T

HERE are, among "young" writers, certain confusions which act as barriers to progress, and many such stumbling blocks come from undigested technical terms but half grasped by the student. First and most perplexing seems a haziness about the fundamental difference between fact and fiction.

Men and women who have been writing for some time still bring in manuscripts with the recommendation that they are "every word true." This is especially the case where the writer has been a journalist, and the term "story" in his experience has not meant fiction at all in the sense that is used in a newspaper office. A feature "story" is colored, of course, and heightened or strengthened by the manner in which it is presented; but a fiction story is a very different piece of writing. Perhaps Grant Overton, addressing a group of writers, best described fiction when he defined it as "a fact strained through the imagination."

A true bit of actual life seldom has definite beginning, nor a real period to mark its end; it does not always have meaning. Not enough marble has been chipped from the block to give a clear-cut picture of what the artist is trying to express. The use of truth in a story must be understood before we can handle our material with a sure touch.

A fact may suggest a story; it is a stick with which to stir the imagination, a point from which, in the language of our childhood, we can begin "supposing." If so and so is true, what might come of it? But a fact written out with painful accuracy becomes at once a news item probably important only to the writer. There must be, besides the fact, an underlying idea.

showed the death of a ventriloquist. After the death bed with its attendants is made to live before us and we see the forlorn room, the main character is introduced. That character is the mannikin which the dying man has often held upon his knee, putting words, with his strange art, into the painted, wooden mouth. Now the mannikin sits in a corner, unneeded and unheeded.

It is possible that the author saw an item in the paper announcing the death of such a man; that would be a fact to set him wondering. But the underlying idea, the point which the writer pondered upon was, what would that mannikin say if he could actually speak to his dying master? How would he feel, if he had feelings, towards the man who had handled him so imperatively all these years?

The fact that the owner had been a ventriloquist made the sudden speech of the mannikin plausible; it seemed as if the dying man must be speaking. But his lips were still, while the mannikin poured out hate and resentment in a sudden gust of emotion. Presently the doctor finds the master dead; the mannikin again slouches in its corner, dumb. The story is ended.

It is a fact of life that the weak resent the strong, resent being man-handled when they are helpless. Used as a fact, this can be told but once, but as fiction an endless variety of tales can be based on it.

It is reported that Prof. Copeland, speaking to his students, had a way of saying, "But I don't see your people; are you writing about ghosts?" The stumbling block of insufficient characterization is largely a lazy writer's dodge. To create a person alive enough to walk with intimately through the pages of a story, is not the act of a moment. Before we can picture such a man, we must live with him ourselves. Perhaps this is one reason why so many students try to build a

The fact is something to act from, the underlying idea is something to act with. story which illustrates this point, published in one of the Munsey group of magazines a few years ago, was called "The Mannikin." It

story about some person they actually know. They admit that the result does not sound plausible, but they assure us it happened, and that should be enough! If we doubt, they can introduce us to the man himself.

But a short story is not so much a slice of life as it is a little individual pie, or tart, all to itself. It is complete; it has its own boundaries, its beginning and end, and if it is not too thin, a good hearty, satisfying middle. Even a wedge of pie never quite recreates the whole in the imagination; there are still men who prefer seeing it before it is cut, with its unbroken circle of crust, rather than having it served in sections from the kitchen. If a story is completely rounded in itself, it must contain everything necessary to success. Let the writer walk with his characters, question where they came from, what their tastes may be, and whither they are bound, before he tries to present them to his readers. Upon the convincing qualities of a story its appeal rests.

Of the people who start to put pencil to paper too soon there is no end. The ripening power of the mind acting upon an idea held in solution within it, is as yet but half understood. Mary Austin tries to give us an inkling of this in her "Everyman's Genius," but it is a stiff dose for a beginner in psychology. Perhaps it is only necessary to know that if you are working on a story and will drop it once in a while into oblivion until it rises again to consciousness of its own accord, the idea will have improved and furthered in action. In other words, all of a sudden the writer knows what he wants to do- the bright thought has come, and all because he allowed the seed of his story to soak overnight or perhaps many nights - without forcing it.

