory that in
+every small town the local correspondents of big<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> city newspapers are
+constantly overlooking pay streaks of good "feature stories." Usually I
+would start out with twenty-five dollars and keep moving until I went
+broke. A railway journey no longer meant, as in reportorial days, a
+banquet in the dining-car and a chair on the observation platform,
+charged up on an expense account. Often enough I slept in a day coach,
+my head pillowed on a kodak wrapped in a sweater vest. The elevation was
+just right for a pillow; and at the same time the traveler was insured
+against theft of his most precious possession, a brand new folding
+camera of post card size.</p>
+
+<p>For the little snapshot box soon showed its weakness in an emergency and
+had to be replaced with a better machine which had an adjustable
+diaphragm, a timing apparatus, a focusing scale and a front like an
+accordion. One afternoon it had happened that while two hundred miles
+from a city and twenty from the nearest railroad, the snapshot box had
+been useless baggage for two hours, while an anxious free lance sat
+perched on the crest of an Ozark mountain studying an overcast sky and
+praying for some sunlight. At last the sun blazed out for half a minute
+and the lever clicked in exultation.</p>
+
+<p>This experience enforced a lesson: "Learn to take any sort of picture,
+indoors or out, on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> land or water, in any sort of weather." After I got
+the new machine, with a tripod to insure stability and consequent
+sharpness of outline, a piece of lemon-colored glass for cloud
+photography and another extra lens for portrait work, I began snapping
+at anything that held out even the faintest promise of allowing me to
+clear expenses in the course of acquiring needed experience. I
+photographed the neighbors' children, houses offered for sale, downtown
+street scenes and any number of x-marks-the-spot-of-the-accident.</p>
+
+<p>When a cyclone cut a swath through one of our suburbs, I rushed
+half-a-dozen photographs to <i>Leslie's</i>, feeling again some of the same
+thrilling sort of confidence that had accompanied the first Irresistible
+Wedge. Back came three dollars for a single print. Rather a proud day,
+that! Never before had one of my prints sold for more than fifty cents.</p>
+
+<p>There were evenings after that when I meditated giving the writing game
+good-by in favor of photography; and many a time since then the old
+temptation has recurred. The wonder of catching lovely scenery in a box
+and of watching film and print reproduce it in black and white keeps
+ever fresh and fascinating to me, gratifying an instinct for composition
+in one whose fingers are too clumsy to attempt to draw or paint.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> In
+those early days of my adventures in photography an editor came very
+near the literal truth when he sarcastically observed: "Young man, life
+to you seems to be just one long undeveloped film."</p>
+
+<p>Parallel with improvement in skill as a photographer, I developed a
+working plan to insure more profitable excursions afield. My interested
+friends among editors and reporters gladly gave me hints about possible
+out-of-town sources of "stories," and I studied the news columns, even
+to the fine type of the Missouri and Kansas state notes, with all the
+avidity of an aged hobo devouring a newspaper in the public library. For
+every possibility I made out a card index memorandum, as&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">KANAPOLIS, KAS.</p>
+
+<p>Geographical center of the country. Once proposed as the
+capital of the nation&mdash;and of the state of Kansas. Now a
+whistling station and a rock salt plant.</p></div>
+
+<p>For each memorandum I stuck a pin in the state maps pasted on the wall
+of my workshop. When there were several pins in any neighborhood, I
+would sling my kodak over my shoulder, the carrying case strapped to the
+tripod-top, like a tramp with a bundle at the end of a stick. And then
+away, with an extra pair of socks and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> a harmonica for baggage. Besides
+the material that I felt certain of finding through advance information,
+luck always could be trusted to turn up some additional "stories." The
+quickest way to find out what there was to write about in a town was
+simply to walk into the local newspaper office, introduce myself and ask
+for some tips about possible "features." I cannot recall that any one
+ever refused me, or ever failed to think of something worth while.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know yet whether what I discovered then is a business or not,
+but I made a living out of it. Whereas reporting on a salary had begun
+to be something of a grind, the less profitable roamings of a free lance
+furnished a life that had color and everlasting freshness.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, trusting in the little gods of the improvident, I was lured
+into the backwoods of the Ozarks by such a name as "Mountain Home,"
+which caught my fancy on the map; and with no definite "stories" in mind
+I would go sauntering from Nowhere-in-Particular in Northern Arkansas to
+Someplace Else in Southern Missouri, snapping pictures by the roadside
+and scribbling a few necessary notes. One of those excursions, which
+cost $24.35, has brought a return, to date, of more than $250, which of
+course does not include the worth of a five days' lark with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> young
+Irishman who went on the trip as a novel form of summer vacation.</p>
+
+<p>He found all the novelty he could have hoped for. After some truly lyric
+passages of life in Arkansas, when we felt positively homesick about
+leaving one town to go on to another, we reached a railroad-less county
+in Missouri infested with fleas; and to secure a discount on the stage
+fare on the thirty-five-mile drive from Gainsville to West Plains (we
+<i>had</i> to have a discount to save enough to buy something to eat that
+night) we played the harmonica for our driver's amusement until we
+gasped like fish. His soul was touched either by the melody or by pity,
+and he left us enough small change to provide a supper of cheese and
+crackers.</p>
+
+<p>Some happenings that must sound much more worth while in the ears of the
+mundane have followed, but those first days of free lancing seem to me
+to be among the choicest in a journalistic adventurer's experience.
+Encounters with a variety of celebrities since then have proved no whit
+more thrilling than the discovery that our host, Jerry South of Mountain
+Home, was lieutenant-governor of Arkansas; and though I have roamed in
+five nations, no food that I ever have tasted so nearly approaches that
+of the gods as the strawberry shortcake we ate in Bergman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Even in the crass matter of profits, I found the small town richer in
+easily harvestable "stories" than the biggest city in the world. A few
+years later I spent a week in London, but I picked up less there to
+write about than I found in Sabetha, Kansas, in a single afternoon.
+Sabetha furnished:</p>
+
+<p>Half of the material for a motor car article. (When automobiles were
+still a novelty to the rural population.) This sold to <i>Leslie's</i>.</p>
+
+<p>An article on gasoline-propelled railway coaches, for <i>The Illustrated
+World</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A short contribution on scientific municipal management of public
+utilities in a small town, for <i>Collier's</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A character sketch about a local philanthropic money lender, for
+<i>Leslie's</i> and the Kansas City <i>Star</i>.</p>
+
+<p>An account of the Kansas Amish, a sect something like the Tolstoys, for
+Kansas City, St. Louis and New York newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>Short Sunday specials about a $40,000 hospital and a thoroughly modern
+Kansas farm house for Kansas City and St. Louis Sunday sections.</p>
+
+<p>The profits of these excursions were not always immediate, and until
+after I had worked many weeks at the trade there were periods of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+serious financial embarrassment. To cite profitable trips too early is
+to get ahead of my story, but the time is none the less propitious to
+remark that a country town or a small city certainly is as good a place
+for the free lance to operate (once he knows a "story" when he sees it)
+as is New York or Chicago, Boston, New Orleans or San Francisco. I often
+wonder if I would not have been better off financially if I had kept on
+working from a Kansas City headquarters instead of emigrating to the
+East.</p>
+
+<p>I might have gone on this way for a long time, in contentment, for my
+profits were steadily mounting and my markets extending. But one day my
+wanderings extended as far as Chicago, and there I ran across an old
+friend of student days. He had been the cartoonist of the college
+magazine when I was its editor. He wore, drooping from one corner of his
+face, a rah-rah bulldog pipe; an enormous portfolio full of enormities
+of drawing was under one arm, and, dangling at the end of the other, was
+one of the tiniest satchels that ever concealed a nightgown.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to questions about what he was doing with himself, he
+confessed that he was not making out any better than most other newly
+graduated students of art. I argued that if Chicago did not treat him
+considerately, he ought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> to head for New York, where real genius, more
+than likely, would be more quickly appreciated. Also, if this was to his
+liking, I would invite myself to go along with him.</p>
+
+<p>We went. Now sing, O Muse, the slaughter!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN NEW YORK'S "FLEET STREET"</h3>
+
+
+<p>The inexperienced free lance who attempts to invade New York, as we did,
+with no magazine reputation and no friends at court among the experts of
+the periodical market, may be assured that he will receive a surprising
+amount of courtesy. But this courtesy is likely to be administered to
+help soften the blows of a series of disappointments. Anybody but a
+genius or one of fortune's darlings may expect that New York, which has
+a deep and natural distrust of strangers, will require that the newcomer
+earn his bread in blood-sweat until he has established a reputation for
+producing the goods. Dear old simple-hearted Father Knickerbocker has
+been gold-bricked so often that a breezy, friendly manner puts him
+immediately on his guard.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the editors with whom you will have to deal are home folks, like
+yourself, from Oskaloosa and Richmond and Santa Barbara and Quincy. Few
+are native-born New Yorkers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> and scarcely any of them go around with
+their noses in the air in an "upstage Eastern manner." Most of them are
+graduates of the newspaper school, and remnants of newspaper cynicism
+occasionally appear in their outspoken philosophy. But be not deceived
+by this, for even in the newspaper office the half-baked cub who is
+getting his first glimpses of woman's frailties and man's weak will is
+the only cynic who means all he says. All reporters who are worth their
+salt mellow with the years; and editors who amount to much usually are
+ex-reporters trained to their jobs by long experience. The biggest
+editors and the ones with the biggest hearts have the biggest jobs. Most
+of the snubs you will receive will come from little men in little jobs,
+trying to impress you with a "front." The biggest editors of the lot are
+plain home folks whom you would not hesitate to invite to a dinner in a
+farmhouse kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>What you ought to know when you invade New York without much capital and
+no reputation to speak of is that you are making a great mistake to move
+there so early, and that most of the editors to whom you address
+yourself know you are making a mistake but are too soft-hearted to tell
+you so.</p>
+
+<p>Like most other over-optimistic free lances, we invaded New York with an
+expeditionary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> force which was in a woeful state of unpreparedness.</p>
+
+<p>In a street of brownstone fronts in mid-town Manhattan, a hurdy-gurdy
+strummed a welcome to us in the golden November sunlight, and a canary
+in a gilt cage twittered ecstatically from an open window. This moment
+is worthy of mention because it was the happiest that was granted to us
+for a number of months thereafter. We rented a small furnished room, top
+floor rear, and went out for a stroll on Broadway, looking the city over
+with the appraising eyes of conquerors. We were joyously confident.</p>
+
+<p>One reason why we thought we would do well here was that the latter
+months of the period preceding our supposedly triumphal entry had seen
+me arrive at the point of earning almost as much money at free lancing
+as I could have made as a reporter. Meantime, I had thrilled to see my
+name affixed to contributions in <i>Collier's</i>, <i>Leslie's</i>, <i>Outlook</i> and
+<i>Outing</i>, not to mention a few lesser magazines. I thought I knew a
+"story" when I saw one. I knew how to take photographs and prepare a
+manuscript for marketing, and New York newspapers and magazines had been
+treating me handsomely. What we did not realize was that while the New
+York markets were hospitable enough to western material, they required
+no further assistance in re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>porting the activities of Manhattan Island.
+We had moved away from our gold mine.</p>
+
+<p>Our home and workshop now was a cubbyhole so small that every piece of
+furniture in the place was in close proximity to something else. My
+battered desk was jam against my roommate's drawing table, and his chair
+backed against a bed. Then, except for a narrow aisle to the door, there
+was a chair which touched another bed, which touched a trunk; the trunk
+touched ends with a washstand, which was jam against a false mantel
+pasted onto the wall, and the mantel was in juxtaposition with a bureau
+which poked me in the back. The window looked south, and adjacent
+buildings allowed it to have sunlight for almost half an hour a day.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it would have been a cheerful enough place if our mail had not been
+so depressing. Everything we sent out came right back with a bounce,
+sometimes on the same day that we posted it. With indefatigable zeal we
+wrote feature "stories" about big topics in America's biggest city and
+furnished illustrations for the text. But the manuscripts did not sell.
+For two bitter months we kept at it before we discovered what was wrong.
+You may wonder how we could have been so blind. But there was no one to
+tell us what to do. We had to find out by experience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In November our income was $60.90, all of it echoes from the past for
+material written in the west.</p>
+
+<p>"How that crowd in the old office would laugh at us when we trailed back
+home, defeated!"</p>
+
+<p>That was the thought which was at once a nightmare and a goad to further
+desperate effort. Day after day the Art Department and the kodak and I
+explored New York's highways and centers of interest. The place was ripe
+with barrels and barrels of good "feature stories," and I knew it; and
+the markets were not unfriendly, for by mail I had sold to them before.
+But now we could not "land."</p>
+
+<p>On Christmas Day there was a dismal storm. Our purses were almost flat,
+and my box from home failed to arrive. To get up an appetite for dinner
+that night we went for a walk in a joy killing blizzard. I wanted to die
+and planned to do so. The only reason I did not jump off of a pier was
+the providential intervention of several stiff cocktails. (I am
+theoretically a prohibitionist, but grateful to the enemy for having
+saved my life.) The black cloud that shut out all sunlight was our
+measly total for December&mdash;$18.07.</p>
+
+<p>One glimmer of hope remained in a growing suspicion that perhaps some of
+the "stories" we had submitted had seen print shortly before we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+arrived. Possibly some other free lances&mdash;I would now estimate the
+number as somewhere between nine hundred and a thousand&mdash;had gone over
+the island of Manhattan with a fine tooth comb? I began haunting the
+side streets to seek out the most hidden possibilities, and ended in
+triumph one afternoon in a little uptown bird store.</p>
+
+<p>For two hours the young woman who was the proprietor of the store
+submitted to a searching interview, and I emerged with enough material
+for a full page spread. Then, taking no chances of being turned down
+because the contribution was too long, I condensed the "story" into a
+column. The manuscript went to the Sunday Editor of the New York <i>Sun</i>,
+with a letter pleading that "just this once" he grant me the special
+favor of a note to explain why he would not be able to use what I had to
+offer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well enough written," he scribbled on the rejection slip, "but Miss
+Virginia has been done too many times before."</p>
+
+<p>With that a great light dawned. Further investigation discovered that we
+had run into the same difficulty on numerous other occasions. We
+newcomers had no notion of how thoroughly and often the city had been
+pillaged for news. We could not tell old stuff from new. Manhattan
+Island is, indeed, the most perilous place in all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> America for the green
+and friendless free lance to attempt to earn a living. There is a
+wonderful abundance of "stories," but nearly all of them that the eye of
+the beginner can detect have been marketed before. Any other island but
+Manhattan! When dog days came around, I took a vacation on Bois Blanc in
+the Straits of Mackinac, and found more salable "stories" along its
+thinly populated shores than Manhattan had been able to furnish in three
+months. Everything I touched on Bois Blanc was new, and all my own.
