Part 28
Second: Having gripped the attention and taken a hold upon the feeling of the reader, it must, in order to qualify for a place in our pages, fill a very real need in the lives of our particular type of readers.
There are many splendid stories which we are forced to return, due to the fact that they do not fill this particular need.
We have among our readers a preponderance of people who have been limited in their mental experiences and are consequently limited in their intellectual grasp. They are, however, from the rural and small town districts in that opulent region extending from the Alleghenies to the Rockies, and are, by virtue of this fact, a peculiarly keen and progressive people. Their judgment is sincere and their viewpoint is human. Their lives are in many cases a bit monotonous and often isolated; in consequence of which a story should have a real narrative interest, and, in all cases, strong entertainment value, with a wholesome dose of brightness and good cheer. We return all morbidly tragic stories.
Third: When we have found a story which stirs the feeling and fills the need of our particular readers, it is then time, and not until then, to look to the technic of the story. That is something which can be regulated to a large extent by editing in those cases where errors are not too flagrant.
There is, of course, a certain readability of expression, absolutely imperative, but that is something incorporate with the first point. They are practically inseparable.
Therefore, granted that the style was such as to make the emotional feeling paramount to the word consciousness of the reader--then any errors which may have crept in are not too flagrant to be corrected.
Of course, we do not find, in as many cases as we wish, stories which meet all three requirements, and oftentimes our pages have in them things which fall short of these three points.
ELIZABETH B. CANADAY.
_The People’s Popular Monthly._ Des Moines, Iowa.
PHOTOPLAY
I do not believe that any editor, whether of a fiction magazine or any periodical, can judge material successfully on any other than a very personal basis of likes and dislikes. In other words, I buy a story if I like it, and believe this to be the only method. Someone has to pass on it finally, and a publication must stand or fall on his judgment.
JAMES R. QUIRK.
_Photoplay._ 25 West Forty-fifth Street, New York City.
PICTORIAL REVIEW
You ask me a pretty difficult question--I have no absolute rule for saying yes or no to a short story and, as far as that goes, I don’t think any other editor has. There are such things in magazine offices as editorial policies, but if they are good editorial policies they must be more or less elastic, subject to change without notice and not very well defined anyway. Folks come in and ask me what kind of stories _Pictorial Review_ likes. The only answer I can give is “good stories.” If they ask why I buy this story and not that, I would say because I think it more interesting than the other, but to go further and to ask me to explain precisely why it is the more interesting is too much for me. There may be editors who can sit down and in a magic manner tell just exactly why they bought this story and refused that, but they must be smarter editors than I am. I really cannot do it with sincerity or conviction and do not try.
Do I buy stories because I like them myself or because I think our readers will like them? That’s another sticker. I generally buy stories because I like them myself, because if I disregarded my own taste and tried to pick out a story that our readers would like and which I didn’t like, I would be hopelessly at sea all the time.
I would really feel ashamed of myself were I to publish a story which I personally thought to be piffle just because I thought it would “sell the magazine.”
Moreover, I don’t think any editor knows just what his readers like or _might_ like except in a general way. We have no exact way of telling and my experience has been to follow my own judgment and, when the Circulation Manager comes along and tells me the circulation of the magazine is increasing by leaps and bounds, I am then licensed to feel that my judgment must have been good. Because I am just a plain, ordinary type of person and there must be hundreds of thousands and millions of people in the country like me; and what interests me will quite generally interest them, at least I have found it so. Don’t take from this that the Circulation Manager comes along every month and tells me the circulation of the magazine is increasing by leaps and bounds, but sometimes he does, and then I know a certain story or serial in the magazine got across in a big way; but what does that mean? It doesn’t mean that I can go out off-hand and get another story just like it and ring the bell again. We don’t buy stories that way--writers do not write them that way--I wish they did because the editor’s job would be easy.
Now here’s another peculiar thing, _Pictorial Review_ is a woman’s magazine, and yet I am a man and there is nothing particularly feminine about me in my tastes or activities. We do not pick out stories because we think they are good woman’s magazine stories; in fact, we have no earthly use for the typical woman’s magazine story, that sweet and pretty, mush and milk affair that used to grace the pages of our contemporaries. We found out years ago that women were interested in good, short stories that picture the vital, human things in life and that there was no real reason for their being obliged to go to the men’s magazines to read them. So we began to publish real stories in _Pictorial Review_.