The old saying, "Write from the heart," is reiterated with all the earnestness in the world by every sincere teacher of the art. Write, not because you want a story in print, but because you have a story aching to be

told.

Editors will warn you- if they are

frank that no other writing can have sufficient vitality to get into print. Behind the crudest tale that you find in the crudest magazine there will be, if you read it fairly, a belief of the author in what he is saying.

To "write to order" is to set the imagination to work upon matter suggested from outside. That in itself does not make it insincere writing. But writing by formula seldom becomes successful until a man's eye is turned, not upon the formula which he has mastered, but upon his subject matter, however chosen. It is possible to put on an artificial habit which cannot be easily shaken off and which limits one's possibilities for better work, but the point is that almost all writing that sees the printed page in reputable places, is sincere writing. The overtones of a story come from the emotion and make the style of the author, and they cannot be controlled. If an editor or critic says, "Everything seems to be here that is necessary to a good story—characters, situation, etc. but somehow it doesn't tick," then go home and sit down with yourself and see if you have been true to what you attempted or whether you took clay from which to fashion your people, breathing no emotion into them because you felt none at their creation.

These then are the main points that trouble certain groups of students in getting started. Perhaps we can avoid them if we sum them up positively rather than negatively:

to provide a home for them for six months on a trial basis. At the end of six months, Miss Albert was to decide whether she wished to marry Mr. Goynes or continue to live in Milwaukee as his foster daughter.

She has made up her mind she can do neither. "I wish I never had begun this whole affair. I tried to make my parents happy, but they are far less happy now than they were back in Siren on their little farm," she said. — St. Paul Pioneer Press. (Sent by Frances Donnersback, St. Paul, Minn.)

HOSPITAL TOO EFFICIENT

Efficiency is the watchword at the hospital for seamen in London. Recently there came a strange old man whose speech attendants could not understand. They burned his clothes, shaved him, bathed him, and put him to bed with a sleeping draught. Next day it was found he had come to visit a friend. - Grit. (Sent by Leonard Emerton, Hanover, Penn.)

JILTED INDIAN FIRES FOREST WHEN MAID FLEES WITH RIVAL

Toronto - The story of an Indian who set fire to a forest into which the maid who jilted him had fled with his rival, came from the north woods today.

The Indian had been singing love songs to a girl of his race. She jilted him and fled with another suitor into the woods. Following them, the rejected suitor waited until the couple entered a forest area in the Lake Savant region. Then he methodically set to work to fire the whole area. A forest ranger surprised him at the task and extinguished the several fires the Indian had set. The brave escaped.

Enlisting the aid of the Air Service, the Royal Canadian mounted flew into the wilderness to the Indian's camp and arrested him. - Los Angeles, Times. (Sent by Nellie Kitchler, Los Angeles, Calif.)

CONTROL WIRES OF AIRPLANE FILED

Officers Monday were without a clue in the plot that almost sent H. Schroeder and Guinn Cross crashing to their death in a disabled plane at the Southern Airways Corporation field. The two men owe their lives to the fact that they discovered the plot before ascending.

Varnish had been placed in the gasoline tank and the cables controlling the movement of the plane had been filed almost in two. Either would have resulted in a fatal plunge had the plane left the ground, it was stated.

"The varnish stain would have allowed the plane's motor to run just long enough to get in the air if we had not discovered a coughing of the motor before it took off," declared A. P. Herff, builder of the plane. Herff was suspicious when the var

nish was found in the tank and looked around for further damage.

This was found in the filed controls. "They likewise were designed to give way when pressure was brought to bear on them," Herff said.

A forced landing at best or a possible tail spin without any means of controlling it would probably have been the fate of the two men if they had ascended in the ship.

Whoever damaged the plane broke open a strong lock on the hangar door to get to the ship. - San Antonio Light. (Sent by William E. Barrett, St. Louis, Mo.)

