could doubtless have given us a clearly drawn picture of Sherlock Holmes sitting in an easy chair doing nothing. Few would have read it and fewer would have remembered it; but to see Sherlock Holmes living, involved in compli-cations, doing things, helps us to visualize his figure. So in visualizing this world of our characters that I described in my last talk, we must visualize them as active figures. If they love, they must not be content to sit still and dilate in their own minds on how much they love. They must go out and try to get the girl. They must devise expedients to get her. Somebody said of one of Howells's novels that the only thing that happened in it was that a man shot a gun off in St. Mark's Square, Venice, and did n't hit anybody. Another commentator said that Henry James's work was like looking through a window pane where nothing was happening. If you have read "Sentimental Tommy" you remember that Pym, the great author, giving literary advice to Tommy, told him to put down everything his characters thought and then tear it up. I should have added that such a man also must have the kind of mind that easily visualizes action. Almost all the cheaper magazines are filled with what are called action stories. Look through any one of them and you will find story after story devoid of atmosphere and characterization and yet holding your interest because the author had a rudimentary idea of what a story was and expressed it in terms of action. The action in these stories is often grotesque, unreal, impossible. Such stories no one would care to read a second time; but many persons enjoy reading them a first time and they were sold for real money. The action involved in any story constitutes the plot of the story, and if it were written out in skeleton form it would be a synopsis or scenario of the story. Just as I asked you to take some book from your bookshelf and go on a still hunt for knots or obstacles, discovering when the stories begin and when the stories end, so I ask you now to trace the full development of the plot. You will find that a complete plot starts at a logical and psychological beginning and stops at a logical and psychological end. A complete plot might be compared to the birth, growth, maturity, and death of a living organism. It starts small, as a child might. It becomes richer as it advances. It has a curve of ascending interest, like a sky-rocket. It ends in a climax, like the rocket's burst of stars. In Sometimes there is a We must know what our characters think and be interested in it, but this does not necessarily interest our readers. We are all to some extent materialists. Action is the outward symbol of an inner state of mind, and the objective man who gives his emotions concrete action is bound to attract our attention. referring to Henry James and Howells I have not meant to disparage their work. There is an undoubted place for introspective literature and a character who is introspective must act introspectively. The only 'objective act that Hamlet performed before the end of the play was to kill Polonius, and he did that only because he was startled out of his habitual indecision. But for the beginner in literature it is very easy to do flabby work in which the author deals in the thoughts and feelings of his characters. He seems unable to move his characters about, or have them express their characters in characteristic action. There is a refreshing muscularity about having your characters do things. In a previous talk I said that if a man had a story sense or feeling for the obstacle, he could sell his work, though he had no other literary qualifications. conclusion after the story is really ended, and this could be compared to the fall of the rocket's stick, to make the curve complete. I shall illustrate what I mean by the plot of "King Lear." Lear, at the opening of the play, is prepared to lay down the cares of his kingdom at the apparent end of a long life. He is happy. There is no knot. Everything is serene. So far as plot is concerned, there is n't any. He imagines that he will live out the twilight of his days, surrounded by the hundred knights he reserves as his personal followers ; but through an impulse of vanity he decides to give the largest share of his kingdom to the daughter who can convince him that she loves him most. The eldest daughter protests her love, and he is fatuously gratified and gives her a third of his kingdom. The second daughter outdoes the first in protestation and gets another third; but Cordelia, the youngest daughter, seeing through the hollowness of her sisters' protestations, refuses to pay lip service. Here is the first obstacle and the beginning of the plot. From this small beginning, as from the source of a stream in a quiet spring, come tempestuous complications, always ascending in intensity, as a stream might have wilder and wilder rapids, until at the end of the play, with the death of Lear and Cordelia, the plot ends, as a river might lose itself in the sea. As the result of a venial fault, the last year or two of Lear's life are incomparably richer than all his other years put together, not rich in happiness