third person and signed merely "John Jones." In either case the Senator gets credit for his views, the magazine can play up his name and face as much as it wishes, and the writer gets his just deserts, be they good or bad. It can never be anything but a losing game in the long run for a magazine to hide the name of a writer it deems good enough for its pages. The reason Senator Gladstone's name has a sales value is because it has been seen so much in the public print, and Jones' value to the magazine increases as his name, too, becomes known. The chances are that he, rather than Gladstone, will have a contribution to make again. If he is good enough to publish at all, he is good enough to be given the honest publicity that attaches to having his name connected with his own articles. Editors as a whole are quick to see this. For my own ghosting I blame no one as much as myself. The minute my mind was made up to quit, they met me half way. Since then I have found but one editor who was not willing to give me this credit which is every author's right. He is on a highly reputable magazine and when I questioned him, with surprise that was genuine, as to why he had published an article of mine without my name, he wrote me rather tartly: "I do not see why you should assume that every article we publish should be a signed one." I did not argue the point. In my experience his attitude is so rare that it is not worth fighting. Far better to use the energy on constructive work and place it where it counts. Constructive work! That is what article writing is. First the interesting idea, the idea that bursts into flame within you and "lights you up"; then the creation of a framework that is logical, and strong enough to bear the weight of discussion and argument; and finally the clothing of that skeleton in a garb of words that is both attractive and appropriate. It is too big, too fine a profession to be sullied by the dishonesty and cowardice of ghosting. HOW How Do You Feel? By MARY TARVER CARROLL OW do you feel? It is vastly important, vitally important. Do you feel that the weight of a feather would crush you to the earth, from whence, unlike Truth, you might not rise again? Or, do you feel that you can say to that mountain "remove into the midst of the sea"- and it shall be done? Are you on tiptoe with curiosity, quivering with interest, trembling with fear, throbbing with hope, travailing with woe, chortling with glee, furious with anger, smiling with peace, battling with despair, serene with faith? All these you must be, if you would write. "As a man thinketh in his heart". - not his mind. reading we call "Heavy"-I suppose because it weighs so on the eyelids! But when thinking is mixed with the rose-water of romance, we sit reading breathlessly until the wee, sma' hours. Season your thinking with the spice of laughter, the salt of tears, the sugar of sentiment, and the editors will eat it as fast as a small boy devours a goodly-seasoned cake. "Make 'm laugh, make 'm weep, make 'm wait" is the infallible recipe for successful fiction, and that means make 'm FEEL! To omit the emotional element is like presenting "Hamlet" minus the Prince of Denmark. But who can truly define a tear or a smile? All pain-physical pangs, mental strain, spiritual agony; futility; the inexorable passing of time; fading; the desperation of un Calm, calculating thinking makes beautiful writing and terrible reading. It is the kind of All joy the curve and colors from every rainbow since the days of Noah; warmth; hope; faith; mirth; love; star-dust; moonbeams; sunshine; music; life - all dancing in a smile! One critic says, "The difference between fiction that endures and mere plot and action stuff is not one of phrasing or style, but is the difference in the emotional response toward life." How do you feel about that young fellow who stole the bank funds? Do you merely say, "Thief, embezzler, lock him up in a cell, punish him"? Or do you say, "He must be punished, of course, but I wonder how he came to yield to temptation. Did he fall into bad company, speculate and lose and then, hoping, believing, that he knew a sure thing, did he borrow just a little of the money that passed through his hands, expecting, of course, to pay it back and then, that lost, did he become more and more desperate, more and more entangled until "? Oh, have you ever met Apollyon? How do you feel about that young girl who has gone astray? Weak, yes. A menace to society, conceded. But — do you know all she did n't know? Have you plumbed her ignorance? Do you know her average mentality? Excuse, no! Reason for sympathy, yes! How do you feel about the miser? The sluggard? The prideful? The unfaltering? The hero? The villain? The adventuress? If you write out of your own personality, you will write as you feel, or write insincerely. Of course, this does not mean the writer must run the gamut of sin and suffering to portray it truly. That is where the divine spark of imagination enters, and according to a recent article by Clarence Buddington Kelland, it is imagination that turns the wheels that turn the world. We do know that we must enter into each of our hero's struggles, physical, mental, and spiritual, or we cannot overcome with him. I believe it impossible to write realistically of climbing a cliff to rescue an infant from an eagle's nest, without muscular strain, the exerting of every nerve of strength, every ounce of energy. In response, the reader's muscles instinctively contract, pulse quickens, breath becomes labored, he IS your hero- just as you were when you conceived him. Daudet, who gave us classics of emotion, is said to have written his stories with actual tears and laughter, and we read them with actual tears and laughter. Henry Seidel Canby says that Kipling in "Without Benefit Of Clergy" chose every pathetic word and movement with an inspired sense for what would most feelingly grasp the interest of the reader. This is high art — BUT there was intense feeling behind it or it would not touch so profoundly. Blanche Colton Williams, instructor in short-story writing at Columbia University, says: "Feeling the emotion, however, is not a warrant for transmitting it to the readers; the writer may be moved by emotion, and yet if he lacks the tools of emotion he may be unable to sway his readers. Playing upon the emotions is effected by certain mechanical devices dependent for success upon certain psychological bases. If we are normal we are all moved by the same things." To illustrate what do you fear? The unknown, ghosts, omens, storms, death? Any or all of these, skillfully used, will rouse the emotions of