Part 1

THE STORIES EDITORS BUY AND WHY

THE STORIES EDITORS BUY AND WHY

COMPILED BY

JEAN WICK

[Illustration]

BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS

_Copyright, 1921_

By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (Incorporated)

PRESS OF GEO. H. ELLIS CO. (INC.) BOSTON

TO MAGAZINE EDITORS

_Who through constructive helpfulness and creative vision are helping authors to make the American short story unique in artistry and literary merit._

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFATORY NOTE ix

THE WEEK-END GUEST. By Marie Van Vorst 1 (From _Ainslee’s Magazine_)

THE TERRIBLE CHARGE AGAINST JEFF POTTER. By Samuel A. Derieux 27 (From _The American Magazine_)

“A SOURCE OF IRRITATION.” By Stacy Aumonier 53 (From _The Century Magazine_)

“MOMMA.” By Rupert Hughes 71 (From _Collier’s, The National Weekly_)

BACK PAY. By Fannie Hurst 99 (From _Cosmopolitan Magazine_)

“CAB, SIR?” By Samuel Hopkins Adams 139 (From _Everybody’s Magazine_)

YOU’VE GOT TO BE SELFISH. By Edna Ferber 169 (From _McClure’s Magazine_)

“CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN.” By Booth Tarkington 193 (From _Metropolitan Magazine_)

THE BELL OF SAINT GREGOIRE. By Agnes Ross White 223 (From _The People’s Home Journal_)

THE EVENING RICE. By Achmed Abdullah 239 (From _Pictorial Review_)

THE TAKING OF BILLY RAND. By Gordon Young 259 (From _Short Stories_)

ACCORDING TO RUSKIN. By Harriet Welles 279 (From _The Woman’s Home Companion_)

THE CRYSTAL FLASK. By Paul Rosenwey 293 (From _Young’s Magazine_)

* * * * *

WHY THE EDITORS BUY 305

FOOTNOTES

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

PREFATORY NOTE

During the past twenty years the short story has come to occupy a distinct place in American letters. While it must perhaps be granted that we are not pre-eminent in the novel or the essay, we may quite fairly pride ourselves upon the high achievement of our authors in short story writing. American magazines (and this is said in no spirit of braggadocio) today carry more and better short stories than do the magazines of any other country. In addition it should be taken into consideration that we in America publish a greater number of periodicals devoted either wholly or in part to fiction than is the custom elsewhere. Thus automatically the would-be short story writer is given opportunity and encouragement, two powerful factors in all creative endeavor. Success in short story writing means both fame and pecuniary reward. It is professionally worth while both from the artistic and the financial points of view.

To the American editor should be given much of the credit for this development in the short story. A story, no matter how vital or well written, carries no real weight until it is in print. The printed page gives it permanency; through print it reaches the multitude. The editor, at his or her desk, has final say as to what shall or shall not go into the pages of his or her magazine. There are often outside factors that shape the magazine’s editorial and fiction policy. But editors are sincere in desiring to give their readers the best stories they can procure of the kind they are ready to publish.

But they do a great deal more than just select from the mass of material that is submitted to them. They go out after the type of stories they want. They see the men and women who can write and personally confer with them, suggesting new things to write about, new trends in thought, new angles of approach, new methods of handling. To George Horace Lorimer certainly should go much of the credit for the evolution of the American business story; a chance remark of Ray Long’s at editorial conference brought the first Pell Street tales into existence; it is no exaggeration to say that John M. Siddall with his search for clean-cut Americanism has had much to do with the growing prominence and popularity of American small town portrayal which popularity has in turn profoundly affected the development of the American novel; to Perriton Maxwell should be given the honor of having been the first to publish stories of Jewish life in one of our leading monthlies. Not only do the editors shape and mould the literary taste of their readers but they have and do actually create new forms of literary output.

The technique of the American short story is more or less fixed and numerous textbooks have been compiled thereon. But technique is not a rigid matter. The importance of the subject matter or sheer artistry can often “put over” a story that defies every one of the traditional or accepted rules. Too, different editors and different magazines have their own ideas on technique. Therefore, for any one who would write it is best to study and analyze carefully the pages of the various magazines.

To succeed in the short story field the writer needs not only to know how to write but where to sell. To get before the short story reading public it is vital not only to have a story to tell and to know how to tell it but to know also where to offer that story when it is told. In selling a short story it is not primarily the attitude of any one individual critic or group of self-appointed critics that matters; it is the attitude of the editor toward the particular story under consideration. As there are many stories there are many editors. They are all on the lookout for new and good material. If you have created a good story it is bound some day to find its publisher and thereby to reach its public.