+Anything on Manhattan is everybody's.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to our troubles in New York. The only hope I could see was
+to create a line of writing all our own. This determination resulted in
+a highly specialized type of "feature" for which we found a market in
+the morning New York <i>World</i>. It combined novelty with the utmost
+essence of timeliness. For example, precluding any possibility of being
+anticipated on the opening of Coney Island's summer season, we wrote
+early in February:</p>
+
+<p>"If reports from unveracious employees of Coney Island are to be
+trusted, the summer season of 1910 is going to bring forth thrilling
+novelties for the air and the earth and the tunnels beneath the earth."</p>
+
+<p>We listed then the Biplane Hat Glide (women were wearing enormous hats
+that season) and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> Motor Ten Pins&mdash;get in a motor car and run down
+dummies which count respectively, a child, ten points; a blind man,
+five; a newsboy, one. Then the Shontshover. We explained the Shontshover
+in detail because it was supposed to have a particularly strong appeal
+to the millions who ride in the subway:</p>
+
+<p>"New York's good-natured enjoyment of its inadequate subway service is
+responsible for the third novelty of the season. In honor of a gentleman
+who once took a ride in one of his own subway cars during the rush hour,
+the device has been named the 'Shontshover' (from 'Shonts' and
+'shover'). It is the sublimation of a subway car, a cross between a
+cartridge and a sardine can. The passengers are packed into the shell
+with a hydraulic ram, then at high speed are shot through a pneumatic
+tube against a stone wall. Because of the great number of passengers the
+Shontshover can carry in a day, the admission price to the tube is to be
+only twenty-five cents."</p>
+
+<p>We suggested on other occasions that new churches should have floors
+with an angle of forty-five degrees, on account of the prevailing
+fashion of large hats among women; that City Hall employees were
+outwitting Mayor Gaynor's time clock by paying the night watchman to
+punch it for them at sunrise, and that beauty had be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>come a bar to a job
+as waitress in numerous New York restaurants. (O shades of George
+Washington, forgive us that one, at least!) These squibs did nobody any
+harm, and did us on the average, the good of the price of a week's room
+rent. We never meant them to be taken seriously or ever supposed that
+any one in the world would swallow them whole. But among our readers was
+a square-headed German; and one of the most absurd of our imaginings
+turned out, as a result, to be a physical possibility.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever since it was announced, a few days ago, that hazing in a modified
+modernized form is to be permitted at West Point," we related, "a
+reporter for the <i>World</i> has been busily interviewing people of all ages
+and interests to find the latest ideas on the subject.... Some small
+boys in Van Cortlandt Park yesterday afternoon, diabolo experts,
+suggested 'plebe diabolo.' It is simply diabolo for grown-ups. A rope
+takes the place of the customary string and a first year man is used for
+a spool. Any one can see at a glance what a great improvement this would
+be over the old-fashioned stunt of tossing the plebe in a blanket."</p>
+
+<p>A few months later I picked up a copy of the <i>Scientific American</i> and
+chortled to read the account of a German acrobat who was playing in
+vaudeville as the "Human Diabolo."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But this sort of thing was merely temporizing, and we finally had to
+abandon it for subjects more substantial. By a slow and harrowing
+process we learned our specialties and made a few helpful friends in New
+York's Fleet Street. The fittest among the many manuscripts turned out
+by our copy mill survived to teach us that the surest way into print is
+to write about things closest to personal knowledge&mdash;simple and homely
+themes close to the grass roots. We turned again to middle western
+topics and the magazines opened their doors to us. We plugged away for
+six months and cleared a profit large enough to pay off all our debts
+and leave a little margin. Then we felt that we could look the west in
+the face again, and go home, if we liked, without a consciousness of
+utter defeat. For though we had not won, neither had we lost. Our books
+struck a balance.</p>
+
+<p>When the Wanderlust began calling again in May, I sat many an evening in
+the window of our little room, gazing down into the backyard cat arena
+or up at the moon, and dragging away at a Missouri corncob pipe in a
+happy revery. Some of my manuscript titles of editorial paragraphs
+contributed to <i>Collier's</i> trace what happened next:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>
+Longings at the Window.<br />
+Packing Up.<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>A Mood of Moving Day.<br />
+From Cab to Taxi.<br />
+Outdoor Sleeping Quarters.<br />
+Shortcake.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>Which is to say that it was sweet to see the home folks again, to eat
+fried chicken and honest homemade strawberry shortcake and to slumber on
+a sleeping porch. Our forces had beat a strategic retreat, but the
+morale was not gone. Our determination was firm to assault New York
+again at the first favorable opportunity. Meanwhile, we had learned a
+thing or two.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>SOMETHING TO SELL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Six months back home, toiling like a galley slave, furnished requisite
+funds for another fling at New York. If ever a writer <i>burned</i> with
+zeal, this one did. Mississippi Valley summers often approach the
+torrid; this one was a record breaker; and I never shall forget how
+often that summer, after a hard day's work as a reporter, I stripped to
+the waist like a stoker and scribbled and typed until my eyes and
+fingers ached.</p>
+
+<p>It was wise&mdash;and foolish. Wise, because it furnished the capital with
+which every free lance ought to be well supplied before he attempts to
+operate from a New York headquarters. Foolish, because it took all joy
+of life out of my manuscripts while the session of strenuousness lasted
+and left me wavering at the end almost on the verge of a physical
+breakdown. Nights, Sundays and holidays I plugged and slogged, nor did I
+relent even when vacation time came round. I sojourned to the Michigan
+pine woods,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> but took along my typewriter and kept it singing half of
+every day.</p>
+
+<p>The new year found me in New York again, alone this time and installed
+in a comfortable two-room suite instead of an attic. A reassuring bank
+account bolstered up my courage while the work was getting under way.</p>
+
+<p>This time I made a go of it; and such ups and downs as have followed in
+the ten years succeeding have not been much more dramatic than the mild
+adventures that befall the everyday business man. "Danger is past and
+now troubles begin." That phrase of Gambetta's aptly describes the
+situation of the average free lance when, after the first desperate
+struggles, he has managed to gain a reasonable assurance of
+independence.</p>
+
+<p>Confidence comes with experience, and when you no longer have any grave
+fears about your ability to make a living at the trade, your mind turns
+from elementary problems to the less distracting task of finding out how
+to make your discovered degree of talent count for all that it may be
+worth. After trying your hand at a variety of subjects, you will find
+your forte. But take your time about it. Every adventure in composition
+teaches you something new about yourself, your art and the markets
+wherein you gain your daily bread. The way to learn to write&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> only
+way&mdash;is by writing, and you never will know what you might do unless you
+dare and try.</p>
+
+<p>Both as a matter of expediency and of getting as much fun out of the
+work as possible, it is well in the beginning to be versatile.
+Eventually, the free lance faces two choices: He may become a specialist
+and put in the remainder of his life writing solely about railroads, or
+about finance, or about the drama. Or he may, as Robert Louis Stevenson
+did, turn his hand as the mood moves him, to fiction, verse, fables,
+biography, criticism, drama or journalism&mdash;a little of everything. For
+my own part, I have always had something akin to pity for the fellow who
+is bound hand and foot to one interest. Let the fame and the greater
+profits of specialization go hang; "an able bodied writin' man" can best
+possess his soul if he does not harness Pegasus to plow forever in one
+cabbage patch.</p>
+
+<p>Like the Ozark Mountain farmer who also ran a country store, a saw mill,
+a deer park, a sorghum mill, a threshing machine and preached in the
+meetin' house on Sunday mornings, I have turned my pen to any honest
+piece of writing that appealed strongly enough to my fancy&mdash;travel,
+popular science, humor, light verse, editorials, essays, interviews,
+personality sketches and captions for photographs. Genius takes a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> short
+cut to the highroad. But waste not your sympathy on the rest of us, for
+the byways have their own charm.</p>
+
+<p>While one is finding his footing in the free lance fields, he had best
+not hold himself above doing any kind of journalistic work that turns an
+honest dollar. For he becomes richer not only by the dollar, but also by
+the acquaintances he makes and the valuable experience he gains in
+turning that dollar. There was a time&mdash;and not so long ago&mdash;when, if the
+writer called at the waiting room of the Leslie-Judge Company, the girl
+at the desk would try to guess whether he had a drawing to show to the
+Art Editor, a frivolous manuscript for <i>Judge</i> or a serious article for
+<i>Leslie's</i>. At the Doubleday, Page plant the uncertainty was about
+whether the caller sought the editor of <i>World's Work</i>, <i>Country Life</i>,
+the <i>Red Cross Magazine</i> or <i>Short Stories</i>&mdash;he had, at various times,
+contributed to all of these publications.</p>
+
+<p>Smile, if you like, but there is no better way to discover what you can
+do best than to try your 'prentice hand at a great variety of topics and
+mediums. The post-graduate course of every school of journalism is a
+roped arena where you wrestle, catch as catch can, for the honors
+bestowed by experience.</p>
+
+<p>This experience, painfully acquired, should be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> backed up by an
+elementary knowledge of salesmanship. Super-sensitive souls there are
+who shudder at the mere mention of the word; and why this is so is not
+difficult to understand&mdash;their minds are poisoned with sentimental
+misapprehensions. Get rid of those misapprehensions just as swiftly as
+you can. If you have something to sell, be it hardware or a manuscript,
+common sense should dictate that you learn a little about how to sell
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Expert interviewers prepare themselves both for their topic and their
+man before they go into a confab&mdash;a practice which should be followed to
+some extent by every writer who sets out to interview an editor about a
+manuscript. What you have to offer should be prepared to suit the needs
+of the editor to whom the contribution is addressed. So you should study
+your magazine just as carefully as you do the subject about which you
+are writing. In your interview with the editor or in the letter which
+takes the place of an interview, state briefly whatever should be useful
+to his enlightenment. That is all. There you have the first principles
+of what is meant by "an elementary knowledge of salesmanship." If you
+don't know what you are talking about or anything about the possible
+needs of the man to whom you are talking, how can you expect to interest
+him in any commodity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> under heaven? Say nothing that you don't
+believe&mdash;he won't believe it, either. Never fool him. If you do, you may
+sell him once, but never again.</p>
+
+<p>There is no dark art to salesmanship; it is simply a matter of
+delivering the goods in a manner dictated by courtesy, sincerity, common
+sense and common honesty. Be yourself without pose, and don't forget
+that the editor&mdash;whether you believe it or not&mdash;is just as "human" as
+you are, and quick to respond to the best that there is in you. Shake
+off the delusion that you need to play the "good fellow" to him, like
+the old-fashioned type of drummer in a small town. Simply and sincerely
+and straight from the shoulder&mdash;also briefly, because he is a busy
+man&mdash;state your case, leave your literary goods for inspection and go
+your way.</p>
+
+<p>He will judge you and your manuscript on merits; if he does not, he will
+not long continue to be an editor. The two greatest curses of his
+existence (I speak from experience) are the poses and the incurable
+loquaciousness of some of his callers and correspondents. Don't attempt
+to spring any correspondence school salesmanship on a real editor. Learn
+what real salesmanship is, from a real salesman&mdash;who may sell bacon, or
+steel or motor cars instead of manuscripts. He lives down your street,
+perhaps.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> Have a talk with him. He will tell you of the profits in a
+square deal and in knowing your business, and what can be accomplished
+by a little faith.</p>
+
+<p>If you are temperamentally unfit to sell your own writings, get a
+competent literary agent to do the job for you. But don't too quickly
+despair, for after all, there is nothing particularly subtle about
+salesmanship. Sincerity, however crude, usually carries conviction. If
+you know a "story" when you see it, if you write it right and type it in
+professional form and give it the needed illustrations; then if you
+offer it in a common sense manner to a suitable market, you can be
+trusted to handle your own products as successfully as the best salesman
+in America&mdash;as successfully as Charles Schwab himself. For, above all,
+remember this: the editor is just as eager to buy good stuff as you are
+to sell it. Nothing is simpler than to make a sale in the literary
+market if you have what the editor wants.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHAT THE EDITOR WANTS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Suppose you were the manager of an immense forum, a stadium like the one
+in San Diego, California, where with the aid of a glass cage and an
+electrical device increasing the intensity of the human voice, it is
+possible to reach the ears of a world's record audience of 50,000
+persons. What sort of themes would you favor when candidates for a place
+on your speaking program asked you what they ought to discuss? "The
+Style of Walter Pater?" "The Fourth Dimension?" "Florentine Art of the
+Fourteenth Century?" Not likely! You would insist upon simple and homely
+themes, of the widest possible appeal.</p>
+
+<p>A parallel case is that of the editor of a magazine of general
+circulation. He manages a forum so much larger than the famous stadium
+at San Diego that the imagination is put to a strain to picture it. On
+the generally accepted assumption that each sold copy of a popular
+magazine eventually reaches an average of five persons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> there is one
+forum in the magazine world of America which every week assembles a
+throng of ten million or more assorted citizens, gathered from
+everywhere, coast to coast, men and women, young and old, every walk of
+life. A dozen other periodicals address at least half that number, and
+the humblest of the widely known magazines reaches a quarter of a
+million&mdash;five times as many persons as jammed their way into the San
+Diego stadium one time to hear a speech by the President of the United
+States.</p>
+
+<p>Put yourself into the shoes of the manager of one of these forums, and
+try to understand some of his difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>A dozen times a day the editor of a popular periodical is besieged by
+contributors to make some sort of answer to the question: "What kind of
+material are you seeking?"</p>
+
+<p>What else can he reply, in a general way, but "something of wide appeal,
+to interest our wide circle of readers"?</p>
+
+<p>There are times, of course, when he can speak specifically and with
+assurance, if all he happens to require at the moment to give proper
+balance to his table of contents is one or two manuscripts of a definite
+type. Then he may be able to say, off-hand: "An adventure novelette of
+twenty thousand words," or, "An article on the high cost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> of shoe
+leather, three thousand five hundred words." But this is a happy
+situation which is not at all typical. Ordinarily, he stands in constant
+need of half a dozen varieties of material; but to describe them all in
+detail to every caller would take more time than he could possibly
+afford to spare.</p>
+
+<p>He cannot stop to explain to every applicant that among what Robert
+Louis Stevenson described as "the real deficiencies of social
+intercourse" is the fact that while two's company three's a crowd; that
+with each addition to this crowd the topics of conversation must broaden
+in appeal, seeking the greatest common divisor of interests; and that a
+corollary is the unfortunate fact that the larger the crowd the fewer
+and more elemental must become the subjects that are possible for
+discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Every editor knows that a lack of judgment in selecting themes of broad
+enough appeal to interest a nation-wide public is one of the novice
+scribbler's most common failings. It is due chiefly to a lack of
+imagination on the part of the would-be contributor, who appears to be
+incapable of projecting himself into the editorial viewpoint. I can
+testify from my own experience that a single day's work as an editor,
+wading through a bushel of mail, taught me more about how to make a
+selection of subjects than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> six months of shooting in the dark as a free
+lance.</p>
+
+<p>Every editor knows that nine out of ten of the unsolicited manuscripts
+which he will find piled upon his desk for reading to-morrow morning
+will prove to be wholly unfitted for the uses of his magazine. The man
+outside the sanctum fails utterly to understand the editor's dilemma.</p>
+
+<p>This is the situation which has produced the "staff writer," and has
+brought down upon the editor the protests of his more discriminating
+readers against "standardized fiction" and against sundry uninspired
+articles produced to measure by faithful hacks. The editor defends his
+course in printing this sort of material upon the ground that a magazine
+made up wholly of unsolicited material would be a horrid m&eacute;lange, far
+more distressing to the consumer than the present type of popular
+periodical which is so largely made to order. All editors read
+unsolicited material hopefully and eagerly. Many an editor gives this
+duty half of his working day and part of his evenings and Sundays. All
+of the reward of a discoverer is his if he can herald a new worth-while
+writer. Moreover, the interest of economy bids him be faithful in the
+task, for the novice does not demand the high rates of the renowned
+professional.</p>
+
+<p>Yet even on the largest of our magazines,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> where the stream of
+contributions is enormous, the most diligent search is not fruitful of
+much material that is worth while. The big magazines have to order most
+of their material in advance, like so much sausage or silk; and much of
+the contents is planned for many months ahead. Scarcely any dependence
+can be placed upon the luck of what drifts into the office in the mails.</p>
+
+<p>Inevitably, the magazines must have large recourse to "big names," not
+because of inbred snobbishness on the part of the editors but because
+the "big name," besides carrying advertising value, is more likely than
+a little one to stand for material with a "big" theme, handled by a
+writer of experience. A surer touch in selecting and handling topics of
+nation-wide appeal is what counts most heavily in favor of the writer
+with an established reputation. Often enough it is not his vastly
+superior craftsmanship. I know of several famous magazine writers who
+never in their lives have got their material into print in the form in
+which it originally was submitted. They are what the trade calls
+"go-getters." They deliver the "story" as best they can, and a more
+skillful stylist completes the job.</p>
+
+<p>Success in marketing non-fiction to popular magazines appears to hinge
+largely upon the quality of the thinking the writer does before he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> sets
+pen to paper. A classic anecdote of New York's Fleet Street may
+illustrate the point:</p>
+
+<p>The publisher of a national weekly was hiring a newspaper man as editor.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this a writing job?" the applicant inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" growled the publisher, "a thinkin' job!"</p>
+
+<p>The writer of non-fiction is in the same boat with the editor who buys
+his articles; he calls himself a writer, but primarily he is up against
+a thinking job. The actual writing of his material is secondary to good
+judgment in selecting what is known as a "compelling" theme. If he can
+produce a "real story" and get it onto paper in some sort of intelligent
+fashion, what remains to be done in the way of craftsmanship can be
+handled inside the magazine office by a "re-write man." Make sure, first
+of all, that what you have to say is something that ought to interest
+the large audience to which you address it.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody with a grain of common sense would attempt to discuss "The Style
+of Walter Pater" to fifty thousand restless and croupy auditors in the
+vast San Diego stadium, but the average free lance sees nothing of equal
+absurdity about attempting to cram an essay on Pater down the throats of
+a miscellaneous crowd in a stadium which is from a hundred to two
+hundred times as large&mdash;the forum into which throng the thou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>sands who
+read one of our large popular magazines.</p>
+
+<p>Much as we may regret to acknowledge it, there is no way to get around
+the fact that the larger and more general the circulation of a
+periodical, the more universal must be the appeal of the material
+printed and the fewer the mainstays of interest, until in a magazine
+with a circulation of more than a million copies the chief
+classifications of non-fiction material required can easily be counted
+upon the fingers. The editor of such a publication necessarily is
+limited to handling rather elemental topics; so it is not to be wondered
+at when we hear that the largest publication of them all makes its
+mainstays two such universally interesting and world-old themes as
+business and "the way of a man with a maid."</p>
+
+<p>Examine any popular magazine which has a circulation of general readers,
+speaking to a forum of anywhere from a quarter of a million to ten
+million assorted readers, and you will find that the non-fiction
+material which it is most eager to buy may easily be classified into
+half a dozen types of articles, all concerned with the ruling passions
+of the average American, as:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>
+1. His job.<br />
+2. His hearthstone.<br />
+3. His politics.<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>4. His recreations.<br />
+5. His health.<br />
+6. Happenings of national interest.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>Examine a few of these types of contributions to arrive at a clearer
+understanding of why they are so justly popular. Your average American
+is, first of all, keenly interested in his job. It is much more to him,
+usually, than just a way to make a living. It fascinates him like a
+game, and you often hear him describe it as a "game." What, then, is
+more natural than that he should eagerly read articles of practical
+helpfulness concerned with his activities in office or store, factory or
+farm? The largest of our popular magazines never appear without
+something which touches this sort of interest, stimulating the man of
+affairs to strive after further successes and advancement in his chosen
+occupation. Many specialized business and trade publications and more
+than a score of skillfully edited farm magazines thrive upon developing
+this class of themes to the exclusion of all other material.</p>
+
+<p>A second vital interest is the hearthstone&mdash;suggesting such undying
+topics as love and the landlord, marriage and divorce, the training of
+children, the household budget, the high cost of living, those
+compelling themes which have built up the women's magazines into
+institutions of giant stature and tremendous power.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Politics is another field of almost universal interest, broadening every
+day now that women have the ballot and now that our vision is no longer
+limited to the homeland horizon, but finds itself searching eagerly
+onward into international relationships. Once we were content, as a
+national body politic, to discuss candidates for the Presidency or what
+our stand should be upon currency and the tariff. To-day we are also
+gravely concerned to know what is to become of Russia and Germany, or
+how the political and social unrest in France and Italy and England will
+affect the peace of the world.</p>
+
+<p>As a fourth point, your average American these days is quick to respond
+to anything worth while concerning his recreations. As a consequence,
+much space is reserved in the big magazines for articles on society,
+travel, the theater and the movies, motor cars, country life, outings,
+and such popular sports as golf, baseball and tennis. Every one of these
+topics, besides being dealt with in the general magazines, has its own
+special mouthpiece.</p>
+
+<p>Health always has been a subject constantly on the tip of everybody's
+tongue, but never before has so much been printed about the more
+important phases of it than appears in the popular magazines of to-day.