but rich in depth of living, and from his and Cordelia's suffering we permanently enrich and deepen our own lives. There are many complete plots in literature, but there are more incomplete plots. Ibsen, for example, starts his plays as a rule very near the climax. He starts his action where the curve is high, and this is true almost always of short stories. A short story is so limited in space that the writer almost necessarily has to concentrate on the high spots. There is absolutely no objection to picking up a story well along in its development. In fact one of the commonest errors among beginners is to start the story too far back. When you start a story well along toward the climax, as you will naturally do nine times out of ten, it is necessary to use exposition. Exposition in motion-picture terms is a throw-back. In exposition you tell the reader what happened before the story commenced, so that he may understand the situation. Jane Doe pressed her face against the windowpane and clutched her pocket-book with the last remaining half-dollar in it, while she waited tremulously for the knock of her landlady. Six months before she had come to the alluring city. The first sentence is story. It happens before our eyes. The last sentence is exposition, telling what happened before the story opened, explaining to some extent the situation. You will run the danger, probably, of giving too much space to exposition. It is easier to tell in general terms what happened to your hero before the story opened than it is to have him move and do things vividly before the reader. All your reader wants to know about the past life of your hero is enough to make him un derstand the situation as it exists at the opening of the story. Get your exposition down to a minimum. Conceal it when you can. For example, if the landlady came in and said: "You were a fool to come to the city six months ago without any prospects. Pay me my rent or go back home," it would still be exposition, because it would tell what happened before the story started, but it would have the added advantage of introducing another of your characters and at the same time accent the obstacle when she demanded her back rent. It would be an interesting experiment for you to try to write a story without any exposition at all. I believe it can be done. I am now using the word exposition in a wider significance. As the story progresses it often becomes advisable for the author to explain the situation, and this sometimes involves throwbacks not going back before the story started but to a point in the story previous to the scene described. We might say: At six o'clock Jane Doe sat down on a bench in Union Square, clinging to her last dime. All day she had visited office building after office building, looking for a position. The second sentence in this is a throw-back, although it does not throw us back before the story started. There is a point involved in this wider definition of exposition which is more important than the time element. The author often has to telescope his action together and tell it in general terms. Imagine how stupid it would have been in this case if he had described in detail every visit of Jane Doe to office buildings. I do not mean to say that this might not in certain circumstances be good art if the author wished to make the reader literally as tired as Jane Doe was. Theodore Dreiser has done this very thing in "Sister Carrie," telling us all the details of her vain attempts to get a job. This example illustrates what I have hinted at before, that we can break almost any rule if we know what it is and why we are breaking it. Our personality is not bound by rules, but rules known, and observed or broken, set free the personality and give our creative impulse fullest scope. Richard Bowland Kimball. NEW YORK, N. Y. (To be continued.) THE WRITER is published the first of every month. It will be sent, postpaid, for $1.50 a year. The price of Canadian and foreign subscriptions is $1.62, including postage. 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The publication office of THE WRITER is Room 46, 244 Washington street, but all communications should be addressed : THE WRITER PUBLISHING CO., VOL. XXXVII. APRIL, 1925. No. 4. Short practical articles on topics connected with literary work are always wanted for THE WRITER. Readers of the magazine are invited to join in making it a medium of mutual help, and to contribute to it any ideas that may occur to them. The pages of THE WRITER are always open for any one who has anything helpful and practical to say. Articles should be closely condensed; the ideal length is about 1,000 words. Every writer should devote a considerable portion of his time and energy to gathering material. Even a Genius, with a mind stored with the results of experience and observation, will write himself out if he does not add continually to his store of knowledge. A fiction writer must not only know the facts of situations in which to place his characters, but he must continually enlarge his knowledge of human nature by constant observation of what people think, and say, and do. To the writer who