Part 8

Do _not_ write a poem on April, and send it for insertion in the April number of a magazine on the day that number issues from the press. This has been a constant experience in my Editorial life. Try to remember, if you know it already, and try to learn the fact if you do not, that magazines take a certain number of days to print, and that, as a rule, the number is practically made up weeks, and sometimes _months_ before publication.

[Sidenote: False humility]

When you offer a contribution to sin Editor, _do not_ have resource to a sort of false humility, which some writers are fond of adopting. For instance, I have received letters with offers of verses which the writer deprecates as “unworthy of publication, and only fit for the waste-paper basket,” nevertheless, I am expected to read them, and give a critical opinion, because the friends of the writer in question have urged him or her as the case may be, to forward them. This false humility is always prejudicial to the would-be contributor.

[Sidenote: Be business-like]

In offering contributions be as _terse and business-like_ as possible. Editors have hearts, and sometimes these hearts are made to ache pretty considerably. But first and foremost an Editor, if he is a good one, must be business-like. He has to place the interests of the magazine before your private wants, however pressing and painful they may be to yourself. I feel that I am saying cruel things when I write like this, but they are true, and if I would really help you, you must know the truth.

There would be no magazines worth reading if MSS. were accepted on such pleas, and yet they are constantly being urged.

Try to think of yourself as a merchant who has something of value for sale. The Editor represents the public, who want to buy. He will quickly appreciate you if he sees that you can give him what his readers want, and, believe me, he will _never_ care for you, _as a writer_, on any other grounds, whatever.

“My dear,” an old lady and a very celebrated author said to me many years ago, “please bear one fact in mind. Your Publisher or your Editor may love you as well as himself, but he will never love you better.”

Now the Editor or Publisher who takes unsuitable work from a mere sense of pity, inevitably courts financial disaster, and he can scarcely be expected to love the would-be contributor to that extent.

[Sidenote: Introductions]

I should like to say a word here with regard to Introductions. Many people who wish to write have an idea that an introduction from a successful author is “Open Sesame!” to the world of literature. This is a vast mistake. _You stand or fall on your own merits, and on those only._ The utmost your influential friends can do for you is to get your MS. looked at. If it is silly or unsuitable, back it goes just as surely as if it had not been supported by any great name. This is a fact which is worth knowing.

I am afraid I must mention one more _don’t_.

[Sidenote: One last _don’t_]

Don’t send a MS. to a very busy Editor, with the remark that you know it is unsuitable, but you would be so much obliged if he would read it carefully, and give you his candid opinion as to whether you have got the literary faculty or not. Editors are usually kind-hearted, and don’t like to refuse requests of this sort. But do the people who worry them with ill-written, bulky and all but illegible MSS., realise what a large demand they are making upon valuable time, and by what right they demand a professional opinion from, in many cases, a total stranger? The same people would be much shocked if they were told that they expected advice from their doctor or lawyer for nothing, and yet the Author or Editor who has amassed his knowledge through years of patient toil, must give it away to any one who has the impertinence to ask for it. I feel strongly on this point, for in very truth it is, as a rule, casting pearls before swine, as those who could be really helped with advantage are generally far too modest to ask for such assistance.

[Sidenote: The short story]

I should recommend all those fiction-writers who are anxious to obtain magazine work, to turn their attention to the short complete story, and to avoid for many a day all attempts at _Serial_ fiction. A Short Story, if good, is likely to find a market somewhere—but then it must be good—by this I mean terse and full of plot, without a single unnecessary word, and with the whole range of subject clearly mapped out in the author’s mind before a word is written. The short story can be a character sketch, although this is very often intensely stupid, and has a by-way of clever air about it, which quickly vanishes as you approach it, or it can be a good exciting incident with plenty of movement.

[Sidenote: The “pretty-pretty” school]

For Heaven’s sake don’t let your friends say of your short story, “How pretty!” The “goody-goody” school has had its day, and is laughed out of fashion, but the “pretty-pretty” still flourishes in full vigour, though in its own way it is quite as objectionable. Avoid mere prettiness as you do all those things which lead to destruction. The merely pretty writer gets weaker and weaker the older he grows, until at last he is sheer inanity. It is a good plan to be in a certain sense a specialist, and to take up a line which has not already been done to death. Whatever you are, _be true_; write about things you know of; don’t sit in your drawing-room and invent an impossible scene in a London garret. If you want to talk of hunger and cold and the depths of sordid privation, go at least and see them, if you cannot feel them. _Don’t write high-flown sentiments._ It would be far more interesting to the world if you told quite simply what you really know. Tell of the life that you have lived—let others see it from your point of view. Each one who has the power to write has also a lesson to deliver. However small that lesson may be tell it with simplicity. If it rings true, you have done your part well.

It is a good plan to avoid _morbid_ writing. This is a failing often to be seen in the works of the very young. Be as cheerful as you can; we want all the sunshine we can get.

[Sidenote: Fiction as a profession]

If you want to take up fiction as a profession, write a little bit every day, whether you are in the mood or not. Put your story into a frame—by this I mean make up your mind in advance what length it shall be, and stick to that length, whether you feel inclined to go farther or not. This is very good practice.

[Sidenote: Methods of work]

Try, if possible, to see the end of your story before you begin to write it. This is a good plan, for it keeps the motive clear and unwavering. It is also the surest way of exciting a strong interest. Avoid long descriptive bits, more particularly descriptions of scenery. You need to be a Richard Jeffries to do your scenery descriptions so that other people shall see them, shall feel the breezes blowing, and hear the singing of the birds. To write in this style is a special gift, given to very few.

[Sidenote: Character drawing]

I have always found in writing my own stories, that there came a certain point when the characters ceased to be machines, and began to live. They were flesh and blood, creations as real as those I lived with. I hated some of them, and loved others. All those characters that remained merely puppets I eliminated from the story; they were useless to its progress, they took from its effect. When your characters become alive to you, as they will to all those who have even the slightest touch of inspiration in writing, you will find a strange thing happen. They will begin to dominate you, not you them. They will grow in spite of you, and take a certain direction and fulfil their destinies just as surely as if they really lived. You may wish to make a villain of a certain character, but in spite of you he may turn out a saint or _vice-versâ_. This is a mystery which I cannot pretend to account for, but I think all fiction writers have felt it more or less. And what is more, the better and stronger the story grows, the more will the characters dominate their author, and turn him whither they will.

[Sidenote: Daily practice]

Inspiration is the grandest of all gifts for the fiction writer, but he must not suppose that it comes daily, and if he never writes except when he thinks it has visited him, he will seldom or never write at all. Again I repeat that daily practice in writing is the best of all training. It is wonderful how this daily practice overcomes difficulties, one by one. How supple the mind becomes, how easy is the flow of language, how completely the writer masters the difficult problem of concentration of thought.

But I could go on talking indefinitely and, after all, although a few broad rules are necessary and useful, each man must be his own teacher—each life must inculcate its own lessons, and bring forth its own fruit.

[Sidenote: “The end crowns all”]

If to ability is added courage, and to courage perseverance, you will succeed; and I hope to shake hands with you in spirit over the good work you have accomplished.

[Illustration: Decoration]

_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. _London & Edinburgh_.

Transcriber’s Notes

pg 122 Changed: subjcts indicated by Mr. Greenwood to: subjects indicated by Mr. Greenwood