Volume 39

It unte T has undoubtedly been noted by many readers of THE WRITER that, while our editorial policy has been constructive in matters of technique and markets as they affect the individual writer, it has so far been frankly destructive or noncommittal toward all the agencies which offer their services to the writer and toward any "movement" in literature. I choose the beginning of a new year as an appropriate time to announce a change of policy, or rather the introduction of an added policy, which may have important consequences on the character of this magazine.

However sound the advice on technical problems, and however accurate and up to date the information concerning markets offered to writers in magazines and books, he who works alone, outside the circles which revolve around the publishing houses and editorial offices of large cities, does, it must be admitted, labor under disadvantages. Especially does he suffer from lack of unbiased critical opinion of his work. This need is vital.

"The successful writer often does not know whether or not he has succeeded in conveying the thought he intended," comments Mr. Arthur Sullivant Hoffman, editor of "Adven

Number I

ture," in his book, "Fundamentals of Fiction Writing":

"Naturally enough," he says, "authors are inclined to a kind of reversed ostrich habit. If a point was clear to them when they wrote it, they take for granted that it must be clear to the reader. They forget that they have full knowledge of all that is or happens in their fiction, while the reader can know only what comes to him from the printed page. Often when an editor points out an unclearness they argue with him, blissfully ignoring the fact that the editor is himself a reader and that the reader found it unclear. Possibly the author proves his case—that is, he points out other passages in the story which do clear up the unclearness, if the reader remembers them and makes the correct inferences and connections. The fact that, in the actual test, these passages failed to produce the intended results on the reader slides off the author like water off a duck. Still less does he get the idea that a reader should n't be distracted from the story by being compelled to go into a more or less complicated reasoning process in order to get what should have been handed to him on a platter. Even if several editorreaders found the point unclear, he stands by his guns."

If experienced writers must sometimes be straightened out on their lack of clarity in personal conferences with editors or literary agents who have good business reasons for straightening them out, what of the writer at a distance who has no such connections? And yet it is not a subtile problem of technique at point, but only an issue which might well be settled by a jury of reasonable men who have never seen the inside of an editorial office. How much more valuable can such criticism be if the jurors have even a smattering of technical and professional knowledge?

Much as the writer may require unbiased criticism of his work on points of technique, he needs still more the inspiration of working together with others. Everyone knows of cases where mere association with creative workers has brought to life talent which would otherwise have lain dormant, and, although this can never be proved, we all are quite certain that talent has frequently languished, not for mere lack of sympathy, but for want of a worker on the bench alongside. There appears to be something social in the very nature of artistic creation. It may be argued that the finished work of a master should be both sufficient example and inspiration to the student. But it is n't it never has been. Studying the work of a master is a far different thing from studying under a master. The copyist never goes beyond the original the apostle or the coworker frequently does. The history of painting, sculpture, and music contains abundant evidence of this.

I have touched upon two needs of the developing writer, professional or amateur: first that of a jury to decide whether or not he has written as he thinks; second, of association with a group of co-workers. There is one other, of cardinal importance. It is of a laboratory where he can test out by trial and error the relation of his individual talents to the demands of the reading public. It is especially important that he learn of his capacities or limitations before he proceed far in his professional career. I believe that

more modern writers of real promise have been ruined by early success in a special restricted field a certain type or genre of writing than by any other agency. A negro story, say, sells for a good price second brings still more. The writer throws up his regular job at once and starts to grind out negro stories. When it is too late he discovers that he is good for nothing else. Writing to a pattern has set his creative imagination in a groove. Instead of an explorer he has become a miner, and his vein runs out. He might have learned to experiment a little if he had had the opportunity. What is the remedy, but to find an experimental laboratory?

For the past year I have been looking about for some individual, some institution, some idea which promised to fulfill these three needs, willing to give full editorial support to any that showed real promise. For a long time I found nothing. During this time I have talked to many editors, and many writers. I have had thousands of letters from all kinds of people interested in writing for publication. I have read most of the advertisements of the agencies which proffer aid to the writer and I have examined many of their "propositions."

Correspondence schools, literary agents, manuscript critics, literary bureaus, publishing clubs, literary societies a strange mixture of vanity peddling, fool-baiting and commercialized pedantry, with here and there someone of real capacity, something of real value. But the good things are mostly oneman affairs - to advertise them would destroy their usefulness to the limited few who are profiting from them. The literary agent is a real aid to well established writers, practically none to the unknown. There seems to be a place for the manuscript critic. But an expansion of any of the existing agencies to render service to all those who needed help seemed on the face of it impossible.

