to, or reformed; they have understanding minds; they crave recreation. Writers certainly can do a big part in giving it to them. But what they are not interested in is that very quality that bubbles over in the beginning author; he has his personal inhibitions, his fixed ideas, he writes to satisfy his inner self. But, unless he has led an unusual life, readers are not licking up with any real zeal the output that satisfies his ego. He should learn to broaden these same experiences until they become universal ones; then he will be able to touch the lives of his compatriots.

Every editor of every publication is searching for the new writer. He has a business to build and he can build it only by accumulating new talent; his magazine is going on long after his present contributors are dead. He must buy, he must build, but, on the other hand, the writer must have something more to sell than just his own pet hobbies interpreted through characters.

It is in getting this meaning, this interpretation between the author and the reader that the agent can be of inestimable value if he happens to have an editorial mind. Very little of the material written is a waste product; most of it can be salvaged and many good manuscripts are lying in bureau drawers. Discouragement, lack of complete knowledge of the market, and often the inability to sustain his interest in his own production until that production is sold are the enemies of the

creator.

Today presents its own distinct problem to the agent in the corralling of material, for the trained writer of experience, the product of the traditions of the nineties and the early part of this century, can write, but oh, does n't he fight against the social ideas that are today! And the young writer, who has all the modern ideas, is often lost to public view because he cannot get himself out of the complex of plot, situation and characterization. This is not confined to stories; it is perhaps at its worst among playwrights. Not long ago a young man brought a play into my office (I can tell this because he "came

through" so beautifully) and announced that since he could not sell his idealistic romances he had decided to write a sex play, which he felt sure would be produced. The play proved to be centered around a seduction of the type used in melodrama of the early seventeenth century; had he done it into a book, he would have probably lined up with Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield." But he was sincere. He was a long time learning what a sex play really was. Since then he has produced two in the provinces.

The author who is difficult to help is that one who thinks he has a right to show his personal characteristics to the world through his characters. He creates a group of people who are brought together under artificial circumstances. Never in this world would they have normally followed one another into friendships, because they each represent the type that the author is himself; they are his facets. This particular author will always reiterate that he has the moral right to do this, just as he has the moral right to develop in his physical children the characteristics that resemble him.

The minute you have started the life of a character, you must let him live it. Fitting the right people into the place where they belong is the art of writing.

Only two quantities are to be considered in any writing; the situation, and the people who either dominate or are subdued by the situation. All the other elements are ramifications of this. But so many writers force their people to solve a situation that characteristically they are not capable of solving. If the situation is the predominating factor in the story, be sure the characters that would psychologically fit into it are there, and if the character predominates, take care that your situations are the right ones for him. If you do this you have, without much thought and with no effort, written a story that will touch the lives of the people . . . technically speaking, it will have "human interest," and you will have a story that can be visualized into a motion picture or dramatized into a

play. For these stories there is no end of a market.

Then there is the much-talked-about "inferior complex"; the author who thinks he must wait for inspiration to come with a gala entrance, and that without her, he can do nothing. He is generally the bureau-drawer man; he had one flare, and then when the editor did n't have the same flare, he succumbed to the complex.

The agent should function in another capacity. Many authors, the first time an objection is presented, stand up in defence of their brain-child. They are very human. The editor tries to tell them just why the particular magazine that he is editing can't run that story and the first meeting between these people who ought to be all-in-all to each other is one of annoyance on the one side, and keen resentment on the other. The agent can act as the go-between, because there is no personal feeling in the agent. He is in business to help the author to become a commercial asset to the editor.

Literature is the expression of life and as such it is an art; its art lies in the definiteness and the clarity of its expression. There is nothing degrading nor debasing about expressing the conditions of the period in which you are living. This is just as valuable a period to the future historians as any other era has been. The difficulty lies in presenting it without bias and with tolerance and understanding. People want to know about it, they want the reactions by and large. They are

not interested in whether you approve or disapprove.