+Knowledge of the common sense rules of diet, exercise, ventila<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>tion and
+the like are becoming public possession&mdash;thanks largely to the magazines
+and the newspaper syndicates.</p>
+
+<p>A sixth mainstay of the magazines is in the presentation of articles
+dealing with happenings of national interest or personalities prominent
+in the day's news. This task grows increasingly difficult as the
+newspapers tighten their grip upon the public's attention and as the
+news pictorials of the moving picture screen gain in popular esteem by
+improved technical skill and more intelligent editing. The magazine of
+large circulation must go to press so long before the newspapers and the
+films that much perishable news must be thrown out, even though it is of
+nation wide appeal. The magazines are coming to find their greatest
+usefulness in the news field in gathering up the loose ends of scattered
+paragraphs which the daily newspapers have no time to weave together
+into a pattern. In the magazine the patchwork of daily journalism is
+assembled into more meaningful designs. Local news is sifted of its
+provincialism to become matter of national concern. Topics which you
+rapidly skimmed in the afternoon newspaper three or four weeks ago are
+re-discussed in the weekly or monthly magazines in a way which often
+makes you feel that here, for the first time, they become of personal
+import.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The purpose of the suggestions sketched above is not to supply canned
+topics to ready writers, but to set ambitious scribblers to the task of
+doing some thinking for themselves. Instead of shiftlessly tossing the
+whole burden of responsibility for choice of topics to a hard driven
+editor, and whining, "Please give me an idea!", search around on your
+own initiative for a theme worth presenting to the attention of a throng
+of widely assorted listeners&mdash;for a "story" that ought to appeal to
+America's multitudes. If your topic is big enough for a big audience,
+your chances are prime to get a hearing for it. Dig up the necessary
+facts, the "human interest" and the national significance of the case.
+Then, rest assured, that "story" is what the editor wants.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>AND IF YOU DO&mdash;</h3>
+
+
+<p>Something in the misty sunshine this morning made you restless. Vague
+longings, born of springtime mystery, stirred your blood, quickened the
+imagination. Roads that never were, and mayhap never will be, beckoned
+you with their sinuous curves and graceful shade trees toward velvety
+fields beyond the city's skyline. The sweet fragrance of blossoming
+orchards tingled in your nostrils and thrilled you with wanderlust.
+Haunting melodies quavered in your ears. Your old briar pipe never
+tasted so sweet before. Adventure never seemed so imminent. A golden
+day. What will you do with it?</p>
+
+<p>You could write to-day, but if you did, you know you could support no
+patience for prosy facts, statistics and photographs. Whatever urge you
+feel appears to be toward verse or fiction. Well, why not? Try it! You
+never know what you might do in writing until you dare.</p>
+
+<p>Verse is largely its own reward.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Fiction, when it turns out successfully, fetches a double reward. It
+pays both in personal satisfaction, as a form of creative art, and also
+as a marketable commodity, which always is in great demand, and which
+can be cashed in to meet house rent and grocers' bills.</p>
+
+<p>It is not within the scope of this little book&mdash;nor of its author's
+abilities&mdash;to attempt a discussion of fiction methods. Too many other
+writers, better qualified to speak, have dealt with fiction in scores of
+worth while volumes. Too many successful story tellers have related
+their experiences and treated, with authority, of the short story, the
+novelette and the long novel.</p>
+
+<p>The purpose here can be only to urge that an attempt to write fiction is
+a logical step ahead for any scribbler who has won a moderate degree of
+success in selling newspaper copy and magazine articles. The eye that
+can perceive the dramatic and put it into non-fiction, the heart that
+knows human interest, the understanding that can tell a symbol, the
+artist-instinct that can catch characteristic colors, scents and sounds,
+all should aid a skilled writer of articles to turn his energies, with
+some hope of achievement, toward producing fiction. The hand that can
+fashion a really vivid article holds out promise of being able to
+compose a convincing short story, if grit and ambition help push the
+pen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The temptation to dogmatize here is strong, for the witness can testify
+that he has seen enviable success crown many a fiction writer who,
+apparently, possessed small native talent for story telling, and who won
+his laurels through sheer pluck and persistence. One of these pluggers
+declares he blesses the rejection slip because it "eliminates so many
+quitters."</p>
+
+<p>But of course it would be absurd to believe that any one with unlimited
+courage and elbow grease could win at fiction, lacking all aptitude for
+it. Just as there are photographers who can snap pictures for twenty
+years without producing a single happy composition (except by accident),
+and reporters who never develop a "nose for news," there are story
+writers who can master all the mechanics of tale-telling, through sheer
+drudgery, and yet continually fail to catch fiction's spark of life.
+They fail, and shall always fail. Yet it is better to have strived and
+failed, than never to have tried at all.</p>
+
+<p>Why? For the good of their artists' consciences, in the first place.
+And, in the second, because no writer can earnestly struggle with words
+without learning something about them to his trade advantage.</p>
+
+<p>A confession may be in order: your deponent testifies freely, knowing
+that anything he may say may be used against him, that for years he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> has
+been a tireless producer of unsuccessful fiction, yet he views his
+series of rebuffs in this medium calmly and even somewhat humorously.
+For, by trade, he is a writer of articles, and he earnestly believes
+that the mental exercise of attempting to produce fiction acts as a
+healthy influence upon a non-fictionist's style. It stimulates the
+torpid imagination. It quickens the eye for the vivid touches, the
+picturesque and the dramatic. It is a groping toward art.</p>
+
+<p>"Art," writes one who knows, "is a mistress so beautiful, so high, so
+noble, that no phrases can fitly characterize her, no service can be
+wholly worthy of her."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps such art as goes into the average magazine article is not likely
+to merit much high-sounding praise. In our familiar shop talk we are
+prone to laugh about it. But even the most commercial-minded of our
+brotherhood cherishes deep in his heart a craftsman's pride in work well
+done. So your deponent testifies in his own defense that his copybook
+exercises in fiction, half of which end in the wastebasket, seem well
+worth the pains that they cost, so long as they help keep alive in his
+non-fiction bread-winners a hankering after (if not a flavor of)
+literary art.</p>
+
+<p>And now must he apologize further for using a word upon which writers in
+these confessedly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> commercial days appear to have set a <i>taboo</i>? Then a
+passage from "The Study of Literature" (Arlo Bates) may serve for the
+apology:</p>
+
+<p>"Life is full of disappointment, and pain, and bitterness, and that
+sense of futility in which all of these evils are summed up; and yet
+were there no other alleviation, he who knows and truly loves literature
+finds here a sufficient reason to be glad he lives. Science may show a
+man how to live; art makes living worth his while. Existence to-day
+without literature would be a failure and a despair; and if we cannot
+satisfactorily define our art, we at least are aware how it enriches and
+ennobles the life of every human being who comes within the sphere of
+its gracious influence."</p>
+
+<p>So, we repeat: for the good of the artist's self-respect as well as for
+his craftsmanship it is worth while to attempt fiction. If only as a
+tonic! If only to jog himself out of a rut of habit!</p>
+
+<p>If he succeeds with fiction he has bright hopes of winning much larger
+financial rewards for his labor than he is likely to gain by writing
+articles. Non-fiction rarely brings in more than one return upon the
+investment, but a good short story or novel may fetch several. First,
+his yarn sells to the magazine. Then it may be re-sold ("second serial
+rights") to the newspapers. Finally,
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+it may fetch the largest cash
+return of all by being marketed to a motion picture corporation as the
+plot for a scenario. In some instances even this does not exhaust all
+the possibilities, for if British magazines and bookmen are interested
+in the tale, the "English rights" of publication may add another payment
+to the total.</p>
+
+<p>Not all of the features of this picture, however, should be painted in
+rose-colors. A disconcerting and persistent rumor has it that what once
+was a by-product of fiction&mdash;the sale of "movie rights"&mdash;is now
+threatening to run off with the entire production. The side show, we are
+warned, is shaping the policy of the main tent. Which is to say that
+novelists and magazine fiction writers are accused of becoming more
+concerned about how their stories will film than about how the
+manuscripts will grade as pieces of literature. To get a yarn into print
+is still worth while because this enhances its value in the eyes of the
+producers of motion pictures. But the author's real goal is "no longer
+good writing, so much as remunerative picture possibilities."</p>
+
+<p>We set this down not because we believe it true of the majority of our
+brother craftsmen, but because evidences of such influences are
+undeniably present, and do not appear to have done the art of writing
+fiction any appreciable benefit.
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+
+If your trade is non-fiction, and you
+turn to fiction to improve your art rather than your bank account, good
+counsel will admonish you not to aim at any other mark than the best
+that you can produce in the way of literary art. For there lies the
+deepest satisfaction a writer can ever secure&mdash;"art makes living worth
+his while."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>FOREVER AT THE CROSSROADS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Keep studying. Keep experimenting. Set yourself harder tasks. Never be
+content with what you have accomplished. Match yourself against the men
+who can outplay you, not against the men you already excel. Keep
+attempting something that baffles you. Discontent is your friend more
+often than your enemy.</p>
+
+<p>From the moment that he is graduated out of the cub reporter class,
+every writer who is worth his salt is forever at the crossroads,
+perplexed about the next turn. Nowhere is smugness of mind more deadly
+than in journalism. To progress you must forever scale more difficult
+ascents. The bruises of rebuffs and the wounds of injured vanity will
+heal quickly enough if you keep busy. Defeated or undefeated, the writer
+who always is trying to master something more difficult than the work he
+used to do preserves his self-respect and the respect of his worth-while
+neighbors. The fellow with the canker at his heart is not the battler<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+but the envious shirker who is too "proud" to risk a fall.</p>
+
+<p>Swallow what you suppose to be your pride; it really is a false sense of
+dignity. Make a simple beginning in the university of experience by
+learning with experiments what constitutes a "story" and by drudging
+with pencil and typewriter to put that "story" into professional
+manuscript form. Get the right pictures for it; then ship it off to
+market. If the first choice of markets rejects you, try the second, the
+third, fourth, fifth and sixth&mdash;even unto the ninety-and-ninth.</p>
+
+<p>Few beginners have even a dim notion of the great variety of markets
+that exist for free lance contributions. There are countless trade
+publications, newspaper syndicates, class journals, "house organs," and
+magazines devoted to highly specialized interests. Nearly all of these
+publications are eager to buy matter of interest to their particular
+circles of readers. Every business, every profession, every trade, every
+hobby has its mouthpiece.</p>
+
+<p>Remember this when you are a beginner and the "big magazines" of general
+circulation are rejecting your manuscripts with a clock-like regularity
+which drives you almost to despair. Try your 'prentice hand on
+contributions to the smaller publications. That is the surest way to
+"learn while you earn" in free lancing. These<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> humble markets need not
+cause you to sneer&mdash;particularly if you happen to be a humble beginner.</p>
+
+<p>Every laboratory experiment in manuscript writing and marketing, though
+it be only a description of a shop window for a dry goods trade paper,
+or an interview with a boss plumber for the <i>Gas Fitter's Gazette</i>, will
+furnish you with experience in your own trade, and set you ahead a step
+on the long road that leads to the most desirable acceptances. The one
+thing to watch zealously is your own development, to make sure that you
+do not too soon content yourself with achievements beneath your
+capabilities. Start with the little magazines, but keep attempting to
+attain the more difficult goals.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, you need not apologize to any one for the nature of your
+work, so long as it is honest reporting and all as well written as you
+know how to make it. Stevenson, one of the most conscientious of
+literary artists, declared in a "Letter to a Young Gentleman Who
+Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art," that "the first duty in this
+world is for a man to pay his way," and this is one of your confessed
+purposes while you are serving this kind of journalistic apprenticeship.</p>
+
+<p>Until he arrives, the novice must, indeed, unless he be exceptionally
+gifted, "pay assiduous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> court to the bourgeois who carries the purse.
+And if in the course of these capitulations he shall falsify his talent,
+it can never have been a strong one, and he will have preserved a better
+thing than talent&mdash;character. Or if he be of a mind so independent that
+he cannot stoop to this necessity, one course is yet open: he can desist
+from art, and follow some more manly way of life."</p>
+
+<p>In short, so long as you <i>keep moving</i> toward something worth attaining,
+there is nothing to worry about but how to keep from relapsing into
+smugness or idleness. The besetting temptation of the free lance is to
+pamper himself. He is his own boss, can sleep as late as he likes, go
+where he pleases and quit work when the temptation seizes him. As a
+result, he usually babies himself and turns out much less work than he
+might safely attempt without in the least endangering his health.</p>
+
+<p>When he finds out later how assiduously some of the best known of our
+authors keep at their desks he becomes a little ashamed of himself.
+Though they may not work, on the average, as long hours as the business
+man, they toil far harder, and usually with few of the interruptions and
+relaxations from the job that the business man is allowed. Four or five
+hours of intense application a day stands for a great deal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> more
+expenditure of energy and thought than eight or nine hours broken up
+with periods when one's feet are literally or metaphorically on the desk
+and genial conversation is flowing. Most of the men and women who make a
+living out of free lancing earn every blessed cent of it; and the amount
+upon which they pay an income tax is, as a rule, proportioned rather
+justly to the amount of concentrated labor that they pour into the
+hopper of the copy mill.</p>
+
+<p>You who happen to have seen a successful free lance knock off work in
+mid-afternoon to play tennis, or to skim away toward the country club in
+his new motor car are too likely to exclaim that "his is the existence!"
+Forgetting, of course, the lonesome hours of more or less baffling
+effort that he spent that day upon a manuscript before he locked up his
+workshop. And the years he spent in drudgery, the bales of rejection
+slips he collected, the times that he had to pawn his watch and stick
+pin to buy a dinner or to pay the rent of a hall bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>Young Gentlemen Who Propose to Embrace the Career of Art might be
+shocked to learn&mdash;though it would be all for their own good&mdash;that a
+great many writers who are generally regarded with envy for their "luck"
+take the pains to follow the market notes in the Authors' League
+<i>Bulletin</i>, the <i>Bookman</i> and the <i>Editor Magazine</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> with all the care
+of a contractor studying the latest news of building operations. Not
+only do these writers read the trade papers of their calling; they also,
+with considerable care, study the magazines to which they sell&mdash;or hope
+to sell&mdash;manuscripts. They do not nearly so often as the novice make the
+<i>faux pas</i> of offering an editor exactly the same sort of material that
+he already has printed in a recent or a current issue. They follow the
+new books. They keep card indexes on their unmarketed manuscripts, and
+toil on as much irksome office routine as a stock broker. A surprisingly
+large number of the "arrived" do not even hold themselves above keeping
+note books, or producing, chiefly for the beneficial exercise of it,
+essays, journals, descriptions, verse and fiction not meant to be
+offered for sale&mdash;solely copybook exercises, produced for
+self-improvement or to gratify an impulse toward non-commercial art.</p>
+
+<p>For instances I can name a fiction writer who turns often to the essay
+form, but never publishes this type of writing, and an editorial writer
+who, for the "fun of it" and the good he believes it does his style,
+composes every year a great deal of verse. A group of six Michigan
+writers publish their own magazine, a typewritten publication with a
+circulation of six.</p>
+
+<p>These men are not content with their present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> achievements. They regard
+themselves always as students who must everlastingly keep trying more
+difficult tasks to insure a steady progress toward an unattainable goal.
+"Most of the studyin'," Abe Martin once observed, "is done after a
+feller gets out of college," and these gray-haired exemplars are&mdash;as all
+of us ought to be&mdash;still learning to write, and forever at the
+crossroads.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h4>FINIS</h4>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of If You Don't Write Fiction, by 
+Charles Phelps Cushing
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's If You Don't Write Fiction, by Charles Phelps Cushing
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: If You Don't Write Fiction
+
+Author: Charles Phelps Cushing
+
+Release Date: September 8, 2008 [EBook #26557]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IF YOU DON'T WRITE FICTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Carla Foust and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    +----------------------------------------------------+
+    |Transcriber's note                                  |
+    |                                                    |
+    |Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without|
+    |notice. The author's spelling has been maintained.  |
+    +----------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+     IF YOU DON'T
+     WRITE FICTION
+
+     By
+     CHARLES PHELPS CUSHING
+
+     [Illustration]
+
+     NEW YORK
+     ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
+     1920
+
+
+
+
+     Copyright, 1920, by
+     ROBERT M. McBRIDE & CO.
+
+     _Printed in the
+     United States of America_
+
+     Published. June, 1920
+
+
+
+
+                              TO
+                           COUSIN ANN
+
+who "doesn't write fiction," but who is ambitious to market magazine
+articles, this little book is affectionately dedicated. If it can save
+her some tribulations along the road that leads to acceptances, the
+author will feel that his labors have been well enough repaid.
