Ranck, Reita Lambert, 108

Ranns, H. D., Literary Material in What You

Hear, 34

Reed, Nan Terrell, 108

Rejections, Encouragement from, 21

Remont, Fritzi, Detecting a Writer, 17

Savage, C. Courtenay, 75

Service Journals as a Field for Writers, Caygill, 146

Shepard, Fred S., Appraising the Value of One's

Work, 85

Short Stories, Tingling Ones Wanted, 171
Short Story, The American, 28

Short Story Market, Current Conditions in the,
Mott, 130

Sketches of Writers, Temple Bailey, 133

Song Poems, Not in Demand, 101
Song-Poem Sharks, 132

Stanley, Wallace P., 53.

Stevens, A. Borden, Thinness and Point in Manu-
scripts, 53

Storrs, Marguerite Lusk, 44

Stories, Appeal for Pleasant, 118

Stories, Unwholesome, 149

Story-Construction, Practice in, 180

Story with Two Endings, A, 60

Stott, Roscoe Gilmore,

Writers, 97

Syndicating, 69

Tarkington, Booth, 141

Artificial

Stimulants for

Trade Journals Want Facts and Ideas, Bentley, 113

Trade-Journal Writing as a Profession, Podhaski, 5

Trollope's Popularity, Anthony, 70

Type, The Point System, 149

Typewriting Manuscripts, Rules for, 164

Typewriting, Tips about, 119, 165

Urner, Mabel Herbert, 171

Value of One's Work, Appraising the, 85

Verse, Children's, Gaylord, 131

Verse, Self-instruction in Reading It Aloud, 148

Verse Writers, Suggestions for, Graham, 83

Wallingford, L A., A Literary Enlightenment, 4

Walton, Ednah, Literary Clearance Sales, 145

Walton, Emma Lee, 90

War Stories Barred, 133

Watson, Virginia, 108

West, Roscoe S., Writing for Construction Publi-

cations, 178

White, William

Pictures. 53

Allen, Experience

Winslow, Thyra Samter, 27

Words, Color, Littell, 33

Words, Estimating the Number of, 69

Words, Fashions in, 109, 133

Words, Words, Words, McFarling, 3

Wrath, Caleb, 91

Writer, Detecting a, Remont, 17

with Moving

Writers, Artificial Stimulants for. Stott, 97

Writers, Brief Suggestions to, Huling, 65

Writers of the Day, 26, 44, 59, 74, 89, 107, 140

Writing as a Side-Line for Ministers, Poole, 114

Writing, Fashions in, Downie, 98

Writing Name, Choosing Your, Bird, 163

Writing, Self-Consciousness in, Ellingson, 161

Writing, Thinness and Point in, 21, 53

No. I.

solutely hopeless material every magazine of
recognized standing receives. By this I
mean illiterate manuscripts, written badly,
spelled badly, written on lined note-paper,
often in bad English, wholly without para-
graphing. They are apt to be accompanied
by a note to the effect that the author is very
poor and needs money, and would gladly sell
the story cheap, and, please, won't the editor
try to like it?

Handling letters of this kind is one of the
most painful tasks that can come up in the
course of editorial work. Thackeray, I be-
lieve, has an essay on this subject. It may
seem heartless to send a mere rejection slip.
in response to such a plea, but on the other
hand, since one hesitates to say bluntly
"Your work is hopeless," a letter of any

kind gives encouragement in itself. In the

vast majority of cases, therefore, a speedy

rejection and the hope that a course of rejec-

tions may in time prove discouraging, is all

that lies in the power of an editor.

66

--

Of a very different type are the stories that
editors receive from old ladies charming,
cultivated old ladies. One can fairly see
them telling their little family story or joke
to a circle of admiring friends, and hear the
admiring "Oh, Mrs. Brown! How perfectly
delightful! You should send that to a maga-
zine indeed you should!" And Mrs.
Brown writes out her pet story in her pretty,
old-fashioned handwriting it is usually a
nice little story, too, but evidently just what
it is the work of a delightful and culti-
vated woman who has never done anything
of the kind before. And writing, as very few
people seem to realize, to be good requires
a finish that practice and practice alone can
give. Mrs. Brown being the sort of person.

-

-

There is one class of persons, however, to. whom it is a real pleasure to send rejection slips, and for their benefit a harassed editor wishes at times that slips might be worded more harshly than they are. This class is composed exclusively of young men, and they run to poetry. The poetry is intended to be amusing, but is always cheap and often vulgar. It is accompanied by a note to this effect: "I am sending you some stuff which I dashed off . . . If you like this kind of junk, let me know, as I can send it to you till you get tired of it." Leaving out of consideration the tact involved in seeking to tempt an editor with "junk"- which is, I assume, an effort of modesty - there are, without doubt, some 100,000,000 other people in the United States who could write it equally well. If the authors would only not send it in with such patronizing assurance!

These are a few of the more striking varieties of the worthless manuscripts, from the magazine editor's point of view. Such manuscripts are so fundamentally hopeless that the question of the values of the ideas embodied in them, or the method of their treatment, does not arise.

Next come the manuscripts which, like the gentleman in Mr. Kipling's poem, can be assigned to neither Heaven nor Hell. They are of two kinds

stories which have no particular idea but which are well written, and stories which are not well written but are based upon a good idea.

Usually, nothing can be done with stories in the first of these divisions. If a story is not based upon a good idea, no amount of good writing will pull it through. Stories of the second class, however, can occasionally be rewritten by the author in accordance with criticisms by the editor, and pulled into the acceptable class. These are the manuscripts which call forth objurgations from unsuccessful authors. "I read 'Mrs. Jones' Second Husband' in the United States Magazine for September." they write. "My story is every bit as good as that " which some

times causes an editor qualms of conscience. The answer to this, of course, may be that "Mrs. Jones' Second Husband" was an accident. These things do happen sometimes, you know. The aim of a magazine is not to publish more mistakes, it is to publish the best work it can get. Compare your rejected story with an average story in the United States Magazine, and don't feel hurt unless you cannot, honestly, see any points in which the majority of the accepted stories are not superior to yours. Faults do glare dreadfully in print.

Next comes the last class of stories those that get in. Roughly speaking, they are not more than one per cent. of those we editors read. Most of them come from agencies, or from authors the editors know. This is not because "pull" counts. It is simply because successful authors are successful as the result of long practice, which has brought them in touch with the personnel of the editorial offices. As for the agencies, those of the better class get an author a hearing because they will not attempt to sell stories that do not come up to a certain standard. Their backing means that a story is a good one. Agencies which do not do this are more of a hindrance to an author than a help.

And if editors are funny things, authors are funny, too. We love them and need them, but they are funny. They complain because their manuscripts are returned to them too promptly; they complain because their manuscripts are kept too long. If you want anything from an editor it would seem the part of wisdom to treat him kindly, at least until you are sure you are not going to get it; but "treat 'em rough" appears to be the motto of many authors. I especially remember one letter (which came, I admit, after a rejection) from a gentleman in Oklahoma who described himself on his letterhead as a "Literary Artist." He told us what he thought of us in the plainest language for eight long pages, ending with the information that he was rapidly becoming famous (in proof of which he enclosed a laudatory editorial from a paper which I will here designate as the Kansas State Farmer ). and that the time was, thank God, speedily