In order that this book may be of practical service to the new writer and to those already well established the editors were asked why they bought the particular stories they did, in other words their attitude in fiction buying. Their replies are printed verbatim. Many came in the form of personal letters and this will explain why there may be a certain lack of formality in some of the editorial replies. But on consideration this was decided the most practical way in which the editor might reach his audience. Analysis of the answers will show the veriest tyro that a story that might do excellently for the Metropolitan need not be desired by the Dial and vice versa.

In the compiler’s mind the magazines automatically group themselves into classes, a grouping which attempts to reach no conclusion as to relative literary or commercial values. Certain of these magazines were asked to include a story that had appeared in its pages and which from the point of view of that magazine’s editorial policy was a highly desirable and good story. Here the editors hesitated: they had many good stories that might be included. Eventually, though, choices were made and the authors kindly consenting to their reprinting, the stories are given herewith.

Here again it cannot be made too clear that no editorial verdict was attempted in including stories from some of the magazines and in omitting those from others. The aim of the book is to be of practical service in pointing out reasons for fiction buying. All of the magazines could not be included because of space limitation. As far as possible different types of magazines were chosen. The editors of these magazines again one and all were unanimous in making it clear that they could have suggested many other stories that had appeared in their pages that were equally good considered literarily or artistically. But as the book does attempt to guide and direct--so far as this is possible in an art--they chose stories that they considered representative in a major number of ways.

Our leading weeklies lay much emphasis upon their fiction. The Saturday Evening Post buys more short stories a year than does any other magazine. Because of its enormous circulation the contributor has the satisfaction of feeling that he or she is reaching a maximum number of readers. The style of stories in this magazine changes from year to year as the editor has been repeatedly heard to say that the reading public is apt to tire of any one type no matter how well done. The practical note is apt to preponderate. In Collier’s, the National Weekly, we find a very American story, not exploiting big cities and millionaire circles, but rather the moderately incomed home of the average American--its good fortune, its vicissitudes, its every day point of view, handled with exquisite sympathy. Leslie’s, limited in space, is frankly after the constructive business story.

In any consideration of the American monthly magazines automatically Harper’s, Scribner’s and Century come to mind in a group. These put great emphasis upon literary execution. The Atlantic Monthly is perhaps not quite so rigid in its demand for form while the Dial is almost radical. The Touchstone rates artistry most highly, the article by Mrs. Roberts in this book making her views on the whole matter most explicit.

There is another large group of monthly magazines, more generally popular perhaps, in which there is the very greatest diversity and yet differentiation of editorial wants. It will pay to study these magazines closely. The student will at once see why a story that might be most popular in the Metropolitan would not have a chance in the American--and at that no purely literary or technical point need be involved. In this group of magazines there is the greatest possible chance for divergence in story treatment, in subject matter, even in methods of characterization. Since Ray Long has taken over the Cosmopolitan he has repeatedly shown his catholicity of taste as has Karl Harriman in subject matter in the Red Book.

It is easy to decide which stories may prove suitable for our magazines that are primarily interested in sex problems, and this does not necessarily mean sex in any too realistic or too sordid sense. The editors who are selecting the material for these periodicals feel that sex is the fundamental motivation in every human act; that therefore its presentation is always interesting, of moment, and bound to intrigue a large group of readers. A certain number of the smaller of these magazines demand liveliness of presentation rather than newness of plot. All are apt to stress a certain up-to-date and social quality.

We have a large group of action magazines. They look for “story.” In this group the Street and Smith periodicals are particularly interested in the story that has an American hero and an American environment. Some of the others are not quite so restrictive. Perhaps “a good yarn rattling well told” is the best slogan presentation of their wants. But like all slogans it is unfair. The frequent presence of Joseph Conrad in these magazines certainly would seem to prove that craftsmanship is appreciated.

The women’s magazines make a point of carrying as good fiction as can be procured and in some of them we are finding the best short stories of the day. The Pictorial Review, for instance, is not circumscribed in its point of view; it has room for the purely artistic creation; it welcomes warmly the picture of life whose main characteristic is sympathetic narration. Other magazines in this group feel that they should publish only human interest stories as these make the strongest appeal to their particular circle of women readers.

Many of the stories in the farm and fireside journals are written with a distinct purpose; to portray intimately some heretofore little known section of the country; to illustrate some new agricultural theory; to create sympathy for some rural situation. But “purpose” is never allowed to destroy story values.

Our juvenile magazines make no secret of their aim. It is to influence rightly the changing character, the shifting ideals and aspirations of the growing boys and girls who come under the sway of their story pages. The fiction must be of absorbing interest from the point of view of the young, but at the same time it must contain nothing that would react detrimentally.