+
+
+
+
+The author thanks the editors of _The Bookman_, _Outing_ and the _Kansas
+City Star_ for granting permission to reprint certain passages that here
+appear in revised form.
+
+                                                           C. P. C.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The publisher assures me that no one but a book reviewer ever reads
+prefaces, so I seize upon the opportunity to have a tete-a-tete with my
+critics. Gentlemen, my cards are face up on the table. I have declared
+to the publisher that nearly every American who knows how to read longs
+to find his way into print, and should appreciate some of the dearly
+bought hints herein contained upon practical journalism. And, as I kept
+my face straight when I said it, he may have taken me seriously. Perhaps
+he thinks he has a best seller.
+
+But this is just between ourselves. As he never reads prefaces, he won't
+suspect unless you tell him. My own view of the matter is that Harold
+Bell Wright need not fear me, but that the editors of the Baseball Rule
+Book may be forced to double their annual appropriation for advertising
+in the literary sections.
+
+As the sport of free lance scribbling has a great deal in common with
+fishing, the author of this little book may be forgiven for suggesting
+that in intention it is something like Izaak Walton's "Compleat
+Angler," in that it attempts to combine practical helpfulness with a
+narrative of mild adventures. For what the book contains besides advice,
+I make no apologies, for it is set down neither in embarrassment nor in
+pride. Many readers there must be who would like nothing better than to
+dip into chapters from just such a life as mine. Witness how Edward
+FitzGerald, half author of the "Rubaiyat," sighed to read more lives of
+obscure persons, and that Arthur Christopher Benson, from his "College
+Window," repeats the wish and adds:
+
+"The worst of it is that people often are so modest; they think that
+their own experience is so dull, so unromantic, so uninteresting. It is
+an entire mistake. If the dullest person in the world would only put
+down sincerely what he or she thought about his or her life, about work,
+love, religion and emotion, it would be a fascinating document."
+
+But, you may protest, by what right do the experiences of a magazine
+free lance pass as "adventures"?
+
+Then, again, I shall have to introduce expert testimony:
+
+"The literary life," says no less an authority than H. G. Wells, "is one
+of the modern forms of adventure."
+
+And this holds as true for the least of scribblers as it does for great
+authors. While the writer whose work excites wide interest is seeing the
+world and meeting, as Mr. Wells lists them, "philosophers, scientific
+men, soldiers, artists, professional men, politicians of all sorts, the
+rich, the great," you may behold journalism's small fry courageously
+sallying forth to hunt editorial lions with little butterfly nets. The
+sport requires a firm jaw and demands that the adventurer keep all his
+wits about him. Any novice who doubts me may have a try at it himself
+and see! But first he had better read this "Compleat Free Lancer." Its
+practical hints may save him--or should I say _her_?--many a needless
+disappointment.
+
+                                                           C. P. C.
+
+
+
+
+     CONTENTS
+
+
+     CHAPTER                               PAGE
+
+             PREFACE                          v
+
+          I. ABOUT NOSES AND JAWS             1
+
+         II. HOW TO PREPARE A MANUSCRIPT     10
+
+        III. HOW TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS         16
+
+         IV. FINDING A MARKET                25
+
+          V. A BEGINNER'S FIRST ADVENTURES   32
+
+         VI. IN NEW YORK'S "FLEET STREET"    43
+
+        VII. SOMETHING TO SELL               54
+
+       VIII. WHAT THE EDITOR WANTS           61
+
+         IX. AND IF YOU DO--                 72
+
+          X. FOREVER AT THE CROSSROADS       79
+
+
+
+
+IF YOU DON'T WRITE FICTION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ABOUT NOSES AND JAWS
+
+
+A foxhound scents the trail of his game and tracks it straight to a
+killing. A lapdog lacks this capability. In the same way, there are
+breeds of would-be writers who never can acquire a "nose for news," and
+others who, from the first day that they set foot in editorial rooms,
+are hot on the trail that leads to billboard headlines on the front page
+of a newspaper or acceptances from the big magazines.
+
+Many writers who are hopelessly clumsy with words draw fat pay checks
+because they have a faculty for smelling out interesting facts. In the
+larger cities there are reporters with keen noses for news who never
+write a line from one year's end to another, but do all of their work by
+word of mouth over the telephone.
+
+To the beginner such facts as these seem to indicate that any one can
+win in journalism who has the proper kind of nose. This conclusion is
+only a half-truth, but it is good for the novice to learn--and as soon
+as possible--that the first requisite toward "landing" in the newspapers
+and magazines is to know a "story" when he sees one.
+
+In the slang of the newspaper shop a "story" means non-fiction. It may
+be an interview. It may be an account of a fire. It may be a page of
+descriptive writing for the Sunday magazine section. It may be merely a
+piece of "human interest."
+
+As my own experience in journalism covers barely fifteen years, the
+writer would not be bold enough to attempt to define a "story" further
+than to state that it is something in which an editor hopes his public
+will be interested at the time the paper or magazine appears upon the
+newsstands. To-morrow morning or next month the same readers might not
+feel the slightest interest in the same type of contribution.
+
+Timeliness of some sort is important, yet a "story" may have little to
+do with what in the narrower sense is usually thought of as "news"--such
+as this morning's happenings in the stock markets or the courts, or the
+fire in Main Street. The news interest in this restricted sense may
+dangle from a frayed thread. The timeliness of the contribution may be
+vague and general. We may not be able to do more than sense it. This is
+one reason why men of academic minds, who love exact definitions, never
+feel quite at ease when they attempt to deal with the principles of
+journalism.
+
+We practical men, who earn a living as writers, feel no more at ease
+than the college professors when we attempt to deal with these
+principles. When we are cub reporters we are likely to conceive the
+notion that a "story" is anything startling enough, far enough removed
+from the normal, to catch public attention by its appeal to curiosity.
+Later, we perceive that this explains only half of the case. The other
+half may baffle us to the end. Instance the fact that a great many
+manuscripts sell to newspapers and magazines upon the merits of that
+mysterious element in writing known as "human interest." If a reward
+were offered for an identification of "human interest" no jury could
+agree upon the prize-winning description. A human interest story
+sometimes slips past the trained nose of a reporter of twenty years'
+experience and is picked up by a cub. It is something you tell by the
+scent.
+
+This scent for the trail of a "story" may be sharpened by proper
+training, and one of the best places for a beginner to acquire such
+training--and earn his living in the meantime--is in a newspaper
+office. Yet nothing could be further from the present writer's intention
+than to advise all beginners in journalism to apply for jobs as
+reporters. Some of the most successful magazine contributors in America
+have never set foot inside of a newspaper plant except to pay a
+subscription to the paper or to insert a want ad for a chauffeur or a
+butler.
+
+If you have nose sense for what the public is eager to read, newspaper
+experience can teach you nothing worth while unless it is a deeper
+knowledge of human nature. As a reporter you will view from behind the
+scenes what the people of an American community are like and catch some
+fleeting glimpses of the more unusual happenings in their lives. You
+may, or may not, emerge from this experience a better writer than you
+were when you went in. Your style may become simpler and more forceful
+by newspaper training. Or it may become tawdry, sloppy and inane.
+
+"Newspapers," observed Charles Lamb, "always excite curiosity. No one
+ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment." That was true a
+hundred years ago, and appears to be just as true to-day.
+
+Fortunately, the men who write the news get more out of the work than do
+their readers. The reporter usually can set down only a fraction of the
+interesting facts that he picks up about a "story." His work may be
+eternally disappointing to the public, but it is rarely half so dull to
+the man who does the writing.
+
+No life into which the average modern can dip is so rich in interest for
+the first year or two as that of the reporter working upon general
+assignments. A fling at hobo life, ten voyages at sea and more than two
+years of army life (a year and a half of this time spent in trekking all
+over the shattered landscape of France) do not shake my conviction that
+the adventurer most to be envied in our times is the cub reporter
+enjoying the first thrills and glamors of breaking into print. There is
+a scent in the air, which, though it be only ink and paper, makes the
+cub's blood course faster the minute he steps into the office corridor;
+and as he mounts the stairs to the local room the throbbing of the
+presses makes him wonder if this is not literally the "heart of the
+city."
+
+He makes his rounds of undertakers' shops, courtrooms, army and navy
+recruiting offices, railway stations, jails, markets, clubs, police and
+fire headquarters. He is sent to picnics and scenes of murders. He is
+one of the greenest of novices in literary adventure, but, quite like an
+H. G. Wells, he meets in his community "philosophers, scientific men,
+soldiers, artists, professional men, politicians of all sorts, the rich,
+the great."
+
+He is underpaid and overworked. He has no time to give his writings
+literary finish; and, in the end, unless he develops either into a
+specialist or an executive, he may wear himself out in hard service and
+be cast upon the scrap heap. At first, the life is rich and varied.
+Then, after a while, the reporter finds his interest growing jaded. The
+same kind of assignment card keeps cropping up for him, day after day.
+He perceives that he is in a rut. He tells himself: "I've written that
+same story half a dozen times before."
+
+Then is the time for him to settle himself to do some serious thinking
+about his future. Does he have it in him to become an executive? Or does
+he discover a special taste, worth cultivating, for finance, or sport,
+or editorial writing? If so, he has something like a future in the
+newspaper office.
+
+But if what he really longs to do is to contribute to the magazines or
+to write books, he is at the parting of the ways. He should seize now
+upon every opportunity to discover topics of wide interest, and in his
+spare time he should attempt to write articles on these topics and ship
+them off to market.
+
+He has laid the first solid foundation of successful freelancing, for if
+he has been able to survive as long as six months in the competition of
+the local room he has a nose for what constitutes a "story."
+
+The next thing he has to learn is that an article for a magazine differs
+chiefly from a newspaper story in that the magazine must make a wider
+appeal--to a national rather than to a local interest. The successful
+magazine writer is simply a reporter who knows what the general public
+likes to read, and who has learned when and where and how to market what
+he produces. Timeliness is as important as ever, so he must look to his
+tenses. The magazine article will not appear until from ten days to six
+months or more after it is accepted. Some of our magazines begin making
+up their Christmas numbers in July, so he must learn to sweat to the
+tinkle of sleigh bells.
+
+I wonder how many hundreds of ambitious newspaper reporters are at this
+very minute urging themselves to extra effort after hours and on their
+precious holidays and Sundays to test their luck in the magazine
+markets? The number must be considerable if my experience as a member of
+the editorial staff of a big national magazine allows me to make a
+surmise. I have read through bushels of manuscripts that had the ear
+marks of the newspaper office all over them. They were typed on the
+cheap kind of "copy paper" that is used only in "city rooms." The first
+sheet rarely had a title, for the newspaper reporter's habit is to leave
+headline writing to a "copy reader." Ink and dust had filled in such
+letters as "a" and "e" and "o." Most of the manuscripts were done with
+characteristic newspaper office haste, and gave indication somewhere in
+the text that the author had not the faintest notion of how far in
+advance of the date line the magazine had to make up its table of
+contents.
+
+Many of these novices showed a promise in skill that might give some
+uneasy moments to our most prosperous magazine headliners. If only there
+were firm jaws back of the promise! These men had the nose for
+journalistic success, but that alone will not carry them far unless it
+is backed with a fighting jaw.
+
+I look back sometimes to cub days and name over the reporters who at
+that time showed the greatest ability. Three of the most brilliant are
+still drudging along in the old shop on general assignments, for little
+more money than they made ten years ago. One did a book of real merit
+and the effort he expended upon it overcame him with ennui. Another made
+the mistake of supposing that he could pin John Barleycorn's shoulders
+to the mat. Another had no initiative. He is dying in his tracks.
+
+Who now are rated as successes on the roll call of those cub reporter
+days? Not our geniuses, but a dozen fellows who had the most
+determination and perseverance. The men who won were the men who tried,
+and tried again and then kept on trying.
+
+Mr. Dooley was quite right about opportunity: "Opporchunity knocks at
+every man's dure wanst. On some men's dures it hammers till it breaks
+down the dure and goes in an' wakes him up if he's asleep, an'
+aftherward it works fur him as a night watchman. On other men's dures it
+knocks an' runs away; an' on the dures of other men it knocks, an' whin
+they come out it hits thim over the head with an ax. But eviry wan has
+an opporchunity. So yez had better kape your eye skinned an' nab it
+before it shlips by an' is lost forevir."
+
+The names on a big magazine's table of contents represent many varieties
+of the vicissitudes of fortune, but the prevailing type is not a lucky
+genius, one for whom Opporchunity is working as a night watchman. The
+type is a firm-jawed plugger. His nose is keen for "good stories," his
+eye equally alert to dodge the ax or to nab Opporchunity's fleeting
+coat-tails.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOW TO PREPARE A MANUSCRIPT
+
+
+If you have a real "story" up your sleeve and know how to word it in
+passable English, the next thing to learn is the way to prepare a
+manuscript in professional form for marketing. In the non-fiction
+writer's workshop only two machines are essential to efficiency and
+economy. The first of these, and absolutely indispensable, is a
+typewriter. The sooner you learn to type your manuscripts, the better
+for your future and your pocketbook.
+
+It is folly to submit contributions in handwriting to a busy editor who
+has to read through a bushel of manuscripts a day. The more legible the
+manuscript, the better are your chances to win a fair reading. I will go
+further, and declare that a manuscript which has all the earmarks of
+being by a professional is not only more carefully read, but also is
+likely to be treated with more consideration when a decision is to be
+made upon its value to the publisher in dollars and cents. Put yourself
+in the editor's place and you will quickly enough grasp the psychology
+of this.
+
+The editor knows that no professional submits manuscripts in
+handwriting, that no professional writes upon both sides of the sheet,
+and that no professional omits to enclose an addressed stamped envelope
+in which to return the manuscript to its author if it proves unavailable
+for the magazine's use. Why brand yourself as a novice even before the
+manuscript reader has seen your first sentence? Remember you are
+competing for editorial attention against a whole bushel of other
+manuscripts. The girl who opens the magazine's mail may be tempted to
+cast your contribution into the rejection basket on general principles,
+if you are foolish enough to get away to such a poor start. What an
+ignominious end to your literary adventure is this--and all because you
+were careless, or didn't know any better!
+
+The writer who really means business will not neglect in any detail the
+psychology of making his manuscript invite a thorough reading. It may be
+bad form to accept a dinner invitation in typewriting, but it is
+infinitely worse form to fail to typewrite an invitation to editorial
+eyes to buy your manuscript. Good form also dictates that the first page
+of your contribution should bear in the upper left hand corner of the
+sheet your name, upon the first line; the street address, on the second;
+the town and state, on the third. In the upper right hand corner should
+be set down an estimate of the number of words contained in the
+manuscript.
+
+Leave a blank down to the middle of the page. There, in capitals, write
+the title of the article; then drop down a few lines and type your pen
+name (if you use one) or whatever version of your signature that you
+wish to have appear above the article when it comes out in print. Drop
+down a few more lines before you begin with the text, and indent about
+an inch for the beginning of each paragraph. Here is a model for your
+guidance:
+
+
+      Frank H. Jones,                                 about 3000
+      2416 Front St.,                                   words
+      Oswego, Ohio
+
+                    CAMPING ON INDIAN CREEK
+
+                              By
+
+                        Frank Henry Jones
+
+     It took us two minutes by the clock to pack everything we
+     needed--and more, for the camper-out always takes twice as
+     much junk as he can use. All that was left to do after that
+     etc.,
+
+
+There are sound reasons for all this. The first is that, likely enough,
+your title may not altogether suit the editor, and he will require some
+of the white space in the upper part of the page for a revised version.
+Also, he will need some space upon which to pencil his directions to the
+printers about how to set the type.
+
+Double space your lines. If you leave no room between lines, you make it
+extremely difficult for the editor to write in any corrections in the
+text. Moreover, a solid mass of single-spaced typewriting is much harder
+to read than material that is double-spaced.
+
+Use good white paper, of ordinary letter size, eight by eleven inches,
+and leave a margin of about an inch on either side of the text and at
+both top and bottom. Number each page. Don't write your "copy" with a
+ribbon which is too worn to be bright; and, while you are about it,
+clean up those letters on the typebars that have a tendency to fill up
+with ink and dust. You may have noticed, for example, that "a," "e,"
+"o," "s," "m," and "w" are not always clear-cut upon the page.
+
+You are doing all this to make the reading of your contribution as easy
+a task as possible from the purely physical side. You are simply using a
+little common sense in the process of addressing yourself to the
+favorable attention of a force of extremely busy persons who are paid
+to "wade through" a formidable stack of mail.
+
+If you have an overpowering distaste for doing your own typewriting, you
+may hire a typist to turn your handwritten "copy" into something easier
+to read. This procedure, however, may prove to be rather too costly for
+a beginner's purse. It is the part of wisdom to learn to operate a
+machine yourself. At first the task may seem rather a tough one, but
+even after so short a time as a month of practice you are likely to be
+surprised at the progress you will make. Before long you will be able to
+write much faster upon a machine than with a pencil or a pen.
+
+The danger then lies in a temptation to haste and carelessness. This is
+one reason why many fastidious magazine writers always do the first
+draft of an article in longhand and turn to the typewriter only when
+they are ready to set down the final version. Temperament and habit
+should decide the matter. Nearly any one can learn to compose newspaper
+"copy" at the keyboard, but not so many of us dare attempt to do
+magazine articles at the same high rate of speed. Particularly does this
+hold true of the first page of a magazine manuscript. The opening
+paragraph of such a manuscript is likely to make a much more exacting
+demand upon the writer's skill than the "lead" of a newspaper "story."