Yet out of this chaos, from a direction where we expected nothing, something real began to emerge. A rather half-hearted editorial experiment suddenly struck fire: the

establishment of a Manuscript Club Department. The Manuscript Club was n't a new idea, but an old one that had been working with variable degrees of success in isolated places throughout the country. No one of influence had ever chosen to stand as its sponsor except locally. At first, I distrusted it. It had too many of the earmarks of amateurism. But the evidence began to pile up; here and there were isolated cases of truly astounding performances. While in some cases the application of the idea was amateurish and a rank failure, in others it was distinctly professional and entirely successful. Some of the reasons for failure and some of the reasons for success began to appear. Gradually, the assurance came that the manuscript club idea contained the essence of all that other things lacked, at least in so far as the practical needs of the writer were concerned. At its best, it was at once a jury of criticism, a clinical laboratory of talent, and a social organization of co-workers. But it was something a little more than that.

Not long ago I clipped, for my scrap book, this from a book review by Mr. H. L. Mencken: "Her style is not a mere gift of God; she acquired it by long and hard efforts to write advertisements that would fetch home the bacon. It suggests the thought that the American literati of tomorrow will probably come out of advertising offices, instead of out of newspaper offices as in the past. The advertisement copy-writers in fact have already gone far ahead of the reporters. They choose their words more carefully. They are better workmen if only because they have more time for good work. I predict formally that they will produce a great deal of the sound American literature of tomorrow."

While I do not join with some in proclaiming Mr. Mencken the complete oracle on literary matters, I believe that more good writers will come from the thousands engaged in writing of advertisements than from the tens of thousands who are working alone. It is perfectly clear that unless the training as workmen which advertisers are getting can be

duplicated for the proper development of the tens of thousands, our recruiting ground for the writers of tomorrow is restricted. Remember this: a regular stint of work under the lash of criticism done at a bench beside others similarly engaged is the mould of education that was used yesterday on the successful writers of today and is being used today on the education of the successful writers of tomorrow. The multiplication of such moulds throughout the nation must be one of the greatest possible services to American letters. The Manuscript Club Idea offers to accomplish this.

Has it any special significance viewed in relation to the present state of literature in America? The situation is admirably summed up by John Macy in "American Literature." "American literature," he says, "is on the whole idealistic, sweet, delicate, nicely finished. In its artistic forms: poetry, fiction, and the drama, it lacks the vigor of our expository and argumentative writing. The essayists, expounders, and preachers attack life vigorously and wrestle with the meaning of it." But "the poets are thin, moonshiny, meticulous in technique. Novelists are few and feeble, and dramatists are non-existent. It is hard to explain why the American, except in his exhortatory and passionately argumentative moods, has not struck deep into American life, why his stories are, for the most part, only pretty things, nicely unimportant."

The explanation is not so difficult. Any man will start an argument with you. If you win it, you have confidence to sit down and write it out for the magazines. But it's harder to find anyone willing to discuss with you if you have a subject fit for artistic treatment and whether you have treated it in an original way. Therefore you have no confidence in yourself as an artist, however highly you may rate yourself as a debater.

Mr. Macy continues: "The Jason of western exploration writes as if he had passed his life in a library. The Ulysses of great rivers and perilous seas is a connoisseur of Japanese

prints. The warrior of 'Sixty-one' rivals Miss Marie Corelli. The mining engineer carves cherry stones. He who is figured as gaunt, hardy, and aggressive, conquering the desert with the steam locomotive, sings of a pretty little rose in a pretty little garden. The judge, haggard with experience, who presides over the most tragi-comic divorce court ever devised by man, writes love stories that would have made Jane Austen smile.

"Mr. Arnold Bennett is reported to have said that if Balzac had seen Pittsburgh, he would have cried: 'Give me a pen!' The truth is, the whole country is crying out for those who will record it, satirize it, chant it. As literary material, it is virgin land, ancient as life and fresh as a wilderness. American literature is one occupation which is not overcrowded, in which, indeed, there is all too little competition for the newcomer to meet. There are signs that some earnest young writers are discovering the fertility of a soil that has scarcely been scratched."

I wonder if most of these earnest young writers have really discovered the fertility of our national soil. Else why are they so busily spreading manure over it? When I think of modern literature in terms of symbols, I see an innocent young college girl, quivering with a shame-faced desire to be smart, offering to the editor of a confessional magazine some horrid "true story" that she had created entirely out of her imagination and that none but she will ever know she has written.

Until we can get over being ashamed of our pursuit of truth we shall never succeed in making any contribution to the standing literature of the English language. Self-conscious, shame-faced expression of eroticism is not the truth although it may be the apparent fad of the day.

too much a revolution, too little an evolution. It is supported among book-buyers and magazine readers by scattered individuals who enjoy being shocked, rather than by any representative group of intelligent people. Therefore the whole invigorating modern movement is likely to be stranded unless the writers who feel its influence to dare greatly are forced to take on the burden of convincing a small representative group that this daring expresses itself in terms of art.