One of the activities of the Community Church of New York is the Young Writers' Group, in which I have the privilege of leadership. It covers the fundamentals of the whole field of writing, for when a young man or woman has the "writing sense" it is very difficult for him to decide upon the form that is best suited to his temperament. Many short-story writers should be novelists, and never will they acquire the dramatic concept that is needed to make them short-story writers or playwrights. But they struggle along, because they have the idea that the novel "takes so long" or that the short-story brings "quicker recognition." I speak of this group because of the very interesting plan that Mr. Kennedy outlined in his recent article in THE WRITER. His plan is practicable because it puts the beginner in the group where he is not afraid of superior workmanship, or more trained opinion. It encourages him to give voice to his ideas. Several members of my particular group were not only unable to write but they were inarticulate when they joined, and now they are well started toward production. It has been a most satisfactory experiment, and in a recent public address John Haynes Holmes, minister of the Community Church, said that he was deeply interested in the potential writers that are growing up there, and he looked forward to the establishment of similar movements throughout the country.

IN

'N the first article in this series the Manuscript Club was defined as a small group of writers meeting regularly to criticize the work of its members and to suggest markets for this work. So far we have discussed the activities of a typical club especially from the standpoint of criticism. But of even more practical importance may be the co-operative study of markets and the co-operative marketing of manuscripts. Very few clubs throughout the country, it is my opinion, are fully realizing their opportunities in this direction.

Working alone, a writer can greatly increase his chances of selling his work by analysis and study of the editorial content of selected magazines. In the London Writer for January, a British free-lance describes his experiences thus:

"Those breakfast stories in the Daily Express, for example, little tales with a surprise ending - I longed to write one of them. They did not seem particularly difficult; some of them I even privately labelled poor; but for nearly a month I wrote out the barest synopsis of each as they appeared in print. I made copious notes about them, their subject, their setting, style of opening, whether conversational or otherwise; type of characters used, age, class, etc.; number of words, style and length of title, so that at the end of the month it was a fairly simple matter to model my ideas into the form suggested by the notes. And the result: my first attempt came back; my second was accepted.

I employed much the same method with those Nutshell Novels of the Bystander, Passing Show, and the Humorist. In these cases I noticed that the theme usually dealt with some incident or action connected with a sport or event of topical interest. But here in choosing the subject special attention had to be paid to the reading public of the paper. For instance, I do not think a Nutshell Novel which

a hunting public. A sketch of this type was submitted to and accepted by the Bystander."

A number of American writers are doing much the same sort of thing and some of them are succeeding. On the other hand, this may be a waste of time. Working to a set pattern may narrow the potential market for the manuscript to one or two periodicals, and these may be depending on their staff writers entirely for material. Such a market may not only be narrow; it may be entirely closed to outsiders.

Most Americans, and probably most British, prefer to write what is less restricted as to form and length. But, because the number of magazines is legion and editorial restrictions fairly flexible, this can safely be done if always if the seller has a good general working knowledge of the markets. Market reports published in THE WRITER and in "The Free Lance Writer's Handbook" are intended to be general guides to the needs of the leading magazine and book publishers. Yet time may be well spent in more detailed studies of editorial requirements, and it must be admitted that a group of people working together on such a problem can accomplish far more than one working alone. Notes made of such analyses should be mutually helpful and even more the suggestions made from the floor as to possible markets for manuscripts read in meetings if the individual members have previously familiarized themselves thoroughly with the editorial requirements of the periodicals which offer the best markets.

One club, composed of ten, all interested

in the hunting field would suit Passing Show, because the Passing Show public is not, generally speaking,

cated twelve pages of the magazine market section of the "Handbook" to each member.

He then studies the hundred odd market reports in his quota and sends for sample copies of all those which appear to publish the type of material produced by the Club (short stories and articles). The magazines themselves are studied from two points of view (a) depth of market and (b) type of market. The depth of market is too often neglected. Many young writers are startled by a realization that a weekly which publishes ten short stories in each issue is over twenty-two times as big a market for short fiction as the monthly which publishes two each issue. Other things being equal, the chance of acceptance is twenty-two times as great. But all other things are not necessarily equal.