+All that the newspaper usually demands is that the reporter cram the
+gist of his facts into the first few sentences. The magazine insists
+that the first paragraph of a manuscript not only catch attention but
+also sound the keynote of many words to follow, for the "punch" of the
+magazine story is more often near the end of the article than the
+beginning.
+
+Though the technique of newspaper and magazine writing may differ on
+this matter of the "lead," do not make the mistake of supposing that the
+magazine introduction need not be just as chock full of interest as the
+opening of a newspaper "story." You are no longer under any compulsion,
+when you write for the magazines, to cram the meat of the story into the
+first sentence, but one thing you must do--you must rouse the reader to
+sit up and listen. You can well afford to spend any amount of effort
+upon that opening paragraph. Write your lead a dozen times, a hundred
+times, if necessary, until you make it rivet the attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HOW TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS
+
+
+After he has bought or rented a typewriter, the would-be free lance in
+the non-fiction field has his workshop only half equipped. One more
+machine is an urgent necessity. Get a camera.
+
+Few of our modern American newspapers and magazines are published
+without pictures; so anybody ought to be able to perceive how absurd it
+is to submit an unillustrated manuscript to an illustrated periodical.
+Good photographs have won a market for many a manuscript that scarcely
+would have been given a reading if it had arrived without interesting
+pictures; and many a well-written article has been reluctantly returned
+by the editor because no photographs were available to illustrate it.
+
+There is only one way to dodge this issue. Just as you can hire a typist
+to put your manuscript into legible form, you can pay a professional
+photographer to accompany you wherever you go and take the illustrations
+for your text. But the same vital objection holds here as in the case
+of the professional typist--the costs will cut heavily into your
+profits. With a little practice you can learn to do the work yourself.
+After that, you can operate at a small fraction of the expense of hiring
+a professional.
+
+Your work soon enough will be of as high a quality as anything that the
+average commercial photographer can produce, and, better yet, it will
+not have any flat and stale commercial flavor about it. Nothing is more
+static and banal than the composition that the ordinary professional
+will produce if you fail to prevent him from having his own way. Ten to
+one, all the lower half of the picture will be empty foreground, and not
+a living creature will appear in the entire field of vision.
+
+It cost the present writer upward of $150 to discover this fact. Then he
+bought a thirty dollar postcard kodak and a five dollar tripod and told
+the whole tribe of professionals to go to blazes. The only time since
+then that he has ever had to hire commercial aid was when he had to have
+heavy flashlights made of large rooms.
+
+So save yourself money now, instead of eventually. Even if thirty
+dollars takes your last nickel, don't hesitate. For a beginning, if you
+are inexperienced in photography, rent a cheap machine with which to
+practice--a simple "snapshot box" with no adjustments on it will do
+while you are picking up the first inklings of how to compose a picture
+and of how much light is required for different classes of subjects.
+
+After you have practiced with this for a while, go out and buy a folding
+kodak. If you have the journalistic eye for what is picturesque and
+newsy the camera will quickly return 100 per cent. upon the investment.
+
+The one great difficulty for the beginner in photography is that he does
+not know how to "time" the exposure of a picture. The books on
+photography are all too technical. They discuss chemicals and printing
+papers and all the finer shadings of processes carried on in
+laboratories under a ruby light. But what the novice longs to know is
+simply how to _take_ pictures--what exposure to allow for a portrait,
+what for a street scene, what for a panorama. He usually fails to give
+the portrait enough light, and he gives the panorama too much. He is
+willing to allow a professional finisher to do his developing and
+printing. What the beginner wants to read is a chapter on exposure. As
+an operator, he is seeking for a _rule of how_ and some examples of its
+application.
+
+If you lack a simple working theory, here is one now, in primer terms:
+
+The closer the object which you wish to photograph is to your lens, the
+_more_ light it requires; the farther away it is, the _less_ light it
+requires.
+
+This may sound somewhat unreasonable, but that is how a camera works. A
+portrait head, or anything else that must be brought to within a few
+feet of the lens, requires the greatest width of shutter aperture (or,
+what comes to the same thing, the longest exposure); and a far-away
+mountain peak or a cloud requires the smallest aperture (or the shortest
+exposure).
+
+To understand thoroughly what this means, take off the back of your
+kodak and have a look at how the wheels go round. Set the pointer of the
+time dial on the face of your camera at "T" (it means "time exposure")
+and then press the bulb (or push the lever) which opens the shutter.
+Looking through the back of your camera, make the light come through the
+largest width of the lens. You can do this by pushing the other pointer
+on the face of your kodak to the extreme left of its scale--the lowest
+number indicated. On a kodak with a "U. S." scale this number is "4."
+
+You will see now that the light is coming through a hole nearly an inch
+in diameter. If it were a bright day you could take portrait heads
+outdoors through this sized aperture with an exposure of one
+twenty-fifth of a second.
+
+Using this same amount of time, the size of the shutter aperture should
+be reduced to a mere pin hole of light to make a proper exposure for
+far-away mountain tops, clouds, or boats in the open sea.
+
+Suppose we make our problem as simple as possible by leaving the timer
+at one twenty-fifth of a second for all classes of subjects. We will
+vary only the size of the hole through which the light is to enter.
+
+For a close-up, a portrait head, we operate with the light coming
+through the full width of the lens.
+
+Now push to the right one notch the pointer which reduces the size of
+the hole. This makes the light come through a smaller diameter, which on
+a "U. S." scale will be marked "8." Only half as much light is coming
+through now as before. This is the stop at which to take full length
+figures and many other views in which the foreground is unusually
+prominent. Buildings which are not light in color should also be taken
+with this stop. In general, it is for heavy foregrounds.
+
+Push the pointer on to "16." If your scale is "U. S." you will notice
+that this is midway between the largest and the smallest stops. It is
+the happy medium stop at which, on bright days, you can properly expose
+for the great majority of your subjects, those hundreds of scenes not
+close enough to the lens to be classified as "heavy foregrounds" nor yet
+far enough away to be panoramas. Buildings which are light in color and
+sunny street scenes fall into this division of exposures. When in doubt,
+take it at one twenty-fifth of a second with stop "16." You can't miss
+it far, one way or another.
+
+Push the pointer on to "32" and the object to be photographed ought to
+be at some distance away. This is the stop for the open road and the
+sunlit fields--anything between an "average view" and a "panorama."
+
+At "64" the scale is set for the most distant of land views, beach
+scenes and boats in the middle distance off-shore. You will learn by
+costly overexposures that water views require much less light than
+landscapes. Photographers have an axiom that "water is as bright as the
+sky itself." So at "64," which is proper exposure for the most distant
+of land panoramas, you begin to take waterscapes.
+
+That tiniest pin hole of a stop, at the extreme right of the scale, is
+never to be used except for such subjects as the open sea and snowcapped
+mountain tops.
+
+There you have the theory. Apply it with common sense and you will meet
+with few failures. You scarcely need to be cautioned that if an object
+is dark in color it will require proportionately more exposure than the
+same object if it is white. Through various weathers and seasons,
+experience will keep teaching you how to adapt the rule to changing
+conditions of light. Certain handbooks and exposure meters will be of
+service while you are learning the classifications of subjects.
+
+You have been told how the rule works. Press the "T" bulb again to click
+your shutter shut and prepare to set out on a picture taking excursion.
+Set the time scale at one twenty-fifth of a second, and leave it there.
+Load up a film. Replace the back of the camera. Take along a tripod.
+Don't forget that tripod! With that you insure yourself against getting
+your composition askew, or losing a good picture on account of a shaky
+hand.
+
+Suppose the expedition is gunning somewhere in the backwoods. Down the
+stony winding road saunters one of the natives in a two-piece suit.
+Overalls and a hickory shirt constitute his entire outfit. He grows a
+beard to save himself the labor of shaving. His leathery feet scarcely
+feel the sharp stones of the highway. Here is a picture worth
+preserving, for the "cracker" type is becoming a rarity, almost extinct.
+Set your pointer at "8" and take his full length. If you wish a close-up
+of his head, set the pointer at "4."
+
+A little farther and the road plunges into a shady valley. Under the
+trees ahead is a log cabin, dappled with the sunlight and the shade of
+dancing leaves. Use your judgment about whether such a scene requires
+"8" or "4." If in doubt, use "4," for the danger here is that you may
+under-expose.
+
+In a clearing where the shade of the trees has little effect, stands an
+old water power mill. It is simply an "average view," and you can safely
+snap it with a "16" stop.
+
+The friendly razorback hogs under the mail hack make a picture with a
+heavy foreground. They fall into the "8" classification--half in shade,
+half in sunlight.
+
+The road leads us at last to a river. An old-fashioned ferry boat is
+making a crossing in midstream. From the hilltop where we first survey
+it the scene is a landscape, distant view, and can be taken with a "32."
+But when you get down to the water's edge and shoot across the shining
+river, beware of overexposure. Stop down another notch.
+
+Do you see now how the theory works? Give it a fair trial and you will
+agree that taking pictures--the mere _taking_, with no bothering your
+head about developing, printing, toning and the like--is a matter no
+more baffling than the simple art of learning to punch the letters on
+the keyboard of a typewriter. Keep at it, never neglecting an
+opportunity to practice. Keep experimenting, until you can fare forth in
+any sort of weather and know that you will be able to bring back
+something printable upon your film or plate. If the day is not bright,
+shove your timer over to one-tenth of a second, or to one-fifth.
+
+Certain experts in photography will bitterly deride this advice to keep
+the time set at one twenty-fifth of a second and to vary nothing but the
+size of the lens aperture. They will point out--and be quite right about
+it--that the smaller the aperture the sharper the image, and that a more
+professional method of procedure is to vary the timing so as to take all
+pictures with small stops.
+
+To which I can only answer that this is all well enough for the trained
+photographer and that in these days of my semi-professionalism I
+practice that same sort of thing myself. But in the beginning I was duly
+grateful to the man who gave me the golden maxim of "the closer the
+object, the larger the stop; the more distant the object, the smaller
+the stop"--a piece of advice which enabled a novice, with only one
+simple adjustment to worry about, to take a passably sharp, properly
+exposed picture. So I pass the word along to you for whatever it may be
+worth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+FINDING A MARKET
+
+
+A nose for news, some perseverance, a typewriter and a camera have thus
+far been listed as the equipment most essential to success for a writer
+of non-fiction who sets out to trade in the periodical market as a free
+lance. Rather brief mention has been made of the matter of literary
+style. This is not because the writer of this book lacks reverence for
+literary craftsmanship. It is simply because, with the facts staring him
+in the face, he must set down his conviction that a polished style is
+not a matter of tremendous importance to the average editor of the
+average American periodical.
+
+Journalists so clumsy that, in the graphic phrase of a short grass poet,
+"they seem to write with their feet," sell manuscripts with clock-like
+regularity to first-class markets. The magazines, like the newspapers,
+employ "re-write men" to take crude manuscripts to pieces, rebuild them
+and give them a presentable polish. The matter of prime importance to
+most of our American editors is an article's content in the way of
+vital facts and "human interest." Upon the matter of style the typical
+editor appears to take Matthew Arnold's words quite literally:
+
+"People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have
+something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only
+secret of style."
+
+No embittered collector of rejection slips will believe me when I
+declare that the demand for worth-while articles always exceeds the
+supply in American magazine markets. None the less it is true, as every
+editor knows to his constant sorrow. The appetite of our hundreds of
+periodicals for real "stories" never has been satisfied. The menu has to
+be filled out with a regrettable proportion of bran and _ersatz_.
+
+The fact that a manuscript lacks all charm of style will not blast its
+chances of acceptance if the "story" is all there and is typed into a
+presentable appearance and illustrated with interesting photographs. A
+good style will enhance the manuscript's value, but want of verbal skill
+rarely will prove a fatal blemish. Not so long as there are "re-write
+men" around the shop!
+
+It is not a lack of artistry that administers the most numerous defeats
+to the novice free lance. It is a lack of market judgment. When he has
+completed his manuscript he sits down and hopefully mails it out to the
+first market that strikes his fancy. He shoots into the dark, trusting
+to luck.
+
+A huge army of disappointed scribblers have followed that haphazard plan
+of battle. They would know better than to try to market crates of eggs
+to a shoe store, but they see nothing equally absurd in shipping a
+popular science article to the _Atlantic Monthly_ or an "uplift" essay
+to the _Smart Set_. They paper their walls with rejection slips, fill up
+a trunk with returned manuscripts and pose before their sympathetic
+friends as martyrs.
+
+Many of these defeated writers have nose-sense for what is of national
+interest. They write well, and they take the necessary pains to make
+their manuscripts presentable in appearance. If they only knew enough to
+offer their contributions to suitable markets, they soon would be
+scoring successes. What they can't get into their heads is that the
+names in an index of periodicals represent needs as widely varied as the
+names in a city directory.
+
+Take, for example, five of our leading weeklies: _The Saturday Evening
+Post_, _Collier's_, _Leslie's_, _The Outlook_ and _The Independent_.
+They all use articles of more or less timeliness, but beyond this one
+similarity they are no more alike in character than an American, an
+Irishman, an Englishman, a Welshman and a Scot. Your burning hot news
+"story" which _The Saturday Evening Post_ turned down may have been
+rejected because the huge circulation of the _Post_ necessitates that
+its "copy" go to press six or seven weeks before it appears upon the
+newsstands. You should have tried _The Independent_, which makes a
+specialty of getting hot stuff into circulation before it has time to
+cool. Your interview with a big man of Wall Street which was returned by
+_The Outlook_ might find a warm welcome at _Leslie's_. A character
+sketch of the Democratic candidate for President might not please
+_Leslie's_ in the least, but would fetch a good price from _Collier's_.
+Your article on the Prairie Poets might be rejected by three other
+weeklies, but prove quite acceptable to _The Outlook_.
+
+When you have completed a manuscript, forget the inspiration that went
+into its writing and give cold and sober second thought to this matter
+of marketing. _The Outlook_ might have bought the article that
+_Collier's_ rejected. _Collier's_ might have bought the one that _The
+Outlook_ rejected. Every experienced writer will tell you that this sort
+of thing happens every day.
+
+Don't snort in disdain because the editor of _The Ladies' Home Journal_
+rejects a contribution on economics. Maybe the lady's husband would like
+it. So try it on _The World's Work_, or _Leslie's_ or _System_. It might
+win you a place of honor, with your name blazoned on the cover.
+
+Too many discouraged novices believe that the bromide of the rejection
+slip--"rejection implies no lack of merit"--is simply a piece of
+sarcasm. It is nothing of the sort. In tens of thousands of instances it
+is a solemn fact. Don't sulk and berate the editors who return your
+manuscript, but carefully read the contribution again, trying to forget
+for the moment that it is one of your own precious "brain children."
+Cold-bloodedly size it up as something to sell. Then you may perceive
+that you have been trying to market a crate of eggs at a shoe store.
+Eggs are none the less precious on that account. Try again--applying
+this time to a grocer. If he doesn't buy, it will be because he already
+has all the eggs on hand that he needs. In that event, look up the
+addresses of some more grocers.
+
+The same common sense principles apply in selling manuscripts to the
+magazines and newspapers as in marketing any other kind of produce. The
+top prices go to the fellow who delivers his goods fresh and in good
+order to buyers who stand in need of his particular sort of staple.
+Composing a manuscript may be art, but selling it is business.
+
+Naturally, it requires practice to become expert in picking topics of
+wide enough appeal to interest the public which reads magazines of
+national circulation. Every beginner, except an inspired genius, is
+likely to be oppressed with a sense of hopelessness when he is making
+his first desperate attempts to "break in." The writer can testify
+feelingly on this point from his own experience. Kansas City was then my
+base of operations, and it seemed as if I never possibly could find
+anything in that far inland locality worthy of nation-wide attention.
+Everything I wrote bounced back with a printed rejection slip.
+
+At last, however, I discovered a "story" that appeared to be of
+undeniable national appeal. Missouri, for the first time in thirty-six
+years, had elected a Republican governor. I decided that the surest
+market for this would be a magazine dealing with personality sketches.
+If a magazine of that type would not buy the "story," I was willing to
+own myself whipped.
+
+On the afternoon when we were all sure that Herbert Hadley had won, I
+begged a big lithographed portrait of the governor-elect from a cigar
+store man who had displayed it prominently in his front window. There
+was no time, then, to search for a photograph. A thrill of conviction
+pervaded me that at last my fingers were on a "story" that no magazine
+editor, however much he might hate to recognize the worth of new
+authors, could afford to reject.
+
+The newspaper office files of clippings gave me all the information
+necessary for a brief biography; the lithograph should serve for an
+illustration. By midnight that Irresistible Wedge for entering the
+magazines was in the mails.... Sure enough, the editors of _Human Life_
+bought it. And, by some miracle of speed in magazine making never
+explained to this day, they printed it in their next month's issue.
+
+The moral of this was obvious--that in the proper market a real "story,"
+even though it be somewhat hastily written, will receive a sincere
+welcome. The week after this Irresistible Wedge appeared in print I
+threw up my job as a reporter and dived off of the springboard into free
+lancing. A small bank account gave me assurance that there was no
+immediate peril of starving, and I wisely kept a connection with the
+local newspaper. In case disaster overtook me, I knew where I could find
+a job again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A BEGINNER'S FIRST ADVENTURES
+
+
+What happened to me in making a beginning as a free lance producer of
+non-fiction might happen to any one else of an equal amount of
+inexperience. My home town had no professional magazine writer to whom I
+could turn for advice; and though I devoured scores of books about
+writing, they were chiefly concerned either with the newspaper business
+or with the technique of fiction, and they all failed to get down to
+brass tacks about my own pressing problem, which was how to write and
+sell magazine articles. I was not seeking any more ABC advice about
+newspaper "stories," nor did I feel the least urge toward producing
+fiction. I thirsted to find out how to prepare and market a manuscript
+to _The Saturday Evening Post_ or _Collier's_, but the books in the
+public library were all about the short story and the novel, Sunday
+"features," the evolution of the printing press or the adventures of a
+sob sister on an afternoon daily.