I realize that all this is more or less indefinite and possibly of little help to the aspiring author, but if said aspiring author will bear in mind that the only way to sell short stories is to make them interesting and, if they are made sufficiently interesting, they will sell themselves--that’s all there is to it.
ARTHUR T. VANCE.
_Pictorial Review._ THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY, 214-226 West 39th Street, New York City.
POPULAR MAGAZINE
In selecting stories I bear in mind the fact that the buying of fiction is a business and not a literary occupation. This means that I have always in mind the ultimate consumer--the fellow who knows nothing of literature as such but who likes good stories.
What are these?
First and foremost, a story about a new phase of life and industry. The American reader is by no means a prude or intolerant, but he likes sane, almost practical stuff. He likes romance, but it must be normal and wholesome. He does not like the erotic or morbid. Without being in the least “literary,” his taste is surprisingly good. As a rule, he does not want tragedies, but will accept them if exceedingly well done. A good mystery story is sure-fire.
Current American fiction is one of the livest things in the world to-day. Keen intelligence goes into the making of it. It plays a bigger part in the formation of public opinion than most people know. It is a genuinely civilizing influence. As a rule, a man’s taste in fiction improves and his standards in stories become higher the more he reads. The very cheapest of the magazines are turning the foreign populations of the second generation in our cities into Americans at a surprising rate. The author of the day is writing for a big public, not a small, select one.
Here are a few things for the author to bear in mind. If a writer can describe human beings so well that they seem real; if he sometimes laughs at, sometimes is irritated with, sometimes loves these people who come to life in the pages of the story, he has his first great point. If he can write conversation such as you actually hear he has his second. If he can write good, straightforward English, at once clear, forcible, and vivid, he has the third. But all of these are of no use unless the author has the sense of construction that makes him write real stories,--that is, plots that unfold and develop to a logical conclusion, instead of mere sketches or anecdotes. The one satisfies; the other does not.
Successful authors all work hard, and the bigger an author is the more you can criticise his work to his face. He appreciates that it is a technical calling and he wants and appreciates intelligent criticism.
Are there many good writers who can’t get a hearing? Practically none. Names count in a fashion. The author who has a public gets stronger with his readers the more he writes. If a man has a literary gift and the energy and persistency back of it he will find fiction a good business.
But just because story-writing has taken on some of the aspects of commercialism it has by no means lost the romance, the humor, the humanity, that it had in the old Grub Street days. After all, we are dealing with the stuff that dreams are made of, the inspiration of ambition, the literature of hope and effort and human aspiration, the running chronicle of our ways, our manners, our civilization. Most of it will fade and pass with the fading years; some of it will live.
CHARLES AGNEW MACLEAN.
_Popular Magazine._ STREET AND SMITH CORPORATION, Seventh Avenue and Fifteenth Street, New York City.
THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE
Karl Harriman, the editor, had promised a statement as he said that he welcomed this opportunity to point out to would-be contributors the differentiation in editorial policy between The Red Book Magazine, The Blue Book Magazine and The Green Book Magazine. However, a press of unexpected work made it impossible for him to do this before this book had to be sent to press. At that time he spoke in a general way of the fact that for The Red Book Magazine he was constantly looking for stories of the different sections of the United States; then again for stories of the different interests that were absorbing the attention of the people at the moment, such as stories of oil, psychic stories, etc. For The Blue Book Magazine he wanted more out-and-out adventure and tales that would primarily appeal to men; for The Green Book Magazine stories that would find their immediate audience among women.
_The Red Book Magazine._ _The Blue Book Magazine._ _The Green Book Magazine._ 36 South State Street, Chicago, Ill.
THE SATURDAY EVENING POST
George Horace Lorimer, the editor-in-chief of _The Saturday Evening Post_, said quite frankly when asked to write briefly his attitude and point of view in the selecting of fiction for his magazine that neither he nor his staff were willing to regard the _Post_ as a training school for young writers.
He went on to say that he and his associates felt that the circulation of the magazine, the fact that it bought more fiction than any other American periodical, paid well and quickly, and published without great delay, made it inevitable that most writers who entered the profession would in the course of events submit material to the _Post_. Should a story by an unknown writer please one of the staff readers it would then be submitted to him and to his immediate associates for acceptance or rejection. Should this same writer succeed equally with subsequent stories, the _Post’s_ editors would then personally consult with this author as to the magazine’s immediate needs and help by suggestion and advice to make his or her material more available from the _Post_ viewpoint.