I have just finished reading through the Copeland Reader. Among the modern selections, I found an editorial by William Allen White which appeared in his newspaper, the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette. It was about the death of his daughter Mary. It wasn't written for the world at large-only for the Emporia folks who had known her. It truthfully described scenes, accurately told facts that everybody in Emporia knew. And because it did that and because it gave those scenes and facts a simple spiritual interpretation, it burns deep into the reader who has never seen Emporia. If I were a writer living in Emporia or anywhere else - I would take that lesson to heart. I would try to form an Emporia Manuscript Club. The most promising young reporter on the Gazette, the best advertisment writer roundabout, others like myself interested in writing, perhaps one of the local English teachers, and the local librarian would be asked to join. I should try to write with courage and truth about Emporia - not Italy or Spain what would interest, first of all, this group, and secondly, the general reading public. And if I did n't succeed myself, I'd hope some other member of the group might.

While the possibilities of co-operative effort in writing, through the Manuscript Club, have by no means been exhausted by this brief discussion, enough has perhaps been said to indicate my grounds for believing that the manuscript club idea is one of the greatest potential forces in American literature today. It offers the solution to most of the practical problems of the free-lance writer and it dup

In my opinion our search after vitality and truth as against mere prettiness will not take us far, unless writers are made conscious of an intelligent constituency of readers which must be persuaded of the artistic justification of every step we take away from the old standards. The "new movement" now seems

licates in principle the most successful type of professional training, thus expanding the recruiting-ground and the proving-ground for our creative writers of tomorrow. In addition it offers to control and guide a promising new movement toward the development of a native American literature. But all that I have said would be in the realm of theory and opinion had not the manuscript club idea already proved its vitality and soundness in many places throughout the country, in spite of the lack of national support and sponsorship. Oddly enough, the number of such clubs has at least doubled during the past year through the influence of the Manuscript Club Department in THE WRITER, which, up to this time, has been frankly an experiment and has received no editorial support.

The manuscript club is not primarily a social (in the sense of "society") organization. It is a society of workers. It is not a literary club gathering to hear lectures by famous poets and authors. It confines itself chiefly to the business of criticizing the work of its members and suggesting markets for this work. Manuscripts are usually read by the secretary without revealing the name of the author, which at once relieves him of embarrassment and makes the discussion more candid than otherwise it might be. In some clubs the question of anonymity is left at the option of the author.

Usually, the emphasis is placed too much on criticism, to the exclusion of the problem of selling the literary output of the members. Let me state here that I am far more interested in the development of native American literature than in the financial rewards of any one, or all, of the readers of THE WRITER. On the other hand, I stand firmly on the ground that good literature always has had, and always will have, an intimate connection with the business of publishing. To deny the commercial side its proper place is to encourage amateurish self-expression which is as bad as amateurish psycho-analysis. That way lies the suicide of talent, and of individuality.

It seems, therefore, advisable to establish a regular policy of calling for suggestions from the floor as to possible markets after a manuscript has been read and criticized. More than that, each member should be assigned a group of publishers and magazines for careful study. Publishers' catalogues reveal the type of material used and often indicate receptiveness to the work of new authors. The study of sample copies of magazines will yield valuable results if detailed notes are made of the types of stories, articles, fillers, special departments, etc. A group of ten people, or less, by dividing all the leading magazines of the country among themselves and each studying his share, may soon qualify as an advisory council on marketing problems of great co-operative value. Samples of magazines not sold on the local news-stands can be obtained by sending stamps to the publishers, whose latest addresses are given in THE FREE LANCE WRITER'S HANDBOOK.

There is a manuscript club in Richmond, Virginia, which is in most respects typical of many scattered throughout the country. Mrs. Eudora Ramsay Richardson relates that it was organized three years ago by a group of ten, only two of whom had previously written for publication.

"Of that original number," she says, "only two are still in the non-selling class, and they are there because for them writing is a pastime infrequently enjoyed. The new members added from time to time are those selling or those showing indications of immediate breaking into print. The markets attained include all the syndicates using short fiction, many of the all-fiction magazines, and a number of the other popular magazines of wide general circulation. Scribner's, the Ladies' Home Journal, Collier's, Holland's, Success, Travel, the Modern Priscilla, Argosy, many smaller magazines, and several of the best known children's magazines and papers are among the markets to which members of the club have recently sold manuscripts.

"The club meets every other week, listens to the reading of two stories, and criticizes