From the above brief summary it is easy to see that a story that might prove eminently acceptable from the point of view of one magazine might not do at all for another. That the placing of a story, in other words, demands a certain amount of knowledge of market wants and market conditions. This brings us to the consideration of the agent. Is or is not an agent of help? This question is largely one for self-determination. It depends somewhat on the personality of the author. All agents cannot help all authors: there is a give and take of personality; in other words, the human equation has something to do with the success of the relationship. An agent cannot sell a story that is not sellable; an agent cannot repeatedly get higher prices for the author than the author can get for himself. An agent does know more of the markets and its fluctuations; agency advice--as it is a matter of business--is apt to be impersonal and good; agency direction can save much misguided effort.

There is an impression that agents are perhaps not popular with editors. This is not true. Perhaps the letter of James E. Tower, editor of The Delineator given herewith and which came unsolicited, is as good actual proof of this fact as any statement which the writer might make.

Dear Miss Wick:

A certain periodical, which has its distribution amongst writers, has put in my mouth words which I did not say and which do an injustice alike to some good friends of mine and to me.

I am quoted as having said, at a recent luncheon, that editors are not keen about purchasing from literary brokers. I never said that nor implied it. I said that I felt that the brokers had been the largest single factor in raising and maintaining authors’ prices; that the publishing trade were inclined, on this account, to look askance at the agent system, but that authors formerly did not receive adequate compensation and that the better prices had raised the standard of authorship and benefited the trade, as well as the writers themselves.

My own editorial career is sufficient refutation of the statement attributed to me. I think I never heard an editor express any prejudice against the broker system.

Sincerely yours, JAMES E. TOWER.

Lastly do not let it be felt that the compiler of these editorial want paragraphs, this editorial exposition of the stories the editor wants and buys, desires to express any personal opinion as to the relative literary merits or commercial status of the magazines listed in this book. This is not a book of criticism. It is an effort to have the editors talk directly to those who for any reason whatever are interested in the American short story as it is published week in and week out in our magazines.

JEAN WICK.

NEW YORK CITY.

_Ainslee’s Magazine_

THE WEEK-END GUEST

BY

MARIE VAN VORST

THE WEEK-END GUEST[1]

By MARIE VAN VORST

From the room where Patricia Hereford’s wedding gifts were displayed, the Long Island Sound was visible, and it lay in the distance on this October day, blue as a patch of cornflowers. Down at the dock the yacht waited to take the master of the house to town. Underneath the window in kilts, bare legs, bagpipes and all, a Highland shepherd, imported by the lady of the house from his native heather because he was picturesque, watched his sheep and was homesick to the bone! The twenty-five Southdown sheep were astoundingly clean and moved about in patches on the flawless lawn. Now and again the wretched piper played a few Scotch melodies as he was paid to do, and the lady of the house listened to the piper’s tunes with her pencil on her lips as she prepared for the detective a list of the wedding presents.

“What melody is Sandy playing now, Nell?”

One of the bridesmaids, a girl who was staying in the house, perched nonchalantly on a table, a notebook and a pencil in her hands. Miss Moore was helping Mrs. Hereford list the wedding presents, and presumably Miss Cynthia Moore was thinking of her own wedding, when it should come to pass, as bridesmaids will! She dictated to Mrs. Hereford.

“Number one thousand and six, Nell, a pigskin purse from Eric Johnson. Pat’s own chauffeur, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Hereford, “nice of him and in perfectly good taste.”

Miss Moore swung to and fro a foot encased in a correct golf brogue. She was the champion woman golfer of the Eastern States, and came downstairs in the morning dressed for golf, ready for her game. Indeed she said she only put on evening dress in order to keep out of social jail!

“That’s the nicest thing I have heard you say about any of the presents, Nell! _If_ people who sent them could only hear you!”

The lady of the house shrugged.

“I have always wondered why certain frightful things were manufactured and now I know they are for wedding gifts. The boring part is that over a thousand people will have to be lied to and thanked! Poor Patricia!”

There they were, over a thousand wedding presents! Patricia Hereford was a popular débutante and her father the best host on Long Island. Everything that indifferent taste could select and money pay for, from Hereford’s own gift of diamonds to the modest pigskin purse, was here displayed. One of the most truly beautiful things was a pink Persian prayer rug of rich soft tones, a Persian proverb in delicate lettering running around the border. It hung on the wall opposite the pearls and valuable jewels. Two rooms on the second floor of the big country house had been consecrated to this exhibition, and the presents were to be seen by the guests on the following afternoon, after the wedding.

“Mr. Jones is downstairs in the fur room,” Mrs. Hereford said, “but his men have not come up from Waybrook, and I thought he had better stay with the sables and the silver fox. We must not budge from here until they come, but you can go to Pat if you like, Cinnie. I’ll stay on.” The lady of the house glanced out at the Highland piper and his astoundingly clean sheep on the lawn.