+
+So I had to go out and get my education as a magazine writer in a school
+of tough experiences. A few of these experiences are here recorded, in
+the hope that some of the lessons that were enforced upon me may be of
+help to other beginners.
+
+The immediate results of my plunge into free lancing were:
+
+JANUARY--not one cent.
+
+FEBRUARY--$50.46. Seven dollars of this was for the magazine article. No
+other magazine acceptances had followed the Wedge. I had not yet caught
+the national viewpoint, nor had I picked up much practical information
+about the magazine markets.
+
+By March it was becoming painfully evident that a fledgling free lance
+should, if he is wise, depend for a while upon a local newspaper for the
+larger part of his income. In a school of hard knocks I learned to sell
+"stories" of purely local interest to the Kansas City market, topics of
+state-wide interest to the St. Louis Sunday editors, and contributions
+whose appeal was as wide as the Gulf of Mexico to newspapers in Chicago
+and New York.
+
+Also I learned that if the free lance hopes to make any of these markets
+take a lively interest in him, he will introduce his manuscripts with
+interesting photographs. I rented a little black cube of a camera for
+twenty-five cents a day. It had a universal focus and nothing to bother
+about in the way of adjustments. To operate it you peeked into the range
+finder, then threw a lever. Its lens was so slow that no pictures could
+be taken with it except in bright sunlight.
+
+I wrote about motor cars, willow farms, celebrities, freaks of nature in
+the city parks, catfish and junk heaps--anything of which I could snap
+interesting photographs and find enough text to "carry" the picture.
+
+March saw me earn $126.00 by doing assignments for the city editor in
+the mornings and "stories" at space rates in the afternoons for the
+Sunday section. At night I plugged away at manuscripts hopefully
+intended for national periodicals. But not until late in September did I
+"land" in a big magazine. Then--the thrill that comes once in a
+lifetime--I sold an article to _Collier's_. It required tremendous
+energy to keep up such a pace, but there was sweet comfort in the
+thought that, technically at least, I was now my own boss. Gradually, I
+broke away from assignment work until I was free to write what I liked
+and to go where I pleased.
+
+From finding material in the city, I adventured into some of the near-by
+towns in Missouri and Kansas, and soon was arguing a theory that in
+every small town the local correspondents of big city newspapers are
+constantly overlooking pay streaks of good "feature stories." Usually I
+would start out with twenty-five dollars and keep moving until I went
+broke. A railway journey no longer meant, as in reportorial days, a
+banquet in the dining-car and a chair on the observation platform,
+charged up on an expense account. Often enough I slept in a day coach,
+my head pillowed on a kodak wrapped in a sweater vest. The elevation was
+just right for a pillow; and at the same time the traveler was insured
+against theft of his most precious possession, a brand new folding
+camera of post card size.
+
+For the little snapshot box soon showed its weakness in an emergency and
+had to be replaced with a better machine which had an adjustable
+diaphragm, a timing apparatus, a focusing scale and a front like an
+accordion. One afternoon it had happened that while two hundred miles
+from a city and twenty from the nearest railroad, the snapshot box had
+been useless baggage for two hours, while an anxious free lance sat
+perched on the crest of an Ozark mountain studying an overcast sky and
+praying for some sunlight. At last the sun blazed out for half a minute
+and the lever clicked in exultation.
+
+This experience enforced a lesson: "Learn to take any sort of picture,
+indoors or out, on land or water, in any sort of weather." After I got
+the new machine, with a tripod to insure stability and consequent
+sharpness of outline, a piece of lemon-colored glass for cloud
+photography and another extra lens for portrait work, I began snapping
+at anything that held out even the faintest promise of allowing me to
+clear expenses in the course of acquiring needed experience. I
+photographed the neighbors' children, houses offered for sale, downtown
+street scenes and any number of x-marks-the-spot-of-the-accident.
+
+When a cyclone cut a swath through one of our suburbs, I rushed
+half-a-dozen photographs to _Leslie's_, feeling again some of the same
+thrilling sort of confidence that had accompanied the first Irresistible
+Wedge. Back came three dollars for a single print. Rather a proud day,
+that! Never before had one of my prints sold for more than fifty cents.
+
+There were evenings after that when I meditated giving the writing game
+good-by in favor of photography; and many a time since then the old
+temptation has recurred. The wonder of catching lovely scenery in a box
+and of watching film and print reproduce it in black and white keeps
+ever fresh and fascinating to me, gratifying an instinct for composition
+in one whose fingers are too clumsy to attempt to draw or paint. In
+those early days of my adventures in photography an editor came very
+near the literal truth when he sarcastically observed: "Young man, life
+to you seems to be just one long undeveloped film."
+
+Parallel with improvement in skill as a photographer, I developed a
+working plan to insure more profitable excursions afield. My interested
+friends among editors and reporters gladly gave me hints about possible
+out-of-town sources of "stories," and I studied the news columns, even
+to the fine type of the Missouri and Kansas state notes, with all the
+avidity of an aged hobo devouring a newspaper in the public library. For
+every possibility I made out a card index memorandum, as--
+
+     KANAPOLIS, KAS.
+
+     Geographical center of the country. Once proposed as the
+     capital of the nation--and of the state of Kansas. Now a
+     whistling station and a rock salt plant.
+
+For each memorandum I stuck a pin in the state maps pasted on the wall
+of my workshop. When there were several pins in any neighborhood, I
+would sling my kodak over my shoulder, the carrying case strapped to the
+tripod-top, like a tramp with a bundle at the end of a stick. And then
+away, with an extra pair of socks and a harmonica for baggage. Besides
+the material that I felt certain of finding through advance information,
+luck always could be trusted to turn up some additional "stories." The
+quickest way to find out what there was to write about in a town was
+simply to walk into the local newspaper office, introduce myself and ask
+for some tips about possible "features." I cannot recall that any one
+ever refused me, or ever failed to think of something worth while.
+
+I do not know yet whether what I discovered then is a business or not,
+but I made a living out of it. Whereas reporting on a salary had begun
+to be something of a grind, the less profitable roamings of a free lance
+furnished a life that had color and everlasting freshness.
+
+Sometimes, trusting in the little gods of the improvident, I was lured
+into the backwoods of the Ozarks by such a name as "Mountain Home,"
+which caught my fancy on the map; and with no definite "stories" in mind
+I would go sauntering from Nowhere-in-Particular in Northern Arkansas to
+Someplace Else in Southern Missouri, snapping pictures by the roadside
+and scribbling a few necessary notes. One of those excursions, which
+cost $24.35, has brought a return, to date, of more than $250, which of
+course does not include the worth of a five days' lark with a young
+Irishman who went on the trip as a novel form of summer vacation.
+
+He found all the novelty he could have hoped for. After some truly lyric
+passages of life in Arkansas, when we felt positively homesick about
+leaving one town to go on to another, we reached a railroad-less county
+in Missouri infested with fleas; and to secure a discount on the stage
+fare on the thirty-five-mile drive from Gainsville to West Plains (we
+_had_ to have a discount to save enough to buy something to eat that
+night) we played the harmonica for our driver's amusement until we
+gasped like fish. His soul was touched either by the melody or by pity,
+and he left us enough small change to provide a supper of cheese and
+crackers.
+
+Some happenings that must sound much more worth while in the ears of the
+mundane have followed, but those first days of free lancing seem to me
+to be among the choicest in a journalistic adventurer's experience.
+Encounters with a variety of celebrities since then have proved no whit
+more thrilling than the discovery that our host, Jerry South of Mountain
+Home, was lieutenant-governor of Arkansas; and though I have roamed in
+five nations, no food that I ever have tasted so nearly approaches that
+of the gods as the strawberry shortcake we ate in Bergman.
+
+Even in the crass matter of profits, I found the small town richer in
+easily harvestable "stories" than the biggest city in the world. A few
+years later I spent a week in London, but I picked up less there to
+write about than I found in Sabetha, Kansas, in a single afternoon.
+Sabetha furnished:
+
+Half of the material for a motor car article. (When automobiles were
+still a novelty to the rural population.) This sold to _Leslie's_.
+
+An article on gasoline-propelled railway coaches, for _The Illustrated
+World_.
+
+A short contribution on scientific municipal management of public
+utilities in a small town, for _Collier's_.
+
+A character sketch about a local philanthropic money lender, for
+_Leslie's_ and the Kansas City _Star_.
+
+An account of the Kansas Amish, a sect something like the Tolstoys, for
+Kansas City, St. Louis and New York newspapers.
+
+Short Sunday specials about a $40,000 hospital and a thoroughly modern
+Kansas farm house for Kansas City and St. Louis Sunday sections.
+
+The profits of these excursions were not always immediate, and until
+after I had worked many weeks at the trade there were periods of
+serious financial embarrassment. To cite profitable trips too early is
+to get ahead of my story, but the time is none the less propitious to
+remark that a country town or a small city certainly is as good a place
+for the free lance to operate (once he knows a "story" when he sees it)
+as is New York or Chicago, Boston, New Orleans or San Francisco. I often
+wonder if I would not have been better off financially if I had kept on
+working from a Kansas City headquarters instead of emigrating to the
+East.
+
+I might have gone on this way for a long time, in contentment, for my
+profits were steadily mounting and my markets extending. But one day my
+wanderings extended as far as Chicago, and there I ran across an old
+friend of student days. He had been the cartoonist of the college
+magazine when I was its editor. He wore, drooping from one corner of his
+face, a rah-rah bulldog pipe; an enormous portfolio full of enormities
+of drawing was under one arm, and, dangling at the end of the other, was
+one of the tiniest satchels that ever concealed a nightgown.
+
+In answer to questions about what he was doing with himself, he
+confessed that he was not making out any better than most other newly
+graduated students of art. I argued that if Chicago did not treat him
+considerately, he ought to head for New York, where real genius, more
+than likely, would be more quickly appreciated. Also, if this was to his
+liking, I would invite myself to go along with him.
+
+We went. Now sing, O Muse, the slaughter!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN NEW YORK'S "FLEET STREET"
+
+
+The inexperienced free lance who attempts to invade New York, as we did,
+with no magazine reputation and no friends at court among the experts of
+the periodical market, may be assured that he will receive a surprising
+amount of courtesy. But this courtesy is likely to be administered to
+help soften the blows of a series of disappointments. Anybody but a
+genius or one of fortune's darlings may expect that New York, which has
+a deep and natural distrust of strangers, will require that the newcomer
+earn his bread in blood-sweat until he has established a reputation for
+producing the goods. Dear old simple-hearted Father Knickerbocker has
+been gold-bricked so often that a breezy, friendly manner puts him
+immediately on his guard.
+
+Most of the editors with whom you will have to deal are home folks, like
+yourself, from Oskaloosa and Richmond and Santa Barbara and Quincy. Few
+are native-born New Yorkers, and scarcely any of them go around with
+their noses in the air in an "upstage Eastern manner." Most of them are
+graduates of the newspaper school, and remnants of newspaper cynicism
+occasionally appear in their outspoken philosophy. But be not deceived
+by this, for even in the newspaper office the half-baked cub who is
+getting his first glimpses of woman's frailties and man's weak will is
+the only cynic who means all he says. All reporters who are worth their
+salt mellow with the years; and editors who amount to much usually are
+ex-reporters trained to their jobs by long experience. The biggest
+editors and the ones with the biggest hearts have the biggest jobs. Most
+of the snubs you will receive will come from little men in little jobs,
+trying to impress you with a "front." The biggest editors of the lot are
+plain home folks whom you would not hesitate to invite to a dinner in a
+farmhouse kitchen.
+
+What you ought to know when you invade New York without much capital and
+no reputation to speak of is that you are making a great mistake to move
+there so early, and that most of the editors to whom you address
+yourself know you are making a mistake but are too soft-hearted to tell
+you so.
+
+Like most other over-optimistic free lances, we invaded New York with an
+expeditionary force which was in a woeful state of unpreparedness.
+
+In a street of brownstone fronts in mid-town Manhattan, a hurdy-gurdy
+strummed a welcome to us in the golden November sunlight, and a canary
+in a gilt cage twittered ecstatically from an open window. This moment
+is worthy of mention because it was the happiest that was granted to us
+for a number of months thereafter. We rented a small furnished room, top
+floor rear, and went out for a stroll on Broadway, looking the city over
+with the appraising eyes of conquerors. We were joyously confident.
+
+One reason why we thought we would do well here was that the latter
+months of the period preceding our supposedly triumphal entry had seen
+me arrive at the point of earning almost as much money at free lancing
+as I could have made as a reporter. Meantime, I had thrilled to see my
+name affixed to contributions in _Collier's_, _Leslie's_, _Outlook_ and
+_Outing_, not to mention a few lesser magazines. I thought I knew a
+"story" when I saw one. I knew how to take photographs and prepare a
+manuscript for marketing, and New York newspapers and magazines had been
+treating me handsomely. What we did not realize was that while the New
+York markets were hospitable enough to western material, they required
+no further assistance in reporting the activities of Manhattan Island.
+We had moved away from our gold mine.
+
+Our home and workshop now was a cubbyhole so small that every piece of
+furniture in the place was in close proximity to something else. My
+battered desk was jam against my roommate's drawing table, and his chair
+backed against a bed. Then, except for a narrow aisle to the door, there
+was a chair which touched another bed, which touched a trunk; the trunk
+touched ends with a washstand, which was jam against a false mantel
+pasted onto the wall, and the mantel was in juxtaposition with a bureau
+which poked me in the back. The window looked south, and adjacent
+buildings allowed it to have sunlight for almost half an hour a day.
+
+Yet it would have been a cheerful enough place if our mail had not been
+so depressing. Everything we sent out came right back with a bounce,
+sometimes on the same day that we posted it. With indefatigable zeal we
+wrote feature "stories" about big topics in America's biggest city and
+furnished illustrations for the text. But the manuscripts did not sell.
+For two bitter months we kept at it before we discovered what was wrong.
+You may wonder how we could have been so blind. But there was no one to
+tell us what to do. We had to find out by experience.
+
+In November our income was $60.90, all of it echoes from the past for
+material written in the west.
+
+"How that crowd in the old office would laugh at us when we trailed back
+home, defeated!"
+
+That was the thought which was at once a nightmare and a goad to further
+desperate effort. Day after day the Art Department and the kodak and I
+explored New York's highways and centers of interest. The place was ripe
+with barrels and barrels of good "feature stories," and I knew it; and
+the markets were not unfriendly, for by mail I had sold to them before.
+But now we could not "land."
+
+On Christmas Day there was a dismal storm. Our purses were almost flat,
+and my box from home failed to arrive. To get up an appetite for dinner
+that night we went for a walk in a joy killing blizzard. I wanted to die
+and planned to do so. The only reason I did not jump off of a pier was
+the providential intervention of several stiff cocktails. (I am
+theoretically a prohibitionist, but grateful to the enemy for having
+saved my life.) The black cloud that shut out all sunlight was our
+measly total for December--$18.07.
+
+One glimmer of hope remained in a growing suspicion that perhaps some of
+the "stories" we had submitted had seen print shortly before we
+arrived. Possibly some other free lances--I would now estimate the
+number as somewhere between nine hundred and a thousand--had gone over
+the island of Manhattan with a fine tooth comb? I began haunting the
+side streets to seek out the most hidden possibilities, and ended in
+triumph one afternoon in a little uptown bird store.
+
+For two hours the young woman who was the proprietor of the store
+submitted to a searching interview, and I emerged with enough material
+for a full page spread. Then, taking no chances of being turned down
+because the contribution was too long, I condensed the "story" into a
+column. The manuscript went to the Sunday Editor of the New York _Sun_,
+with a letter pleading that "just this once" he grant me the special
+favor of a note to explain why he would not be able to use what I had to
+offer.
+
+"Well enough written," he scribbled on the rejection slip, "but Miss
+Virginia has been done too many times before."
+
+With that a great light dawned. Further investigation discovered that we
+had run into the same difficulty on numerous other occasions. We
+newcomers had no notion of how thoroughly and often the city had been
+pillaged for news. We could not tell old stuff from new. Manhattan
+Island is, indeed, the most perilous place in all America for the green
+and friendless free lance to attempt to earn a living. There is a
+wonderful abundance of "stories," but nearly all of them that the eye of
+the beginner can detect have been marketed before. Any other island but
+Manhattan! When dog days came around, I took a vacation on Bois Blanc in
+the Straits of Mackinac, and found more salable "stories" along its
+thinly populated shores than Manhattan had been able to furnish in three
+months. Everything I touched on Bois Blanc was new, and all my own.
+Anything on Manhattan is everybody's.
+
+But to return to our troubles in New York. The only hope I could see was
+to create a line of writing all our own. This determination resulted in
+a highly specialized type of "feature" for which we found a market in
+the morning New York _World_. It combined novelty with the utmost
+essence of timeliness. For example, precluding any possibility of being
+anticipated on the opening of Coney Island's summer season, we wrote
+early in February:
+
+"If reports from unveracious employees of Coney Island are to be
+trusted, the summer season of 1910 is going to bring forth thrilling
+novelties for the air and the earth and the tunnels beneath the earth."
