A

DVICE to people who want to write, or who are already writing but wish a better market, is poured forth from many sources in enormous quantity. Some of it is good and some of it is nothing more than a means of getting money away from would-be authors. There are six magazines in this country now devoted to writers and writing, with hundreds of correspondence schools, college courses, literary agents, and publishing clubs, some of them honest and more of them quacks.

The editor of THE WRITER, W. D. Kennedy, has just published a book which should be of practical value. Under the modest title, "The Free-Lance Writer's Handbook," are collected opinions of twoscore men and women who are making a living through some connection with writing for publication. There is sufficient variety in their work and personality to make the book useful for everybody with the writing urge. Robert E. Sherwood writes about the free-lance humorist. Ivy Lee discusses publicity, house organs, and such possibilities for writers. The writing of fiction, plays, and scenarios is taken up in detail by people who know about it from their own experience. Resort to an agent, the literary markets, and every practical aid are examined carefully.

Yet no undue heartening of those who would better stick to the garage business is

found. The writers selected by Mr. Kennedy have been frank in pointing out difficulties. They have recounted some of their personal obstacles. The editor himself indicates an ideal of training for authorship which should frighten off any except professionals and the most ambitious of beginners. When the opportunities of the screen world are considered, the advice seems perfect. "Every good American sooner or later dashes off a scenario — even as you and I." After suggesting that if "you and I" are to get our masterpieces read something should be done, the writer with cruel pleasure passes on the word from the movie editors. "Snowed under by the too fluent efforts of plumbers, typists, and usherettes, their message to the general public is urgent and unmistakable and all in one word desist."

In addition to a full and up-to-date directory of markets for everything from verse to jokes, a careful account is given of the special editorial needs of many leading magazines, publishers, and syndicates. But even such a

survey cannot be so helpful to the determined amateur as the candid, sometimes brutal and always well-written, counsel of such writers as Ben Ames Williams, Henry Seidel Canby, Katharine Fullerton Gerould and Augustus Thomas. The force of example counts for as much as the sound suggestion.

Volume 38

Number 12

WH

HAT are the necessary qualifications for becoming a successful dramatist? About the answer to this question, there are several popular illusions much cherished by people who possess no authentic knowledge of the problems involved. The first popular misconception is that before one can write for the stage, one must have enjoyed, or suffered, a wide experience in life. Rationalizing their own vices, literary bohemians also insist that one must have had personal contacts with the seven deadly sins, before one can hope to write. This notion is utter rubbish. My own observation of the lives of the dissipated literary people I have known, is that they waste so much time and energy "getting experiences" they have very little left for sober reflection on the moral implications of these experiences and almost no time for writing about them. The disciples of this "wide experience" creed generally insist that love affairs, many, violent, and illicit, are the sine qua non, the absolutely essential foundation, for a playwright. This is not true. Hundreds of scholars have devoted their lives to discovering data relating to the biography of Shakspere. No one has yet found that Shakspere ever killed a man. But most critics agree that in Macbeth the world's greatest dramatist portrayed better than has any other playwright the emotions and thoughts of a mur

derer. It is not necessary to cut off one's hand to find out whether it would hurt. Nor is it necessary to commit adultery to find out that illicit passion can cause anguish to those involved. As Mrs. Edith Wharton points out in "The Writing of Fiction," in my opinion, one of the best books on the subject, a little experience can furnish material for a world of thought. The important thing is to observe the life about one, to reflect upon it, and through a sympathetic use of the imagination, to decide how those involved must feel. A narrow life is small handicap to a dramatist. The possession of imagination is his greatest asset.

The second popular notion I should like to explode is that a natural flair for writing clever dialogue, or the lack of such a talent, is particularly significant as an indication of one's probable success as a playwright. Distinctive dialogue is what gives literary quality to a play, but it is a mere incident in the acting value. Many, yes, literally hundreds of successful plays, contain not a single line of dialogue which could possibly be termed distinctive. A novice always overestimates the importance of dialogue. But the professional dramatist knows that it is not so much his dialogue as his construction which will determine the success of a play on the stage.

One well-known woman novelist recently told me that the one point upon which she hesitated to take my course in play writing was that she at the moment had no big idea for a play and that she felt there was no use in learning how to write plays, much as she wanted to, if she had no ideas for them. This is a natural point of view, but as a matter of fact, psychologically unsound. Ideas, as Professor John Dewey proves in his "Human Nature and Conduct," are as much a habit as any strictly physical function. Finding ideas is as much the result of practice as is learning to swim. One does not learn the crawl stroke all at once, but bit by bit, arm movement, leg movement, breathing. It is true, as Croce points out in his "Aesthetics," that the competent artist sees in one flash a vision of his whole work. In the case of a play, he sees in general outline his whole plot when the idea first enters his consciousness. But he does this only after long practice. Ideas for plays are more likely to spring into one's mind after one has learned how plays are constructed than before.

To become a dramatist one first should have a decided inclination to write for the stage. If one does n't want to write plays, he'd better not try. But if one does have a desire to write for the theatre, has a normal intelligence, a fair education, and determination which refuses to be beaten by discouragements, then this person has the necessary qualifications for a dramatist. This moral determination is the main thing.