“There!” exclaimed Miss Moore. “That’s the tune I mean, Nell! What is it--do you know? Hear it and weep, don’t you think so?”

Mrs. Hereford hummed the tune through, accompanied by the melancholic piper from without.

“Jolly!” exclaimed Cynthia from her table. “Jolly in your adorable voice! Are there any words that go with it or is it only a sob and a wail?”

“Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands oh! Where have you been? They have slain the Earl of Moray and laid him on the green. He was a braw gallant and he rode for the glove, And the gallant Earl of Moray he was the Queen’s love; And long shall the Lady look from the Castle down To hear the Earl of Moray go stounin’ through the Town.”

Mrs. Hereford’s really beautiful voice filled the gift room with its sweetness.

“I’ll catalogue wedding presents indefinitely,” said Miss Moore, “if you’ll go on like that. Anyhow, Nell, he is the Queen’s Love all right!”

“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Hereford sharply.

“Captain Ramsay. He is crazy about you.”

Mrs. Hereford had been comparing her list with that of Miss Moore. She went over to the window, looked out until the red died from her face, and said over her shoulder:

“Go on with your list, Cinnie, and don’t be a goose.”

The girl wrote diligently for a few moments. Mrs. Hereford returned to the table where the pigskin purse reposed between the red lacquer box, on which the card read: “Maharajah of Singapore,” and a sapphire ring on the other side.

“I am awfully sorry for you, Nell, you’ll miss Pat beyond words, shan’t you?”

“Yes,” said the lady of the house, “to-morrow night I shall be utterly alone.”

“How nice for your husband!” Miss Moore laughed. “Where is poor old Tommy going, anyway?”

“Nowhere,” said the lady of the house coolly. “I mean _we_ will be all alone.”

Mrs. Hereford was twenty years younger than her husband. She had never asked herself so often before, how she was going to be able to entertain the prospect of endless luncheons and endless dinners opposite Tommy Hereford.

“Entirely alone,” she murmured again, walking down the long line of presents. From the splendid pearls she came back to Eric Johnson’s purse and stood near it as though something drew her to that special spot. She had not married Hereford to bring up his children, she was only a little older than they. She had been a sister to them during the five years of her married life and Jack Hereford, who was unpopular with his father, adored his stepmother.

“Why did you marry your husband, Helen?” Cynthia Moore asked laughingly, but she did wonder with all her might. Since she had known the two she had never been able to understand the union.

Mrs. Hereford, leaning with one hand on the gift table, the other playing with her long rope of pearls, said absent-mindedly,

“Oh, there must be twenty reasons why!”

“And you can’t think of one!” exclaimed the girl.

On the hard floor of the next room fell the footsteps of some one coming quickly toward them.

“Listen, Nell,” laughed the girl who was staying in the house, “‘the Earl of Moray is stounin’ through the town!’ You’ll miss him, too, when he goes to-morrow! I am awfully sorry for him.”

“Hello, Captain Ramsay!” she said. “Come and take my place and list these things with Mrs. Hereford.” She held out the book and the pencil to him. She understood many things.

Since Ramsay had come to Waybrook ten days before with Jack Hereford, he had scarcely spoken a word to any one; scarcely looked at any one but the lady of the house, and his absorption in her was dangerously charming to a woman not in love with her husband.

“You don’t have to stay in the house all morning, do you, Mrs. Hereford?” he asked eagerly. Ramsay wore the uniform of the Blank Flying Corps, and his breast was full of stars.

“Yes, Miss Moore and I are on guard here, and I wish you would do something for me, will you, like an angel?”

Ramsay mechanically picked up the pigskin purse.

“I have got one like this,” he said, “it doesn’t look like a wedding present! I have carried mine through the war and it is as empty now as it was then,” he laughed.

“Please, please!” urged the lady of the house, “do run down to the graperies where we were yesterday----”

Ramsay interrupted.

“I wanted to go with you now, Mrs. Hereford, down there; can’t we?”

“I am on guard. If anything were stolen from this room, Cynthia and I would be responsible. I am making up a lunch basket for Patricia. She is crazy about Hamburg grapes and I want to put some in.”

“You only want to send me away,” he laughed. “I never went on so many distant errands in my life! Isn’t there something you want in New York?”

“I do want the grapes!”

She wanted to get him from under the clever scrutiny of Cynthia Moore, and after he had gone out of the room, reluctant in every move of his body, Miss Moore asked,

“What do you know about Captain Ramsay?”

The bridesmaid had a fashion of putting questions when she was interested in anything with a frank abruptness, at once alluring and embarrassing.

“Not much, just picturesque things,” said the lady of the house. “There’s the last item, Cinnie, diamond pendant, value four thousand dollars.”