fear, horror, dread. Selfsacrifice carefully depicted, wakens our best impulses, shames our selfishness, makes us kinder, more generous. And so on through all the list of emotional themes. Of course, in the last analysis, all are emotional themes, though the authorities divide them into adventure, mystery, atmosphere, and so forth. But in some stories emotion is the main element. Thus we may deduce that the prime requisite for rousing emotion is to secure a throbbing theme. And what to you is a throbbing theme? What makes you laugh? Or cry? What do you fear? What do you hate? What do you admire? What do you love? So we return inevitably to the first question How do you feel? How do you feel about life? What is your philosophy? How do you feel about death? articles. Shall we all join in the Writer's What is your hope? Laurence H. Conrad says: "Literature is made up of the material that has rolled through your mind." I think it is all thatand more. The books you've read, the music you've enjoyed, the lectures and sermons to which you've listened, the thoughts you've thought, the dreams you've dreamedPLUS the emotion each and every one of these has roused. A narrative that wakens no emotion is flat, stale, and unprofitable. If you are without feeling you are either paralyzed or deadand so is a story. "God made man in His own image, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." When the writer creates real characters that live, and move, and have their being then he may claim a bit of true kinship with the Supreme Creator. How do you feel? I'll know when I read your stories, your poems, your prayer Every day, Lord, give us eyes Every day, Lord, give us ears Every day, Lord, give us hearts, Every day, Lord, help us write Rival to Nathalia Crane! The editors of THE WRITER are pleased to bring forward a rival to Miss Nathalia Crane, Brooklyn girl poet, for leadership of the juvenile literati. Michael Hunt Murray, Esq., of Clayton, New York, aged four years, has submitted through his aunt, Miss Harriette C. Frazier, a Thumb-nail Biography which has been awarded special honorable mention by the judges of the contest. His prize-winning biography is: His aunt begs that the irrelevant matter surrounding the biographical sketch of Mr. Window-Sill be disregarded by the judges, and her request has been duly granted. This matter is here reproduced, however, as corroborative evidence of developing genius. Miss Frazier relates the history of the composition of this classic: "My four-year-old nephew was so delighted by my typewriter, and the idea of writing stories on it, that he asked me to tell him how to spell the words of a story he had in mind, and proceeded to write the biography which I am enclosing, with no other assistance or advice from me than the dictation of the spelling he demanded." From two points of view Mr. Murray's contribution deserves comment. First, consider the simplicity of its style. Bombastic seems the artificial diction of the best-selling modern author in the clear white light of such honest art, sublimely unconscious of its own perfect proportions. Such as he need not scour the dictionary for the gaudy trappings of literary style to hide insincerity of purpose and emptiness of thought. Yet even more than for its stylistic virtues, this little sketch is remarkable as a study in narrative technique. How many of us could have treated so delicately, so artistically, the climax of the sad story of Mr. Window-Sill as the author has handled it in the two unforgettable concluding lines? For a moment we are permitted to hope that the hero is to avoid the rich harvest of his sins — just for a moment. "He went up to heaven." But before we have time to revel in this customary happy-ending of the hero's life, comes, like a clap of doom, the complete reversal of the whole situation: "No he did n't go to heaven." This ending has all the inevitableness of the climax of a Greek tragedy, with its effect heightened by that temporary vision of Elysium, now forever blotted out by the inexorable law of cause and effect or supply and demand or what have you. With what respect for the tender feelings of the reader, with what delicacy, is there transmitted to him this great moral lesson! Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings do we learn again and again the greatest of literary virtues: restraint. W. D. K. First Prize: Thumbnail Biographies HEREWITH ends the Thumb-nail Biography Contest which, we have been told, has added not a little to the gaiety of our readers. To contributors, successful and unsuccessful, are due hearty thanks for their efforts. EVE Most precocious female that ever lived — was married on the day of her birth. Most uncomplaining - never threatened to go home to her mother. Set her own styles in dress, and even to this day her sex is attempting to follow them. Was utterly fearless - was n't a bit afraid of snakes. Loved her husband believed he was the only man in the world. Caused him to get out of the rut and to travel and see the outside world. She lives still in the heart of every woman and still appeals to the old Adam in every man. Other Winners: Fred B. Mann. SINCLAIR LEWIS He writes at great length and with painstaking power Of folks whose crass dullness would bore in an hour. When he has to describe some plain garden utensil, "Damn shovel" is sure to escape from his pencil. He seems not to enjoy, and indeed feels superior To the people of whom he would paint the interior. A sort of rough diamond, and smart as the deuce And fully aware what his skill can produce. He's traveled all over from London to Brest Still bearing the stamp of the great middle west. WILL ROGERS Out of the West, where they taught him to rope And make use of ideas going by on the lope, He trailed to the East, where there's plenty of scope For his line of endeavour. At first, he just peddled his stuff on the stage And, by "rustling" the newspapers page after page, He made something of nothing... became "all the rage," Which denotes he was clever. He then caught the eye of the wealthier lads BIOGRAPHY OF A LOVER BORN When SHE appeared, a Pierrette under a shower of apple blossoms — this being his description BAPTIZED with the baptism of desire when a clumsy lout presumed to woo HER CONFIRMED when SHE went away for a time, and he found he could not live without her BECAME A MINOR POET when it dawned on him that the blue of the sky dimly and vaguely mirrored HER eyes and that HER name was composed of all the mellifluous sounds in this or any other language MARRIED HER! ACHIEVED IMMORTALITY by the very nature of his calling. Constance Johnson. Agnes O'Gara Ruggeri. |