In this connection it is interesting to note that while their list of writers includes many of the best-known names among American short story writers, the magazine has also accepted and published the stories of many writers who had had no previous audience and whose names were until the time of their appearance in the _Post_ wholly unknown.
While it is perhaps impossible to state tersely what the _Post_ wants, and while Mr. Lorimer may hesitate to speak didactically as to what is and what is not a good short story, the earnest student can easily discern certain of the _Post_ requirements by a study of the magazine. That the stories are inclined to run to a certain more or less definite length; that the majority are American in both setting and characters; that they conform to a certain standard of writing and method of treatment is at once apparent, and certain errors of judgment in submission may easily be avoided.
_The Saturday Evening Post_, CURTIS PUBLISHING CO., Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pa.
SCRIBNER’S MAGAZINE
Robert Bridges, the editor of _Scribner’s Magazine_, felt that he would do injustice to his periodical were he to attempt to say in a few short paragraphs the type of stories they preferred. He went on to say that the magazine had been in existence for so long that its reputation for good art and good craftsmanship in everything that appeared in its pages was so well established that nothing he could say would either add to or make more definitely practical from the neophyte’s approach the type of fiction wanted.
_Scribner’s Magazine._ 599 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
SHORT STORIES
The best, indeed the only reply to the question as to the needs of a magazine that I can think of is--read it. That is the answer for _Short Stories_.
When a writer asks me what we want for _Short Stories_, I am apt to feel a bit hopeless for, as I see it, my first duty is to seek and develop talent, and my second is to select material. I cannot feel that it is good for a fiction magazine, nor good for a fiction writer, to have the editor suggest ideas, or plots. (General magazines using non-fiction articles are different. In the nature of things they must suggest articles and ideas to their writers.) An intelligent reading of a fiction magazine will give a better idea of its aims and field than any amount of talking by the editor. We can at best, in the time at our disposal, give an idea of our field. The more important thing is the spirit of the magazine, and that can only be taken in by reading it.
Once a writer gets the spirit of the magazines he wishes to write for and has determined their respective fields, it is up to him.
Within the scope of his publication, and in its general spirit, what an editor wants most of all is _ideas_--something new, fresh, different.
There is one more preliminary point--self-analysis. Many writers suffer from lack of understanding of their own material. The field is so large to-day that any writer can develop his own natural imaginative expression and find a market for it. If one is more interested in outdoor adventure--write it. If a writer’s mind runs to psychological problem stories--write those. There are magazines looking for adventure and others looking for psychological character analysis. But don’t, Mr. Writer, try to force yourself to write something you yourself do not like. You cannot write down to a field successfully, and you must develop into a higher literary class naturally, by hard work.
As for _Short Stories_: Being primarily a magazine of adventure and the outdoors, our interest naturally lies in that field first. Our public is a wide one embracing many kinds of people. Yet, when they buy a fiction magazine like _Short Stories_, we are convinced they do so in pretty much the same frame of mind. They want to be amused. They want a good story. They want to read it in a hurry, on a railroad train, in a spare hour, or to relieve a tedious wait. We believe they do not want too much complexity, nor too highly polished a style. Literary excellence is all to the good. We want it and our readers appreciate it, but it must be within our field and done in our spirit. For example, imagine the joy of our public if we could publish as brand new to-day some of Kipling’s early short stories--“The Man That Would Be King,” “William the Conqueror,” and the rest. They fall perfectly “within our scope,” and in spite of the fact that they were done by the greatest literary craftsman of the age, they are not, like some of his later work, too subtle for our public. They are mostly on the objective plane, full of action, stories straight from the shoulder.
Of course, our public like stories of the far places, of the West, both old and new, of the North and the Tropics. Yet, even to these there are some strange exceptions such as the question of remoteness from the reader’s understanding. Miles are nothing to the author or to the reader of the printed page, but unless the author succeeds in making the reader feel his locality, the sense of remoteness creeps in and the story fails. Naturally, with this small world and the fairly limited number of situations possible to a human being in adventure, variety becomes a very desirable thing with us--variety, remember, within our field.
The public that reads _Short Stories_ likes mystery stories. That in itself is a broad field and includes the tales of the tracking down of the perpetrators of crime--detective stories. We have mighty few hard and fast rules, but we never use a story in which we make crime and criminals heroic. If the hero of a story is a burglar, we want the story to show his redemption, the failure of crime with its ultimate punishment, or we want his actions within the story to be for a laudable purpose. Our attitude may best be summed up by the phrase, “the effect on the young.” We want no story which will have an evil effect on any reader.
