I'

N AN age where mediocrity would be a distinction if it were not so nearly universal, the art of writing is almost swallowed up by the spirit of commercialism — but not altogether. From the constant flood of writing flowing over the rapids of typography, there are to be discerned pure currents. This is a great period in history, and the end is not yet. We overlook its wonders too much in the hideous fascination of its atrocities.

Not a week goes by that in reading manuscripts for the Saturday Evening Post I don't get a letter from some would-be contributor, the burden of whose plaint is: "I need the money." Merit is considered a minor matter.

The hopeless unintelligence of this attitude is not, however, confined to unsuccessful writers, or amateurs. Many who have gained success and prominence complain constantly about money. They are always asking for more, rebellious because they are not paid enough as they think.

A first-class writer is always a good business man. What, then, is the distinction I make between those who are always asking for more, and those who are getting more? This: The first-class writer before he thinks of money, works to produce something he knows is the best he can do and will serve his audience. He does this for the love of doing it. After he does it, he gets the best rate he

can.

The second- and third-class writers are always looking outside, not inside. They think of money first, and the work afterward. They will write anything for money. They have no convictions that are not for sale. In many cases they have the money spent before the work is finished. Now a writer may always be hard up, and yet be a first-class writer. I

I know writers who deliberately refuse to write for money. I asked one of the best of them, recently, why he did not play golf. He said: "If I play, I should lower my standard." He added: "Besides, walking is so much better, so inexpensive." This man and his wife have walked over the country - free people. He makes a moderate living. In his own field he is the best. When any one has talent and develops it, the demand for what he can do is created in proportion to his development. We are so closely interwoven that we cannot go through any process of development without some one discovering it. One often has to wait; but the end is certain.

Some years ago I took dinner with a woman whose conversation was full of character drawing. I said to her: "You can write stories." She flouted the idea. Yet within a few months, at my further suggestion, she sold her stories to leading magazines. Her latent gift needed only to be uncovered. My meeting with her was accidental; but some one else would have done it. This kind of thing happens repeatedly with all editors.

We do not originate. We receive, ponder, work, and release. A gift might be defined as a bent in one direction. One likes to do one thing above all others. The intensity of the desire measures the self-control and discipline necessary to develop the technic. Years! I trained myself to write editorials, acquiring books of reference and other equipment. When my intensive work was completed, I received a letter from a leading newspaper

owner suggesting the work. All writers have this experience. It is self-development and study that count, not hawking. Rann Kennedy, author of "The Servant in the House," told me he wrote his play and made no effort to sell it. At the club a few nights after he had finished it some one came up and asked him if he had ever written a play. Yes. Had he tried to place it? No. Later Bernard Shaw called and the play was produced. Emerson's mouse-trap is correct psychology, but be sure of the mouse-trap.

By this rule I have seen many writers come up and command high prices; then I have seen them decline because, at the height of their reputations, they have forgotten the rule. Expenses have increased, and they have sold themselves out. One writer I now have in mind sold his stories for $1,500 each. Not satisfied, he made a contract at $2,000 each. He sold seven or eight stories at this rate and since then his work has steadily declined. Money gets you if you don't watch out. A new writer should examine himself and ask: "What can I produce that will benefit others?" There is no difference between writing and other productions. It is all based on common honesty.

You can frequently make temporary money by forcing. In the long run this is destructive.

Every writer should get as much as he can for his work. That is not only business; it is art. But writing, like anything else, if successful, is based on service. From observation, I should say that fully nine-tenths of all the advice given to writers by so-called experts (schools, etc.) is viciously wrong. These experts tell a writer how he can make money by writing, instead of telling him how to write first and letting the money come afterward. Some of the best writing has come through starving.

Today as never before the best writing is. based on integrity. As in all other fields there is among writers a fringe of charlatanism pretenders who trade on their personalities, who pose as intellectuals or artists. Many of these men are literary parasites, word pander

ers, and New York is their stamping ground. Also, new writers are constantly coming up who learn the trick of writing superficially about sex and acquire fictitious reputations. Many of them, just as get-rich-quick men do in other fields, achieve a momentary success, and as the clackers themselves have to make a living they boost these fly-by-nighters.

There never can be objection to the honest building up of a reputation by hard work and good service; but I believe the time is rapidly approaching when newspaper proprietors and publishers generally will get tired of hiring men whose chief occupation is log-rolling, café gossip, and the playing up of their own personalities and affairs. The public wants truth, not press-agent persiflage. These men who pose as intellectuals are often more innocent than they seem. Among them the childmind is in evidence strongly. Their infantile conceit obscures what natural intelligence they may have started out with.