PERSONAL

Wanted - Dangerous secretive work by young man, husky; educ.; good looking; decor. by two gov'ts. San Francisco Examiner. (Sent by Elsie W. Stanbury, Orland, Calif.)

DANGEROUS EATING

Swallowing a diamond worth $6,000, a workman of a small town in Argentina walks in daily peril of his life. The jewel can only be recovered by an operation, which the man refused to undergo. He has already been the victim of two attempts on his life. Family Herald and Weekly Star, Montreal. (Sent by Julia Graydon, Harrisburg, Penn.)

STARVING MAN COLLAPSES AS GIRL FLIPS PANCAKES

New York - A man collapsed of hunger at 42d Street and Broadway last night while standing in front of a restaurant window watching a girl toss pancakes. Several persons bound for nearby theatres offered to pay for a meal, but an ambulance doctor advised he be removed to a hospital for treatment. Telegraph-Journal, St. John, N. B. (Sent by Alice E. J. Townsend, St. John, N. B.)

BOOTBLACK FINDS $10,000 NECKLACE;
LAWYERS LIKELY TO GET IT
ALL FOR FEES

Chicago - Cares were few for Peter Kyriakos, youthful bootblack, until he found a $10,000 pearl necklace. Now he has become involved in multiple legal tangles that threaten to cost him the price of the necklace.

When Kyriakos found the pearls, he thought they were cheap. He took them to a jeweler, who astounded him by announcing their value and by calling the police. who took the gems and held the bootblack. After several legal skirmishes, the court awarded the necklace to Kyriakos as no one had claimed it, but the police still refuse to surrender it without more litigation. His first attorney has already filed a suit for $3,500 attorney's fees. Providence Journal. (Sent by L. B. Miner, Mystic, Conn.)

THE

HE great number of manuscripts on tragic subjects submitted in our recent prize contests, as well as the mass of contributions to our "Plot-Boilers," made us decide that writers of today must be more interested in tragedy than in anything else. In search for a reason for the present craze for morbid literature, we came to the conclusion that the modern newspaper is largely responsible. We were therefore especially interested in the comment of the judge in the Bookman award of $100 for the best news story appearing in an American newspaper in May. The prize was given to William G. Lytle, Jr., of the Pittsburg Press, for his account of the rescue work following a mine explosion at Mather, Pa., on May 9. The selection was made by Paul Patterson, president of the Baltimore Sun. In commenting on the material submitted, Mr. Patterson said:

I had hoped that in passing on these selections it might be possible to find a story in a lighter vein worthy of the award. I refuse to believe that the fine humor which has been characteristic of good newspaper writing has passed out.

The Editor and Publisher for September 8 contains the following editorial on the Bookman's award for June:

The monthly prize in the Bookman's news story contest, for June, was awarded by Clarke Salmon, managing editor of New Orleans Item-Tribune, to N. E. F. Meekins, a reporter for the Washington (D. C.) News, for a graphic account of the execution of three young men for the murder of a policeman.

We agree with the judge that the story possessed many remarkable human-interest angles which, however, did not tempt the reporter into by-paths of maudlinism. It was

a straight piece of narrative, simply and convincingly told. Florid writing would have spoiled the effect. The award is just, but we wonder why it is that tragedy in news strongly appeals to the judges of the Bookman contest. The awards we have seen went to writers of stories which concerned tragic death. This, of course, is a leading news motif, but the world is full of such a variety of beautiful and thrilling subjects concerning life and action that we wonder why such subjects are not more often chosen. Perhaps it is because these more pleasant subjects are too often overlooked by news writers. Perhaps it is because the conventions of the copy-desk too often demand an appeal to the sense of shock and whittle down to nothing stories that concern subjects which may satisfy intelligent readers, rather than making the hair rise on the heads of the mass.

Such comments made us more eager than ever to conduct a prize contest which would exclude any subject of a tragic nature, in order to discover whether our readers are really incapable of writing on anything else.