deals with facts, gathering material all the time is all-important. No writer can give out for any length of time more than he has taken in, and what any writer has taken in up to a given time in his life is bound after a while to be exhausted. The stock of material must be constantly renewed by reading, by study, by observation, and by direct investigation. There are countless subjects that may be treated profitably, but to make profitable use of them a writer must have, or acquire, some special knowledge of them. Suggestions come from many sources. Chance remarks, heard or overheard in conversation, often suggest an article or a story. If a writer hears some one speak of something interesting that he thinks may not be generally known, or if he gets a hint of some such thing in reading or in any other way, he will do well to make a note of it and investigate until he knows all that he needs to know about the subject. Like the newspaper reporter, he will gather facts and then proceed to write his article. Especially in reading newspapers he will take note of suggestions of subjects for investigation, and at all times he will gather from different sources facts that may be combined. He will use his shears freely, and gather clippings, large and small, bearing on the subjects on which he may write. It is a good idea to file such clippings in envelopes, properly labeled and arranged in alphabetical order, so that the information they contain shall be easily accessible. A picture often suggests a story and sometimes the picture for instance, a photograph or a picture on a postcard- if it is not copyright, can be used in connection with the story. Wherever a writer is, he should keep his eyes and ears open, and whenever he hits upon something, either in reading or by observation, that he thinks will be new and interesting to people generally, he will do well to learn all that he can about it, especially by talking with people who are likely to have special knowledge of the subject. Information gained by talking with those who have special knowledge is of the greatest value. Odd and interesting people are worth cultivating, and any writer is fortunate if he comes in contact with anybody who has had unusual experience. Much material may be gathered from persons who have never thought of writing, but have themselves gathered a great store of material by observation of those with whom they have come in contact. An old shoemaker, for instance, may make remarks about his customers that will set a fiction writer's imaginative faculty to work. No writer can succeed unless he has something to say, and the best way to get something interesting to say is to learn something of interest that people generally do not know. A Louisville poet who tried in vain to get some book publisher interested in his poems began reading them over the radio. He has since received thousands of letters from all parts of the country asking for copies of his poems, and publishers are beginning to think that a book of them might sell. THE MANUSCRIPT MARKET. [ This information as to the present special needs of various periodicals comes directly from the edi tors. Particulars as to conditions of prize offers should be sought from those offering the prizes. Before submitting manuscrints to any periodical, writers should examine a copy of the magazine in question.] Albert & Charles Boni, publishers, 39 West Eighth street, New York, are looking for a political novel dealing with American political life in the same way that "Trimblerigg," by Laurence Housman, takes up political conditions in England. Golf Illustrated (425 Fifth avenue, New York), of which William Henry Beers is now the editor, is interested in good golf stories, instructive articles on playing the game, and unique illustrations of players and courses, as well as golf material or illustrations on any phase of the game. The editors of Frontier (Garden City, N. Y.) are particularly anxious at the present time to get hold of good frontier stories with a real pioneering flavor-stories with the scene laid on our Western frontier in the days of wagon trains and fur traders. They are also on the look-out for good sea stories, particularly those with a pirate setting. Frontier is always open to short stories with a frontier setting with the scene laid on any of the American frontiers from Colonial days up to the present time; laid in foreign countries such as China, South Africa, India, the South Sea Islands, or any other part of the globe which today is a man's frontier; laid at sea in the present day or in the days of swashbuckling pirates. Complete novels, not exceeding 60,000 words, and novelettes of all lengths are also used. Frontier does not want sport stories, crime stories, love stories, domestic-problem stories, detective stories, city stories, gang stories, stories of successful crime, or any type of story which is not laid in the outdoors and which has not the robust thrill of the frontier and a pioneering flavor to it. The Sheet Steel Trade Extension Committee (715 Oliver Building, Pittsburgh, Penn.) publishes two trade periodicals: Sheet Steel Service, for the service of