It is these glittering, ephemeral reputations that attract the attenion of so many amateurs throughout the country who are trying to find an easy way to "break into" literature. These are the men and women who write to me and other editors and say: "I need the money."

The lowest form of writing is the critical (generally the least paid) and the lowest form of intelligence is the critic's, among writers. The reason is plain. When you criticise another man's work you at once assume that your own position is static; otherwise you would not criticise, for you would then be forced to say: "Tomorrow I may think differently; therefore I cannot now say that this man is wrong."

The fact that the critic invariably overlooks this antinomy is evidence of his limited intelligence.

From time immemorial, efforts have been made to create a standard of literature, and the creations have all vanished. There can be no real standard. At one time Shakspere was denounced by the critics, so all great writers. During the war a woman brought me a

poem for my opinion. I told her it was poor. Yet it was one of the songs sung by the Canadian army. I was right about the technic, but not about the spirit.

The only writing worth while is the writing. that conveys ideas. That is true of all forms. Think of the interminable stupidities written during the past ten years about the writing of short-stories! Yet if any one could devise a rule for writing one, it would be useless after that one was written. A short-story writer with a gift and hard work will succeed in spite of the schools he enters or the courses he takes. These, however, are all handicaps, for the reason that the very success of a writer depends upon his utter independence his reliance on himself. The few really great short-story writers have spent years in learning how to present an idea. They have worked and worked to develop their gift. That is all there is to short-story writing, or any other kind.

I have given a great many ideas for shortstories to others. When they ask me how to write the story I reply: "As if an editor had given you an assignment." The pains taken by editors in all the magazine offices I know to find new story writers is unbelievable. Editors are always on the scent. A new story by a new writer will turn a group of hard-boiled editors into song-birds.

People do not want opinions. Take all of the opinions expressed by all of the editors of papers like the New Republic ever since they started, and you could boil them down to what is left of a dew-drop after exposure to a Pittsburgh smelting furnace. People do not want clever stupidities- nor indecencies. nor indecencies. In the long run they do not want writing short of the best the writer can turn out; and they can generally sense what is not the best. Insincerity shouts from the roofs. People do want ideas, accurate information which the writer has dug for, out of himself maybe, out of somebody or somewhere. They do not want raw facts, because as a rule a raw fact is a falsity. For instance, a treasurer's report is a falsity, and has been properly satirized by my

friend Robert Benchley. A bookkeeper can tell you all the facts about his particular corporation liabilities and assets, profits and losses and disclose nothing. An intelligence test is thus a very low form of intelligencealmost as low as a banker's report or some book reviews. It discloses nothing of the person tested, except that he may be incompetent in useless particulars. Indeed, it interferes by so much with the whole process of disclosure. The public wants not only accuracy, but the kind of accuracy that comes from things unseen. They may often be led away by sentimentalism. They are. But true sentiment governs permanently.

An idea is an assembling of such material facts as may be necessary, in order to disclose a section of permanent Truth. An idea is news about truth. When Pilate contemptuously asked Christ: "What is Truth?" Christ, apparently, made no answer, thereby conveying by His very silence an idea that could not be conveyed in any other way.

We cannot get at any section of truth without working it out in our own experience. That is why writing is so difficult. I know men who, almost from birth, have drawn pictures. I cannot draw pictures, but I see them. All my life I have supplied ideas to artists. They cannot spell. I cannot draw. There is no accounting for these bents and defects.

Also, there is a great deal of perverse personal testimony floating about. I know men who write atrocious poetry and read it aloud - successful business men. Each one of us no doubt deplores a friend like that. The Governor of Massachusetts is one of them. He wrote some lines about Calvin Coolidge that I still shudder at. These men presumably are otherwise intelligent, even if they are Governors. We all know people who say: "I see something funny in everything; I just cannot help it." God help them, then!

But the real writers, the really gifted folk, are silent; not on parade. Also, as intimated, they are the best business people. It is often bad business to make too much money. Your character must develop in proportion to the

overplus, or you are lost. Writers rapidly degenerate when they get more than they are worth. The best of them have their needs supplied in exact proportion to their progress. They see the world large and small. They see it whole.

To sum up:

Without a gift for writing, no one should write.

With a gift, one should keep practising until he learns how to write in such a way that he does n't know how he is writing when he is creating. This takes years of wholesome discipline. The writer should study and work constantly to perfect himself in the particular form he has chosen.

If this form is something quite different from anything else in style at the time, he should not let this make the slightest differ

ence.