+
+We listed then the Biplane Hat Glide (women were wearing enormous hats
+that season) and Motor Ten Pins--get in a motor car and run down
+dummies which count respectively, a child, ten points; a blind man,
+five; a newsboy, one. Then the Shontshover. We explained the Shontshover
+in detail because it was supposed to have a particularly strong appeal
+to the millions who ride in the subway:
+
+"New York's good-natured enjoyment of its inadequate subway service is
+responsible for the third novelty of the season. In honor of a gentleman
+who once took a ride in one of his own subway cars during the rush hour,
+the device has been named the 'Shontshover' (from 'Shonts' and
+'shover'). It is the sublimation of a subway car, a cross between a
+cartridge and a sardine can. The passengers are packed into the shell
+with a hydraulic ram, then at high speed are shot through a pneumatic
+tube against a stone wall. Because of the great number of passengers the
+Shontshover can carry in a day, the admission price to the tube is to be
+only twenty-five cents."
+
+We suggested on other occasions that new churches should have floors
+with an angle of forty-five degrees, on account of the prevailing
+fashion of large hats among women; that City Hall employees were
+outwitting Mayor Gaynor's time clock by paying the night watchman to
+punch it for them at sunrise, and that beauty had become a bar to a job
+as waitress in numerous New York restaurants. (O shades of George
+Washington, forgive us that one, at least!) These squibs did nobody any
+harm, and did us on the average, the good of the price of a week's room
+rent. We never meant them to be taken seriously or ever supposed that
+any one in the world would swallow them whole. But among our readers was
+a square-headed German; and one of the most absurd of our imaginings
+turned out, as a result, to be a physical possibility.
+
+"Ever since it was announced, a few days ago, that hazing in a modified
+modernized form is to be permitted at West Point," we related, "a
+reporter for the _World_ has been busily interviewing people of all ages
+and interests to find the latest ideas on the subject.... Some small
+boys in Van Cortlandt Park yesterday afternoon, diabolo experts,
+suggested 'plebe diabolo.' It is simply diabolo for grown-ups. A rope
+takes the place of the customary string and a first year man is used for
+a spool. Any one can see at a glance what a great improvement this would
+be over the old-fashioned stunt of tossing the plebe in a blanket."
+
+A few months later I picked up a copy of the _Scientific American_ and
+chortled to read the account of a German acrobat who was playing in
+vaudeville as the "Human Diabolo."
+
+But this sort of thing was merely temporizing, and we finally had to
+abandon it for subjects more substantial. By a slow and harrowing
+process we learned our specialties and made a few helpful friends in New
+York's Fleet Street. The fittest among the many manuscripts turned out
+by our copy mill survived to teach us that the surest way into print is
+to write about things closest to personal knowledge--simple and homely
+themes close to the grass roots. We turned again to middle western
+topics and the magazines opened their doors to us. We plugged away for
+six months and cleared a profit large enough to pay off all our debts
+and leave a little margin. Then we felt that we could look the west in
+the face again, and go home, if we liked, without a consciousness of
+utter defeat. For though we had not won, neither had we lost. Our books
+struck a balance.
+
+When the Wanderlust began calling again in May, I sat many an evening in
+the window of our little room, gazing down into the backyard cat arena
+or up at the moon, and dragging away at a Missouri corncob pipe in a
+happy revery. Some of my manuscript titles of editorial paragraphs
+contributed to _Collier's_ trace what happened next:
+
+     Longings at the Window.
+     Packing Up.
+     A Mood of Moving Day.
+     From Cab to Taxi.
+     Outdoor Sleeping Quarters.
+     Shortcake.
+
+Which is to say that it was sweet to see the home folks again, to eat
+fried chicken and honest homemade strawberry shortcake and to slumber on
+a sleeping porch. Our forces had beat a strategic retreat, but the
+morale was not gone. Our determination was firm to assault New York
+again at the first favorable opportunity. Meanwhile, we had learned a
+thing or two.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOMETHING TO SELL
+
+
+Six months back home, toiling like a galley slave, furnished requisite
+funds for another fling at New York. If ever a writer _burned_ with
+zeal, this one did. Mississippi Valley summers often approach the
+torrid; this one was a record breaker; and I never shall forget how
+often that summer, after a hard day's work as a reporter, I stripped to
+the waist like a stoker and scribbled and typed until my eyes and
+fingers ached.
+
+It was wise--and foolish. Wise, because it furnished the capital with
+which every free lance ought to be well supplied before he attempts to
+operate from a New York headquarters. Foolish, because it took all joy
+of life out of my manuscripts while the session of strenuousness lasted
+and left me wavering at the end almost on the verge of a physical
+breakdown. Nights, Sundays and holidays I plugged and slogged, nor did I
+relent even when vacation time came round. I sojourned to the Michigan
+pine woods, but took along my typewriter and kept it singing half of
+every day.
+
+The new year found me in New York again, alone this time and installed
+in a comfortable two-room suite instead of an attic. A reassuring bank
+account bolstered up my courage while the work was getting under way.
+
+This time I made a go of it; and such ups and downs as have followed in
+the ten years succeeding have not been much more dramatic than the mild
+adventures that befall the everyday business man. "Danger is past and
+now troubles begin." That phrase of Gambetta's aptly describes the
+situation of the average free lance when, after the first desperate
+struggles, he has managed to gain a reasonable assurance of
+independence.
+
+Confidence comes with experience, and when you no longer have any grave
+fears about your ability to make a living at the trade, your mind turns
+from elementary problems to the less distracting task of finding out how
+to make your discovered degree of talent count for all that it may be
+worth. After trying your hand at a variety of subjects, you will find
+your forte. But take your time about it. Every adventure in composition
+teaches you something new about yourself, your art and the markets
+wherein you gain your daily bread. The way to learn to write--the only
+way--is by writing, and you never will know what you might do unless you
+dare and try.
+
+Both as a matter of expediency and of getting as much fun out of the
+work as possible, it is well in the beginning to be versatile.
+Eventually, the free lance faces two choices: He may become a specialist
+and put in the remainder of his life writing solely about railroads, or
+about finance, or about the drama. Or he may, as Robert Louis Stevenson
+did, turn his hand as the mood moves him, to fiction, verse, fables,
+biography, criticism, drama or journalism--a little of everything. For
+my own part, I have always had something akin to pity for the fellow who
+is bound hand and foot to one interest. Let the fame and the greater
+profits of specialization go hang; "an able bodied writin' man" can best
+possess his soul if he does not harness Pegasus to plow forever in one
+cabbage patch.
+
+Like the Ozark Mountain farmer who also ran a country store, a saw mill,
+a deer park, a sorghum mill, a threshing machine and preached in the
+meetin' house on Sunday mornings, I have turned my pen to any honest
+piece of writing that appealed strongly enough to my fancy--travel,
+popular science, humor, light verse, editorials, essays, interviews,
+personality sketches and captions for photographs. Genius takes a short
+cut to the highroad. But waste not your sympathy on the rest of us, for
+the byways have their own charm.
+
+While one is finding his footing in the free lance fields, he had best
+not hold himself above doing any kind of journalistic work that turns an
+honest dollar. For he becomes richer not only by the dollar, but also by
+the acquaintances he makes and the valuable experience he gains in
+turning that dollar. There was a time--and not so long ago--when, if the
+writer called at the waiting room of the Leslie-Judge Company, the girl
+at the desk would try to guess whether he had a drawing to show to the
+Art Editor, a frivolous manuscript for _Judge_ or a serious article for
+_Leslie's_. At the Doubleday, Page plant the uncertainty was about
+whether the caller sought the editor of _World's Work_, _Country Life_,
+the _Red Cross Magazine_ or _Short Stories_--he had, at various times,
+contributed to all of these publications.
+
+Smile, if you like, but there is no better way to discover what you can
+do best than to try your 'prentice hand at a great variety of topics and
+mediums. The post-graduate course of every school of journalism is a
+roped arena where you wrestle, catch as catch can, for the honors
+bestowed by experience.
+
+This experience, painfully acquired, should be backed up by an
+elementary knowledge of salesmanship. Super-sensitive souls there are
+who shudder at the mere mention of the word; and why this is so is not
+difficult to understand--their minds are poisoned with sentimental
+misapprehensions. Get rid of those misapprehensions just as swiftly as
+you can. If you have something to sell, be it hardware or a manuscript,
+common sense should dictate that you learn a little about how to sell
+it.
+
+Expert interviewers prepare themselves both for their topic and their
+man before they go into a confab--a practice which should be followed to
+some extent by every writer who sets out to interview an editor about a
+manuscript. What you have to offer should be prepared to suit the needs
+of the editor to whom the contribution is addressed. So you should study
+your magazine just as carefully as you do the subject about which you
+are writing. In your interview with the editor or in the letter which
+takes the place of an interview, state briefly whatever should be useful
+to his enlightenment. That is all. There you have the first principles
+of what is meant by "an elementary knowledge of salesmanship." If you
+don't know what you are talking about or anything about the possible
+needs of the man to whom you are talking, how can you expect to interest
+him in any commodity under heaven? Say nothing that you don't
+believe--he won't believe it, either. Never fool him. If you do, you may
+sell him once, but never again.
+
+There is no dark art to salesmanship; it is simply a matter of
+delivering the goods in a manner dictated by courtesy, sincerity, common
+sense and common honesty. Be yourself without pose, and don't forget
+that the editor--whether you believe it or not--is just as "human" as
+you are, and quick to respond to the best that there is in you. Shake
+off the delusion that you need to play the "good fellow" to him, like
+the old-fashioned type of drummer in a small town. Simply and sincerely
+and straight from the shoulder--also briefly, because he is a busy
+man--state your case, leave your literary goods for inspection and go
+your way.
+
+He will judge you and your manuscript on merits; if he does not, he will
+not long continue to be an editor. The two greatest curses of his
+existence (I speak from experience) are the poses and the incurable
+loquaciousness of some of his callers and correspondents. Don't attempt
+to spring any correspondence school salesmanship on a real editor. Learn
+what real salesmanship is, from a real salesman--who may sell bacon, or
+steel or motor cars instead of manuscripts. He lives down your street,
+perhaps. Have a talk with him. He will tell you of the profits in a
+square deal and in knowing your business, and what can be accomplished
+by a little faith.
+
+If you are temperamentally unfit to sell your own writings, get a
+competent literary agent to do the job for you. But don't too quickly
+despair, for after all, there is nothing particularly subtle about
+salesmanship. Sincerity, however crude, usually carries conviction. If
+you know a "story" when you see it, if you write it right and type it in
+professional form and give it the needed illustrations; then if you
+offer it in a common sense manner to a suitable market, you can be
+trusted to handle your own products as successfully as the best salesman
+in America--as successfully as Charles Schwab himself. For, above all,
+remember this: the editor is just as eager to buy good stuff as you are
+to sell it. Nothing is simpler than to make a sale in the literary
+market if you have what the editor wants.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHAT THE EDITOR WANTS
+
+
+Suppose you were the manager of an immense forum, a stadium like the one
+in San Diego, California, where with the aid of a glass cage and an
+electrical device increasing the intensity of the human voice, it is
+possible to reach the ears of a world's record audience of 50,000
+persons. What sort of themes would you favor when candidates for a place
+on your speaking program asked you what they ought to discuss? "The
+Style of Walter Pater?" "The Fourth Dimension?" "Florentine Art of the
+Fourteenth Century?" Not likely! You would insist upon simple and homely
+themes, of the widest possible appeal.
+
+A parallel case is that of the editor of a magazine of general
+circulation. He manages a forum so much larger than the famous stadium
+at San Diego that the imagination is put to a strain to picture it. On
+the generally accepted assumption that each sold copy of a popular
+magazine eventually reaches an average of five persons, there is one
+forum in the magazine world of America which every week assembles a
+throng of ten million or more assorted citizens, gathered from
+everywhere, coast to coast, men and women, young and old, every walk of
+life. A dozen other periodicals address at least half that number, and
+the humblest of the widely known magazines reaches a quarter of a
+million--five times as many persons as jammed their way into the San
+Diego stadium one time to hear a speech by the President of the United
+States.
+
+Put yourself into the shoes of the manager of one of these forums, and
+try to understand some of his difficulties.
+
+A dozen times a day the editor of a popular periodical is besieged by
+contributors to make some sort of answer to the question: "What kind of
+material are you seeking?"
+
+What else can he reply, in a general way, but "something of wide appeal,
+to interest our wide circle of readers"?
+
+There are times, of course, when he can speak specifically and with
+assurance, if all he happens to require at the moment to give proper
+balance to his table of contents is one or two manuscripts of a definite
+type. Then he may be able to say, off-hand: "An adventure novelette of
+twenty thousand words," or, "An article on the high cost of shoe
+leather, three thousand five hundred words." But this is a happy
+situation which is not at all typical. Ordinarily, he stands in constant
+need of half a dozen varieties of material; but to describe them all in
+detail to every caller would take more time than he could possibly
+afford to spare.
+
+He cannot stop to explain to every applicant that among what Robert
+Louis Stevenson described as "the real deficiencies of social
+intercourse" is the fact that while two's company three's a crowd; that
+with each addition to this crowd the topics of conversation must broaden
+in appeal, seeking the greatest common divisor of interests; and that a
+corollary is the unfortunate fact that the larger the crowd the fewer
+and more elemental must become the subjects that are possible for
+discussion.
+
+Every editor knows that a lack of judgment in selecting themes of broad
+enough appeal to interest a nation-wide public is one of the novice
+scribbler's most common failings. It is due chiefly to a lack of
+imagination on the part of the would-be contributor, who appears to be
+incapable of projecting himself into the editorial viewpoint. I can
+testify from my own experience that a single day's work as an editor,
+wading through a bushel of mail, taught me more about how to make a
+selection of subjects than six months of shooting in the dark as a free
+lance.
+
+Every editor knows that nine out of ten of the unsolicited manuscripts
+which he will find piled upon his desk for reading to-morrow morning
+will prove to be wholly unfitted for the uses of his magazine. The man
+outside the sanctum fails utterly to understand the editor's dilemma.
+
+This is the situation which has produced the "staff writer," and has
+brought down upon the editor the protests of his more discriminating
+readers against "standardized fiction" and against sundry uninspired
+articles produced to measure by faithful hacks. The editor defends his
+course in printing this sort of material upon the ground that a magazine
+made up wholly of unsolicited material would be a horrid melange, far
+more distressing to the consumer than the present type of popular
+periodical which is so largely made to order. All editors read
+unsolicited material hopefully and eagerly. Many an editor gives this
+duty half of his working day and part of his evenings and Sundays. All
+of the reward of a discoverer is his if he can herald a new worth-while
+writer. Moreover, the interest of economy bids him be faithful in the
+task, for the novice does not demand the high rates of the renowned
+professional.
+
+Yet even on the largest of our magazines, where the stream of
+contributions is enormous, the most diligent search is not fruitful of
+much material that is worth while. The big magazines have to order most
+of their material in advance, like so much sausage or silk; and much of
+the contents is planned for many months ahead. Scarcely any dependence
+can be placed upon the luck of what drifts into the office in the mails.
+
+Inevitably, the magazines must have large recourse to "big names," not
+because of inbred snobbishness on the part of the editors but because
+the "big name," besides carrying advertising value, is more likely than
+a little one to stand for material with a "big" theme, handled by a
+writer of experience. A surer touch in selecting and handling topics of
+nation-wide appeal is what counts most heavily in favor of the writer
+with an established reputation. Often enough it is not his vastly
+superior craftsmanship. I know of several famous magazine writers who
+never in their lives have got their material into print in the form in
+which it originally was submitted. They are what the trade calls
+"go-getters." They deliver the "story" as best they can, and a more
+skillful stylist completes the job.
+
+Success in marketing non-fiction to popular magazines appears to hinge
+largely upon the quality of the thinking the writer does before he sets
+pen to paper. A classic anecdote of New York's Fleet Street may
+illustrate the point:
+
+The publisher of a national weekly was hiring a newspaper man as editor.
+
+"Is this a writing job?" the applicant inquired.
+
+"No!" growled the publisher, "a thinkin' job!"
+
+The writer of non-fiction is in the same boat with the editor who buys
+his articles; he calls himself a writer, but primarily he is up against
+a thinking job. The actual writing of his material is secondary to good
+judgment in selecting what is known as a "compelling" theme. If he can
+produce a "real story" and get it onto paper in some sort of intelligent
+fashion, what remains to be done in the way of craftsmanship can be
+handled inside the magazine office by a "re-write man." Make sure, first
+of all, that what you have to say is something that ought to interest
+the large audience to which you address it.
+
+Nobody with a grain of common sense would attempt to discuss "The Style
+of Walter Pater" to fifty thousand restless and croupy auditors in the
+vast San Diego stadium, but the average free lance sees nothing of equal
+absurdity about attempting to cram an essay on Pater down the throats of
+a miscellaneous crowd in a stadium which is from a hundred to two
+hundred times as large--the forum into which throng the thousands who
+read one of our large popular magazines.
+
+Much as we may regret to acknowledge it, there is no way to get around
+the fact that the larger and more general the circulation of a
+periodical, the more universal must be the appeal of the material
+printed and the fewer the mainstays of interest, until in a magazine
+with a circulation of more than a million copies the chief
+classifications of non-fiction material required can easily be counted
+upon the fingers. The editor of such a publication necessarily is
+limited to handling rather elemental topics; so it is not to be wondered
+at when we hear that the largest publication of them all makes its
+mainstays two such universally interesting and world-old themes as
+business and "the way of a man with a maid."