Mystery stories tend to run along conventional lines. We would like some variety there. The playwrights have accomplished something new and thrilling in pieces such as: “The Unknown Purple,” “The 13th Chair,” “The Alibi” with excellent results. Why cannot some equally ingenious writers work out mystery tales as far from the ordinary murder or jewel mysteries as these?
And humor! Oh, give us humor! Not too subtle, nor too rough. But give us a laugh. Human interest stories too. Business stories and the sports interest our readers. They are fairly scarce, the good ones, so we are always on the lookout for them.
_Short Stories_, like its contemporaries, including _The Saturday Evening Post_, was created by a reading public’s _demand_. Therefore, with the exception of the purely love stories and speaking quite generally, any story that would hit _The Saturday Evening Post_ would hit us. Many and many a writer appearing regularly in that great weekly has found himself through the medium of _Short Stories_ and similar magazines.
The love theme is desirable in our field. Our public, we believe, likes it, but only as a normal motive in a plot. We do not use love stories, as such, but love naturally enters into and strengthens any story, adventure, mystery, business, humor, sports, or what not.
We are not squeamish, yet we never forget that phrase, “the influence on the young.” We do not want to print any story that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Our public do not want nor expect that in _Short Stories_. Hence, the so-called sex story is not for us.
A word as to dialect. We try to print stories that read easily and smoothly. Too hard or too consistent a dialect repels readers. Likewise, the widely popular slang “roughneck” story. We use ’em of course, but we do not want ’em _too_ rough. Every reader likes the relief of straight English rather than to go through page after page of dialect or slangy misspelling.
But, read the magazine, and then _within our scope_ give us something different.
HARRY E. MAULE.
_Short Stories._ DOUBLEDAY PAGE & COMPANY, Publishers, Garden City, N.Y.
THE SMART SET
As Editors of _The Smart Set_, Mencken and I buy any story that appeals to us personally. We employ no so-called “readers.” Every manuscript submitted to the magazine is read by the one or the other of us. We have no rules. But, we have prejudices. Style is a most important factor. The viewpoint of a cultured man or woman is a most important factor.
GEORGE JEAN NATHAN.
_The Smart Set._ 25 West Forty-fifth Street, New York City.
SNAPPY STORIES
I am setting forth, more or less briefly, what _Snappy Stories_ desires from its contributors. From its inception, this magazine has specialized in fiction and other material with a strong sex interest, and this policy is being adhered to--not because this is the only type of story that appeals to us, but because we feel that there are a vast number of readers who enjoy tales with themes based upon the relations between the sexes. This is by no means a depraved taste, but a healthy, natural one, characterizing most normal men and women. Many of the most famous stories ever written have had this so-called sex interest, and this applies also to plays and grand operas. Vulgar or salacious material is barred, but we have no objection to stories that are a trifle audacious or that have a dash of the risqué.
Each bi-monthly issue of _Snappy Stories_ contains a complete novelette of from 15,000 to 18,000 words. This is the length we prefer, although we sometimes publish longer novelettes or shorter ones. They should be strongly plotted, with plenty of action and a real climax. Happy endings preferred, but not absolutely insisted upon. Occasionally a good humorous novelette or an ingeniously plotted mystery story, without a pronounced sex interest, is used.
We publish one short serial of from 20,000 to 30,000 words, suitable for two or three parts. Longer stories are occasionally taken, and used in a greater number of installments. What we have said about the novelette applies also to the continued story: stories with sex interest stand the best chance of acceptance. Of course we desire good “breaks” where they are to be divided.
Short stories, of which we use about eight to a number, may be of almost any length, although those of 5,000 words or less are most in demand. We don’t want them either padded or unduly compressed. Sex interest here also, although we sometimes use other kinds--humorous, say, or a good occult or mystery tale. We do not object to unhappy endings. Action is a desideratum. Slow moving stories, depending principally on atmosphere and characterization, are not desired.
A short play is published in every issue. These may be funny or serious. We want especially good acting plays, clever and skilfully plotted.
We use a number of poems, mostly tense love verses or those of a humorous or whimsical sort. Occasionally blank verse is used. Poems may vary in length from the quatrain to forty lines. We seldom buy longer ones, although this is not a hard and fast rule.
There is a good market here for short bits of prose, of six hundred words or less. These may be grave or gay, cynical or satirical. Jokes and epigrams are also in demand.