When he has done something he is satisfied with, he should make reasonable efforts to sell it. He should not write for any editor, only for his audience, but he should listen carefully to what editors tell him about his work. They may not always be right; but they are in a position to be right oftener than any one else. There are exceptions. When a would-be contributor writes: "My family and friends all tell me this is one of the best things they ever read," he is doomed from the start. For such a writer there is no hope. The right kind of an editor is conducting

his paper not for the next six months but for the next six centuries (He likes to think so). He is willing to take temporary defeats for permanent principles. The right kind of editor is the right kind of business man. He does not fool himself with the idea that the people want something which is below what he wishes to give them. He creates his audience mentally, and then serves them. He makes them intelligent first, and then discovers quite possibly to his amazement that they are really intelligent.

Think this over: When a human being is interested, in that respect he is always intelligent. The right kind of editor knows this, and does not mould his wares on indecency, for he knows that the editor who panders to indecency has to keep changing his audience all the time.

There is no idea so profound that it cannot be made intelligible to the mass of people.

And so a writer who is honest with himself and wishes to produce something which will be of benefit to others does what the editor does: he creates his audience. This in itself gives him an enormous stimulus, because he gets close to his readers, he learns to love them. And when he goes to the right kind of editor, who points out to him how his work can be improved, he listens and learns. Then he drives his bargain; but not before.

WOULD seem that anybody would know

nor too thin, with black ribbon that is n't

persons ask me about this that a few words may be said.

Type your manuscripts on good paper, ordinary typewriting size, neither too thick

your name and address in the upper left-hand corner of the first page, or if you have a title page put your name and address on that. Some writers put their name and address on

every page for fear the first page may be lost, but this is not necessary. It is well to have a title page, but this also is not necessary. The advantage of the title page is that you can renew it easily and thus freshen up the looks of the manuscript. This also is the reason for enclosing manuscripts, as some do, in a cover.

The manuscript may be held together with a paper fastener in the upper left-hand corner. Never roll a manuscript. Fold it, if it is small, or send it out flat if it has many sheets. Always keep a carbon copy of your work. This will enable you to check up your stories after they have been printed and see what changes the editors have made. Sometimes editors make changes without consulting the author; at other times editors ask permission to make changes, and again editors return manuscripts so that authors may make suggested changes in them. It is remarkable how infrequently manuscripts are lost in the mail or in magazine offices, but it does happen once in a while and here is where the great value of your carbon copy comes in.

In sending out manuscripts, enclose an addressed and stamped return envelope and it is well to enclose a brief letter with the manuscript. You will find that in the vast majority of cases your story will come back with a printed rejection slip. Do not be offended at this. A great popular magazine receives probably a hundred thousand unsolicited manuscripts every year. Have a card catalogue or indexed book for the record of your manuscripts and enter in it the name of each story, number of words, amount of postage, and the magazines to which it has been, with the date you sent it out in each case and the date it came back. Manuscripts stay out on an average of two weeks or more and when one is held an unusual length of time, it is safe to interpret this as a hopeful sign.

You will find that in a proportion of cases stories come back with a personal letter which may not be especially flattering, but to get a personal letter at all shows that the story has made an impression on the editor.

When this occurs, make a note "P.R.", meaning "personal rejection" and everything else being equal send your next story of that type to that magazine. In a smaller proportion of cases you will get what I call "flattering rejections" - longer letters saying how much your work was liked and even sometimes suggesting changes. When this is done, and you approve of the changes, make them and resubmit the story to the magazine, and in any event always acknowledge flattering rejections. In doing so, be brief and as clever as possible. Even though you have written the story with your heart's blood, it is n't necessary to tell the editor that. Be human and not too serious. A little humor won't do any harm, and an adroit compliment paid to the magazine will not be wasted. You must realize that editors know that if they don't get readable stories there will be nothing to print in the magazine. They remember authors whose work they have almost taken, and when a new story by such an author arrives hope beats high in the editorial breast.

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Have no fear that your manuscripts are ever returned unread. In writing for the magazines of course it is necessary to study the individual publications. Stories fall into magazine classes there is a difference between a Saturday Evening Post story and a Cosmopolitan or a Scribner story and yet this classification is only a rude approximation. Editors will constantly surprise you by taking stories you never thought they would take and by rejecting stories you were confident would exactly meet their needs. The reason for this is that even the modern popular magazine cannot be entirely standardized. Even the modern magazine story, such as it is, is an artistic product rather than a scientific product, and besides that the policy and the personnel of magazines are constantly changing.

One of the banes of the writer is that editors try to make him repeat his successes. If a man happens to write a successful child story, the editor wants him to write another just like it, and to repeat himself is what a