+
+Examine any popular magazine which has a circulation of general readers,
+speaking to a forum of anywhere from a quarter of a million to ten
+million assorted readers, and you will find that the non-fiction
+material which it is most eager to buy may easily be classified into
+half a dozen types of articles, all concerned with the ruling passions
+of the average American, as:
+
+     1. His job.
+     2. His hearthstone.
+     3. His politics.
+     4. His recreations.
+     5. His health.
+     6. Happenings of national interest.
+
+Examine a few of these types of contributions to arrive at a clearer
+understanding of why they are so justly popular. Your average American
+is, first of all, keenly interested in his job. It is much more to him,
+usually, than just a way to make a living. It fascinates him like a
+game, and you often hear him describe it as a "game." What, then, is
+more natural than that he should eagerly read articles of practical
+helpfulness concerned with his activities in office or store, factory or
+farm? The largest of our popular magazines never appear without
+something which touches this sort of interest, stimulating the man of
+affairs to strive after further successes and advancement in his chosen
+occupation. Many specialized business and trade publications and more
+than a score of skillfully edited farm magazines thrive upon developing
+this class of themes to the exclusion of all other material.
+
+A second vital interest is the hearthstone--suggesting such undying
+topics as love and the landlord, marriage and divorce, the training of
+children, the household budget, the high cost of living, those
+compelling themes which have built up the women's magazines into
+institutions of giant stature and tremendous power.
+
+Politics is another field of almost universal interest, broadening every
+day now that women have the ballot and now that our vision is no longer
+limited to the homeland horizon, but finds itself searching eagerly
+onward into international relationships. Once we were content, as a
+national body politic, to discuss candidates for the Presidency or what
+our stand should be upon currency and the tariff. To-day we are also
+gravely concerned to know what is to become of Russia and Germany, or
+how the political and social unrest in France and Italy and England will
+affect the peace of the world.
+
+As a fourth point, your average American these days is quick to respond
+to anything worth while concerning his recreations. As a consequence,
+much space is reserved in the big magazines for articles on society,
+travel, the theater and the movies, motor cars, country life, outings,
+and such popular sports as golf, baseball and tennis. Every one of these
+topics, besides being dealt with in the general magazines, has its own
+special mouthpiece.
+
+Health always has been a subject constantly on the tip of everybody's
+tongue, but never before has so much been printed about the more
+important phases of it than appears in the popular magazines of to-day.
+Knowledge of the common sense rules of diet, exercise, ventilation and
+the like are becoming public possession--thanks largely to the magazines
+and the newspaper syndicates.
+
+A sixth mainstay of the magazines is in the presentation of articles
+dealing with happenings of national interest or personalities prominent
+in the day's news. This task grows increasingly difficult as the
+newspapers tighten their grip upon the public's attention and as the
+news pictorials of the moving picture screen gain in popular esteem by
+improved technical skill and more intelligent editing. The magazine of
+large circulation must go to press so long before the newspapers and the
+films that much perishable news must be thrown out, even though it is of
+nation wide appeal. The magazines are coming to find their greatest
+usefulness in the news field in gathering up the loose ends of scattered
+paragraphs which the daily newspapers have no time to weave together
+into a pattern. In the magazine the patchwork of daily journalism is
+assembled into more meaningful designs. Local news is sifted of its
+provincialism to become matter of national concern. Topics which you
+rapidly skimmed in the afternoon newspaper three or four weeks ago are
+re-discussed in the weekly or monthly magazines in a way which often
+makes you feel that here, for the first time, they become of personal
+import.
+
+The purpose of the suggestions sketched above is not to supply canned
+topics to ready writers, but to set ambitious scribblers to the task of
+doing some thinking for themselves. Instead of shiftlessly tossing the
+whole burden of responsibility for choice of topics to a hard driven
+editor, and whining, "Please give me an idea!", search around on your
+own initiative for a theme worth presenting to the attention of a throng
+of widely assorted listeners--for a "story" that ought to appeal to
+America's multitudes. If your topic is big enough for a big audience,
+your chances are prime to get a hearing for it. Dig up the necessary
+facts, the "human interest" and the national significance of the case.
+Then, rest assured, that "story" is what the editor wants.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AND IF YOU DO--
+
+
+Something in the misty sunshine this morning made you restless. Vague
+longings, born of springtime mystery, stirred your blood, quickened the
+imagination. Roads that never were, and mayhap never will be, beckoned
+you with their sinuous curves and graceful shade trees toward velvety
+fields beyond the city's skyline. The sweet fragrance of blossoming
+orchards tingled in your nostrils and thrilled you with wanderlust.
+Haunting melodies quavered in your ears. Your old briar pipe never
+tasted so sweet before. Adventure never seemed so imminent. A golden
+day. What will you do with it?
+
+You could write to-day, but if you did, you know you could support no
+patience for prosy facts, statistics and photographs. Whatever urge you
+feel appears to be toward verse or fiction. Well, why not? Try it! You
+never know what you might do in writing until you dare.
+
+Verse is largely its own reward.
+
+Fiction, when it turns out successfully, fetches a double reward. It
+pays both in personal satisfaction, as a form of creative art, and also
+as a marketable commodity, which always is in great demand, and which
+can be cashed in to meet house rent and grocers' bills.
+
+It is not within the scope of this little book--nor of its author's
+abilities--to attempt a discussion of fiction methods. Too many other
+writers, better qualified to speak, have dealt with fiction in scores of
+worth while volumes. Too many successful story tellers have related
+their experiences and treated, with authority, of the short story, the
+novelette and the long novel.
+
+The purpose here can be only to urge that an attempt to write fiction is
+a logical step ahead for any scribbler who has won a moderate degree of
+success in selling newspaper copy and magazine articles. The eye that
+can perceive the dramatic and put it into non-fiction, the heart that
+knows human interest, the understanding that can tell a symbol, the
+artist-instinct that can catch characteristic colors, scents and sounds,
+all should aid a skilled writer of articles to turn his energies, with
+some hope of achievement, toward producing fiction. The hand that can
+fashion a really vivid article holds out promise of being able to
+compose a convincing short story, if grit and ambition help push the
+pen.
+
+The temptation to dogmatize here is strong, for the witness can testify
+that he has seen enviable success crown many a fiction writer who,
+apparently, possessed small native talent for story telling, and who won
+his laurels through sheer pluck and persistence. One of these pluggers
+declares he blesses the rejection slip because it "eliminates so many
+quitters."
+
+But of course it would be absurd to believe that any one with unlimited
+courage and elbow grease could win at fiction, lacking all aptitude for
+it. Just as there are photographers who can snap pictures for twenty
+years without producing a single happy composition (except by accident),
+and reporters who never develop a "nose for news," there are story
+writers who can master all the mechanics of tale-telling, through sheer
+drudgery, and yet continually fail to catch fiction's spark of life.
+They fail, and shall always fail. Yet it is better to have strived and
+failed, than never to have tried at all.
+
+Why? For the good of their artists' consciences, in the first place.
+And, in the second, because no writer can earnestly struggle with words
+without learning something about them to his trade advantage.
+
+A confession may be in order: your deponent testifies freely, knowing
+that anything he may say may be used against him, that for years he has
+been a tireless producer of unsuccessful fiction, yet he views his
+series of rebuffs in this medium calmly and even somewhat humorously.
+For, by trade, he is a writer of articles, and he earnestly believes
+that the mental exercise of attempting to produce fiction acts as a
+healthy influence upon a non-fictionist's style. It stimulates the
+torpid imagination. It quickens the eye for the vivid touches, the
+picturesque and the dramatic. It is a groping toward art.
+
+"Art," writes one who knows, "is a mistress so beautiful, so high, so
+noble, that no phrases can fitly characterize her, no service can be
+wholly worthy of her."
+
+Perhaps such art as goes into the average magazine article is not likely
+to merit much high-sounding praise. In our familiar shop talk we are
+prone to laugh about it. But even the most commercial-minded of our
+brotherhood cherishes deep in his heart a craftsman's pride in work well
+done. So your deponent testifies in his own defense that his copybook
+exercises in fiction, half of which end in the wastebasket, seem well
+worth the pains that they cost, so long as they help keep alive in his
+non-fiction bread-winners a hankering after (if not a flavor of)
+literary art.
+
+And now must he apologize further for using a word upon which writers in
+these confessedly commercial days appear to have set a _taboo_? Then a
+passage from "The Study of Literature" (Arlo Bates) may serve for the
+apology:
+
+"Life is full of disappointment, and pain, and bitterness, and that
+sense of futility in which all of these evils are summed up; and yet
+were there no other alleviation, he who knows and truly loves literature
+finds here a sufficient reason to be glad he lives. Science may show a
+man how to live; art makes living worth his while. Existence to-day
+without literature would be a failure and a despair; and if we cannot
+satisfactorily define our art, we at least are aware how it enriches and
+ennobles the life of every human being who comes within the sphere of
+its gracious influence."
+
+So, we repeat: for the good of the artist's self-respect as well as for
+his craftsmanship it is worth while to attempt fiction. If only as a
+tonic! If only to jog himself out of a rut of habit!
+
+If he succeeds with fiction he has bright hopes of winning much larger
+financial rewards for his labor than he is likely to gain by writing
+articles. Non-fiction rarely brings in more than one return upon the
+investment, but a good short story or novel may fetch several. First,
+his yarn sells to the magazine. Then it may be re-sold ("second serial
+rights") to the newspapers. Finally, it may fetch the largest cash
+return of all by being marketed to a motion picture corporation as the
+plot for a scenario. In some instances even this does not exhaust all
+the possibilities, for if British magazines and bookmen are interested
+in the tale, the "English rights" of publication may add another payment
+to the total.
+
+Not all of the features of this picture, however, should be painted in
+rose-colors. A disconcerting and persistent rumor has it that what once
+was a by-product of fiction--the sale of "movie rights"--is now
+threatening to run off with the entire production. The side show, we are
+warned, is shaping the policy of the main tent. Which is to say that
+novelists and magazine fiction writers are accused of becoming more
+concerned about how their stories will film than about how the
+manuscripts will grade as pieces of literature. To get a yarn into print
+is still worth while because this enhances its value in the eyes of the
+producers of motion pictures. But the author's real goal is "no longer
+good writing, so much as remunerative picture possibilities."
+
+We set this down not because we believe it true of the majority of our
+brother craftsmen, but because evidences of such influences are
+undeniably present, and do not appear to have done the art of writing
+fiction any appreciable benefit. If your trade is non-fiction, and you
+turn to fiction to improve your art rather than your bank account, good
+counsel will admonish you not to aim at any other mark than the best
+that you can produce in the way of literary art. For there lies the
+deepest satisfaction a writer can ever secure--"art makes living worth
+his while."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+FOREVER AT THE CROSSROADS
+
+
+Keep studying. Keep experimenting. Set yourself harder tasks. Never be
+content with what you have accomplished. Match yourself against the men
+who can outplay you, not against the men you already excel. Keep
+attempting something that baffles you. Discontent is your friend more
+often than your enemy.
+
+From the moment that he is graduated out of the cub reporter class,
+every writer who is worth his salt is forever at the crossroads,
+perplexed about the next turn. Nowhere is smugness of mind more deadly
+than in journalism. To progress you must forever scale more difficult
+ascents. The bruises of rebuffs and the wounds of injured vanity will
+heal quickly enough if you keep busy. Defeated or undefeated, the writer
+who always is trying to master something more difficult than the work he
+used to do preserves his self-respect and the respect of his worth-while
+neighbors. The fellow with the canker at his heart is not the battler
+but the envious shirker who is too "proud" to risk a fall.
+
+Swallow what you suppose to be your pride; it really is a false sense of
+dignity. Make a simple beginning in the university of experience by
+learning with experiments what constitutes a "story" and by drudging
+with pencil and typewriter to put that "story" into professional
+manuscript form. Get the right pictures for it; then ship it off to
+market. If the first choice of markets rejects you, try the second, the
+third, fourth, fifth and sixth--even unto the ninety-and-ninth.
+
+Few beginners have even a dim notion of the great variety of markets
+that exist for free lance contributions. There are countless trade
+publications, newspaper syndicates, class journals, "house organs," and
+magazines devoted to highly specialized interests. Nearly all of these
+publications are eager to buy matter of interest to their particular
+circles of readers. Every business, every profession, every trade, every
+hobby has its mouthpiece.
+
+Remember this when you are a beginner and the "big magazines" of general
+circulation are rejecting your manuscripts with a clock-like regularity
+which drives you almost to despair. Try your 'prentice hand on
+contributions to the smaller publications. That is the surest way to
+"learn while you earn" in free lancing. These humble markets need not
+cause you to sneer--particularly if you happen to be a humble beginner.
+
+Every laboratory experiment in manuscript writing and marketing, though
+it be only a description of a shop window for a dry goods trade paper,
+or an interview with a boss plumber for the _Gas Fitter's Gazette_, will
+furnish you with experience in your own trade, and set you ahead a step
+on the long road that leads to the most desirable acceptances. The one
+thing to watch zealously is your own development, to make sure that you
+do not too soon content yourself with achievements beneath your
+capabilities. Start with the little magazines, but keep attempting to
+attain the more difficult goals.
+
+Meanwhile, you need not apologize to any one for the nature of your
+work, so long as it is honest reporting and all as well written as you
+know how to make it. Stevenson, one of the most conscientious of
+literary artists, declared in a "Letter to a Young Gentleman Who
+Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art," that "the first duty in this
+world is for a man to pay his way," and this is one of your confessed
+purposes while you are serving this kind of journalistic apprenticeship.
+
+Until he arrives, the novice must, indeed, unless he be exceptionally
+gifted, "pay assiduous court to the bourgeois who carries the purse.
+And if in the course of these capitulations he shall falsify his talent,
+it can never have been a strong one, and he will have preserved a better
+thing than talent--character. Or if he be of a mind so independent that
+he cannot stoop to this necessity, one course is yet open: he can desist
+from art, and follow some more manly way of life."
+
+In short, so long as you _keep moving_ toward something worth attaining,
+there is nothing to worry about but how to keep from relapsing into
+smugness or idleness. The besetting temptation of the free lance is to
+pamper himself. He is his own boss, can sleep as late as he likes, go
+where he pleases and quit work when the temptation seizes him. As a
+result, he usually babies himself and turns out much less work than he
+might safely attempt without in the least endangering his health.
+
+When he finds out later how assiduously some of the best known of our
+authors keep at their desks he becomes a little ashamed of himself.
+Though they may not work, on the average, as long hours as the business
+man, they toil far harder, and usually with few of the interruptions and
+relaxations from the job that the business man is allowed. Four or five
+hours of intense application a day stands for a great deal more
+expenditure of energy and thought than eight or nine hours broken up
+with periods when one's feet are literally or metaphorically on the desk
+and genial conversation is flowing. Most of the men and women who make a
+living out of free lancing earn every blessed cent of it; and the amount
+upon which they pay an income tax is, as a rule, proportioned rather
+justly to the amount of concentrated labor that they pour into the
+hopper of the copy mill.
+
+You who happen to have seen a successful free lance knock off work in
+mid-afternoon to play tennis, or to skim away toward the country club in
+his new motor car are too likely to exclaim that "his is the existence!"
+Forgetting, of course, the lonesome hours of more or less baffling
+effort that he spent that day upon a manuscript before he locked up his
+workshop. And the years he spent in drudgery, the bales of rejection
+slips he collected, the times that he had to pawn his watch and stick
+pin to buy a dinner or to pay the rent of a hall bedroom.
+
+Young Gentlemen Who Propose to Embrace the Career of Art might be
+shocked to learn--though it would be all for their own good--that a
+great many writers who are generally regarded with envy for their "luck"
+take the pains to follow the market notes in the Authors' League
+_Bulletin_, the _Bookman_ and the _Editor Magazine_ with all the care
+of a contractor studying the latest news of building operations. Not
+only do these writers read the trade papers of their calling; they also,
+with considerable care, study the magazines to which they sell--or hope
+to sell--manuscripts. They do not nearly so often as the novice make the
+_faux pas_ of offering an editor exactly the same sort of material that
+he already has printed in a recent or a current issue. They follow the
+new books. They keep card indexes on their unmarketed manuscripts, and
+toil on as much irksome office routine as a stock broker. A surprisingly
+large number of the "arrived" do not even hold themselves above keeping
+note books, or producing, chiefly for the beneficial exercise of it,
+essays, journals, descriptions, verse and fiction not meant to be
+offered for sale--solely copybook exercises, produced for
+self-improvement or to gratify an impulse toward non-commercial art.
+
+For instances I can name a fiction writer who turns often to the essay
+form, but never publishes this type of writing, and an editorial writer
+who, for the "fun of it" and the good he believes it does his style,
+composes every year a great deal of verse. A group of six Michigan
+writers publish their own magazine, a typewritten publication with a
+circulation of six.
+
+These men are not content with their present achievements. They regard
+themselves always as students who must everlastingly keep trying more
+difficult tasks to insure a steady progress toward an unattainable goal.
+"Most of the studyin'," Abe Martin once observed, "is done after a
+feller gets out of college," and these gray-haired exemplars are--as all
+of us ought to be--still learning to write, and forever at the
+crossroads.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FINIS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of If You Don't Write Fiction, by
+Charles Phelps Cushing
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IF YOU DON'T WRITE FICTION ***
+
+***** This file should be named 26557.txt or 26557.zip *****
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