When one has decided that he has a hankering to express his reaction to life in terms of the theatre and that he is endowed with the will to persist until he achieves success, he may choose any one of several possible methods of learning the art of dramatic writing. In the long run he will make some use of all these methods. He may begin by trying several together. But he must place his main reliance on one. As briefly as I can, I shall present the advantages and limitations of each.

Most produced plays are written by people professionally connected with the theatre, — actors, directors, press agents, managers, or even waiters at the Players' Club. To some extent this is because everybody connected with the theatre actually does write for it. I yet have to meet an actor who has n't or is n't writing plays. From this situation has arisen the notion, in the profession it is a dogmatic creed, that nobody, unless he has served a long apprenticeship as an actor, or stage carpenter, or scene shifter, can write a producable drama. This is utter nonsense. No sensible person thinks it necessary for a composer of symphonies to serve an apprenticeship as a saxaphone salesman. When a student wishes to learn how to write music he studies under some man who by the reputation of his works has proved he knows how music should be written. The young portrait painter studies under a man whose portraits are in demand. Heifitz, when he wanted to become a violinist, studied under Leopold Auer who, having himself established a position for himself as a violinist, was making himself even more famous by teaching his technique to others. Heifitz did not, as so many deluded potential dramatists do, go and study under a critic.

Of course it is natural that in years of contact with the stage one "picks up" some of the tricks of play writing. He accumulates a stock of "sure fire" hokum which can be depended upon to interest an audience. With this as an aid, he often writes an actable play. But generally, from the point of view of sincere art, it is a cheap play. For example, the many tawdry imitations of "Rain." The dozen or more dramas of life in the South Seas which have followed "Rain" have possessed no such sincerity as their original model. They have lacked reality. For they have been written by theatre hacks who have never been off Broadway in their lives. The sentiment of such is unconvincing, the atmosphere is trite, and the lines positively banal. But because a few of them have been adroitly carpentered by theatre men who "knew the

game," they have enjoyed short runs with moderate receipts. The main trouble with the plays written by men or women whose preparation for their art has been confined to practical experience in the theatre, is that such plays are generally devoid of inspiration. Their authors have no vision of life to present, but merely a bundle of stage tricks. This is because in the theatre itself emphasis is always laid on "putting something over"; never on finding something worth "putting over."

As I suggested, the best way to learn any art, is to study under its most eminent practitioner. The best method of learning to write plays would be to study under Sir James Barrie, Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. Eugene O'Neill, Mr. George Kelly. But while it always has been the practice for the greatest men in all the other arts to teach their technique to students, it never has been so in the art of writing for the stage. In fact, it almost never has been so in any branch of writing. The classic instance of Flaubert's teaching de Maupassant how to write fiction is so conspicuous in literary history because it is an exception to the general rule. Nowhere in the world at the present moment is any distinguished dramatist giving the benefit of his experience to a group of students gathered about him in a studio. But dozens of distinguished painters, sculptors, composers, pianists, singers, and violinists are also teaching. A few mediocre dramatists, however, are now beginning to do so. They are of two sorts. Either they are bad dramatists brought up in the theatre and now, having no further ideas for writing, or else discouraged by many failures, have turned to teaching in a half-hearted manner. They are tired. Or they are young men of education, of enthusiasm of great hope but slight accomplishment, who have not been writing long enough to achieve international recognition as dramatists and who, having no sound body of traditional teaching method to build on as is the case with teachers in the other arts, are groping about for the best means of im

parting a newly discovered body of dramatic principles to their students. There are only a very few of us, men like Mr. Hatcher Hughes and myself, but, bad as we are, green as we are, we may have something to impart that others have not. A few young dramatists are teaching. A few old ones are teaching. But there is no dramatist teaching who himself has attained a position of unquestioned eminence.

One method of learning to write plays, not open to everybody, but sometimes available to a person of unusual promise who already by himself has achieved considerable progress, is to secure the interest of one of the great brokers - The Century Play Company, The American Play Company, The Dramatists Play Agency, or Sanger and Jordan. A hopeful playwright with a completed script can submit it to any one of these brokers who will read it without charge. If the play is almost perfect, needing only minor alterations to render it salable, the brokers will give these suggestions gladly. For they are as eager to secure good plays to sell, their profits depending on the dramatist's royalties, as playwrights are eager to have their work placed. A broker charges ten per cent. of the author's royalties. For this the broker places the play, draws the contract, collects royalties, and generally protects the dramatist's interests. Every playwright of any standing employs a broker. But if the play brokerage firm finds that the play submitted needs not merely small changes, but a thorough revision, he will reject it in most cases without comment. Sometimes, though the play may not interest the firm, the person who reads it may see certain latent possibilities in it and can be persuaded to advise the author as to means of bringing these out on condition the author agrees to sign over a goodly portion of his future royalties, should the play reach the stage, to this reader. Sir James Barrie revised "The Little Minister" under the eye of Miss Elizabeth Marbury, for many years the leading spirit in the American Play Company.