all sellers, distributors, and users of sheet steel; and Making Markets, a magazine of sales information and inspiration, and will pay at the rate of two cents a word for acceptable material, and space rates for all photographs and illustrations used. Material for Making Markets should deal with products fabricated from sheet steel. The story should show how sheet steel has given superior results as to beauty, economy, safety, permanence, etc., as, for instance, where fire doors have confined fires or protected property, steel automobile tops and bodies have withstood crashes and protected occupants, special applications of sheet steel for humidifiers, clothes dryers, shelving, and the like. Material for Sheet Steel Service can deal with any of the uses of sheet steel as applied by sheet metal contractors and roofers, as, for instance, examples where sheet steel roofs have protected roofs from fire, examples of sheet steel roofs in use for a long period of years twenty. or thirty, or - more - the use of sheet steel for novel purposes, such as protecting granaries against the depredations of rats, rendering wooden buildings fire safe, the application of steel architectural work and cornices to beautify dilapilated structures, hints on convenient ways to apply sheet steel, etc. Material that deals with the application of an article and points to superior results obtained is preferred, but articles on production can be used. The publishers are also interested in articles carrying the signatures of men connected with prominent sheet steel fabricating concerns. The Woman's Viewpoint Magazine (227 Rodgers Building, Houston, Texas) is in the market for stories that combine sound human interest with literary quality. Stories may run from 2,000 to 5,000 words, but the shorter stories are in greater demand. Anecdotes for the magazine's "Smiles" department are also wanted. Manuscripts will be reported on within two weeks, and payment will be made on publication. Sea Stories Magazine (79 Seventh avenue, New York) especially needs complete novels, of from 50,000 to 60,000 words, and serials approximating 75,000 words - all relating to the sea, of course. The Progressive Merchants Bureau (1819 Broadway, New York) wants sketches of original ideas for trade characters suitable for the following industries: Mason's materials; electrical supplies; ice; hardware; plumbing and heating; and automobile accessories. The best type of trade characters is one which presents dramatically the use of the product advertised human interest expressed in action. Three prizes - $50, $20, and $10— are offered in each group, and contestants may submit as many drawings as they like. Harry Stephen Keeler, formerly editor of the Chicago Ledger and of the 10 Story Book, is now associated with the Lambert Publishing Company, which is in the market for book-length novels for its new magazine, the name of which has not yet been decided upon. Stories may contain as many as 100,000 words. Stories should be absorbing, but Mr. Keeler says he wants a richer type of story than the mere machine-made serial in which there is nothing but action. Such things as characterization, atmosphere, or a theme which almost always marks the successful novel published between cloth covers will be welcomed, so long as the story is also there. If a story is interesting, it will not be barred because it covers a range of many years, being therefore a true novel. Stories of mystery and sex are especially wanted, but if a novel is really sensational in some other manner not foreseen, it will be acceptable. Mr. Keeler believes that a story should be rich in other things besides the quality of the drama it portrays and so wants literary merit as well as plot and story. For the present rates will be $1,000 for a 100,000-word story, and pro rata for shorter or longer novels, for first American serial rights, payable prior to publication. Authors who have books which have been brought out in England but which have not appeared in this country either in magazines or in book form, may submit the bound book. Manuscripts should be sent to either Harry Stephen Keeler, or the Lambert Publishing Company, Room 1009, Morton Building, 538 South Dearborn street, Chicago. Radio Age (500 North Dearborn street, Chicago) is now in the market for fiction dealing with radio for its Summer and Fall issues. Fiction must not exceed 2,000 words, and must deal wholly with radio; articles relating to accounts of broadcasting stations or entertainers must not exceed 1,200 words, and should be accompanied by pictures. (Augusta, The American Needlewoman Maine) at present needs short stories, of from 5,000 to 7,000 words, and a serial, not exceeding 50,000 words. Stories must interest all members of the family, and the serial must be a clean, wholesome story, with plenty of action and romantic interest. Payment is made according to the merits of the story and its particular adaptability to the needs of the magazine, but the average rate is from threefourths of a cent to a cent a word, sometimes less, sometimes more. The announcement in the January WRITER that the Grocers' Magazine (Boston) has |