Another consideration less frequently overlooked is the emphasis placed by certain editors on the "circulation" value of names of well-known contributors on the front cover. Yet even though unknown writers do realize that such magazines are practically closed to them, they have a very hit-or-miss knowledge about where the real opportunities do lie. It is not difficult to discover from a single table of contents what proportion of the writers are well enough known to have feature value. It is more difficult to find out whether or not most of the material is written by the staff or on contract; yet it can be done by checking through several issues to see how often the same names re-occur. Even then a rascally editor may fool you by using pseudonyms on the by-lines, but it is a comfort to know that he has no particular reason for doing so unless some author has several things in the same issue.

Then there is the problem of the type of market, which is far more complicated. Yet the editorial content of any periodical will

*Note: The following has been suggested as a simple and convenient form of making notes of an analysis. The Magazine.

Estimated number of serials per year.
Number of unknown writers

Number of short stories per year.

Number by unknown writers

General type of stories

yield interesting facts if an analysis is made and notes kept of the results. When each club member has finished his study his notes should be pasted inside the front covers.*

To these should be added copies of the market reports printed in the "Handbook" and notes of the manuscript markets section of THE WRITER, and from time to time additional notes concerning experiences of the club members in dealing with the editor, including always the price paid for accepted manuscripts.

These specimen magazines should be placed where they can be consulted by all club members. Unless the club has its own headquarters the best repository is the local public library. A shelf in the periodical room is enough and most librarians will be glad to co-operate to the extent of giving space to such an exhibit. Far from being a chore, such study of markets will be found surprisingly interesting to anyone who undertakes it. Nothing will help the writer more to build up a practical working theory of reader interest. Certain questions should constantly be kept in mind: why did the editor include this? What type of person did he expect to interest? How many of this type are there in the country? What else would, in all probability, interest this same group? Oddly enough, some of the lesser periodicals are quite as instructive as the large circulation ones in this respect.

The result may be that some of those who write only as a hobby will discover a new and equally fascinating hobby, that of collecting unusual modern magazines. I confess that one of the most interesting phases of my editorial work is glancing through the unusual magazines which come into this office. I have

Number of articles per year.
Number by unknown writers
Number illustrated by photographs

Special departments (general description of each);

Are contributions to these signed or unsigned?. Type of reader appealed to.

Special notes

always intended some day to write a book about current periodica. But the necessary. leisure seems far in the offing and I gladly surrender the idea to anyone who has time for it. It has always astonished me that scholarship has failed so utterly to recognize that the recent immense growth of the reading habit has provided a more accurate index of the morals and thought of the age than many others now being employed.

The markets for book manuscripts should be covered in a somewhat different way. In most libraries will be found copies of "The Publishers' Trade List Annual," published by the R. R. Bowker Company. A study of this will furnish an excellent index to the activities of all the leading publishers.

In passing, I merely wish to mention the large number of house organs, etc., which offer good markets for writing of a special type. There are a number of these, each so small that it is not worth while printing its requirements either in THE WRITER or in the "Handbook." Yet a free-lance writer can frequently pick up pocket money by writing for them if he has special technical knowledge. By far the best reference is "The Standard Rate & Data Service." Any advertising man will show you copy if the library has none. Before leaving the question of the co-operative study of markets, I wish to call attention to the opportunities in writing for the British and Colonial periodicals. I have only recently received several letters from British

writers bewailing the popularity of the American story in the English popular magazine. An excellent guide to the British and Colonial markets is "The Writers' and Artists' Year Book for 1927 (advertised elsewhere in this issue). A minor difficulty in reaching the English market comes from the necessity of sending English stamps for the return of a manuscript in case of rejection. To meet this situation, we are obtaining a number of English stamps and, as a free service to subscribers, will be glad to furnish them at cost. A stamped, self-addressed envelope should be sent together with American stamps for exchange at par.

Some clubs have made arrangements with literary agents for handling the entire output of their members. In a few cases this has worked satisfactorily. A more workable plan is the compilation of a list of possible markets for each manuscript in order of preference, which is simply turned over to a public stenographer who sends out the manuscript to each in turn. Many writers are too easily discouraged by one or two rejections and relief from the routine of several re-mailings is welcome.

In closing, I wish to say that in my opinion nothing will strengthen the manuscript club movement in this particular stage of its development more than a co-operative study of the markets on the general outline of the plan which is suggested above.