Short Story Writing, Charles Raymond Barrett [cool books to read .TXT] 📗

yet little known is undoubtedly against you; your mere name has no power to exact a careful perusal of your story, and a judgment in accordance with its merits; so it is your business to gain that favor by making it easy for the editor. The question of legibility sums up the whole tale. The average editor always has his desk piled high with unsolicited MSS. from unknown writers which he must worry through after a fashion, lest something really good should escape him. He is conscientious enough, but he is always overworked, and he has learned by experience to judge a MS. almost at a glance. If he reads beyond the first page of your story, it is good evidence that he found there something of merit, even though he finally reject it. A penciled MS., or one that is written on both sides of the paper, will hardly get a passing glance. Even a neat pen-written MS. will fare little better, for to the editor a typewritten story means not only easy reading but probably some experience on the part of the author. Have your story typewritten, then, by some one who can put it in presentable shape, so that it will look business like. For mailing it is best to fold it as little as possible; the large legal envelope, requiring two folds, is most used. Unless the MS. is bulky or is on unusually small sheets, it is best to fold it at least once, for if sent flat it usually arrives in a crumpled state. Never roll it, under any circumstances, for a MS. once rolled can never be smoothed out, and no editor will bother with it.

Make the letter accompanying your story as short and business like as possible. Don't tell the editor your family history or relate how you came to write the story; don't ask him for criticisms or suggestions; say that you submit such a MS. subject to his approval, and give your name and address. That is all he cares to know about you. Always enclose stamps for return of MS.—or, better yet, a stamped and self-addressed envelope; never be so small or so careless as to underpay the postage.

It is of course your privilege to put a price upon any matter that you may submit for publication; but unless the magazine editorially requests a set price I should advise you to leave that matter to the editor, and to submit your work "at the usual rates." It is a peculiarity of the literary business that usually the buyer rather than the seller makes the terms, and until your name has a value you are hardly in position to run counter to custom. Nor is it likely that you have had sufficient experience to enable you to estimate your work justly. You need have no fear of being cheated, for a reputable publishing house is always willing to pay a fit price for suitable MSS.

It will do you no good to get a letter from some well known author or public person recommending your work to the publisher; and it will often do harm. Matter from novices is accepted on its merits alone, and no amount of praise from a man of letters or an influential friend will make your story one whit better than it was when you gave it the finishing touches. The most such intercession can accomplish is a perusal of your MS., and that you can yourself obtain if you will make it presentable. If you imagine that an editor will be influenced in his judgment by the words of an outsider, you are sadly mistaken—he is far more apt to be prejudiced against you. He is an experienced and competent man, who knows exactly what he wants, and who may naturally be expected to resent any such impertinent interference with his work.

It seems a small thing for you to ask an editor to give you a criticism on your work, and many a young writer has long cherished a grudge against some editor who has totally ignored his urgent and flattering request for a candid opinion. There is no question that even a word from an editor would be of untold value to the novice; but the novice has no idea what his request means. Every magazine is at great expense for the employment of trained "readers" to pass upon the unsolicited MSS. submitted to it, and the according of even a word of criticism to each would at least double that expense. Then, too, three-fourths of the MSS. submitted to any editor are such that he could not honestly say anything good of them, and no editor cares to go out of his way to hurt the feelings of the writer; nor would it be policy for him to do so. Every time you submit a MS. to an editor you are in a manner imposing on him, so be as easy on him as possible. If you feel that you must have an expert opinion on your work, send it to one of the literary bureaus which have been established for just that purpose. They will give you a careful and just criticism for the payment of a nominal fee.

Do not rest your hopes of success upon the fate of one MS. If you never write a new story until its predecessor has been placed you cannot possibly live long enough to win success. You should be constantly turning out new stories, each one better than the last; or reworking an old one whose faults you have just discovered; and you should keep the mails loaded with your work. You can never have too many good stories on the road.

Do not become impatient if you do not receive a check for your story within a week after sending it out. The largest magazines usually require three months and sometimes longer to report on a MS. If you attempt to hurry the editorial decision you will probably receive your MS. by return mail, unread.

It is advisable that you keep a MS. memorandum book of some sort, in which you may record the journeyings of your MSS., so that you may know where they have been and how long they have been away. You do not want to send the same MS. to the same editor twice, nor to continue submitting matter to a magazine which is already overstocked, or which is careless in returning your work. If you trust to your memory, or to some slip shod method, you will regret it in the end, for you will not only lose many MSS., but you will be submitting your work in a hit-or-miss fashion that is little likely to get it into the proper hands. There are several books of this sort on the market, or you can easily make one for yourself from an ordinary blank book. It may take any form you please, but I would suggest that it should include spaces for the number of words in the story and the postage required to carry it, besides the publishers to whom it is submitted and the dates when it is mailed and returned.

The rejection of your MS. by one or two editors should not discourage you: you may try twelve editors and have the thirteenth accept it. It is seldom indeed that it finds place where it is first submitted: it may not just meet the ideals of that editor; or he may already have too much matter on hand. If you believe the story is good, keep it going till it has been the rounds: you may find that the dawn of success comes from the point whence you least expected it.

APPENDIX "THE AMBITIOUS GUEST" (From Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Twice-Told Tales.")

I. One September night a family had gathered round their hearth and piled it high with the driftwood of mountain-streams, the dry cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that had come crashing down the precipice. Up the chimney roared the fire, and brightened the room with its broad blaze. The faces of the father and mother had a sober gladness; the children laughed. The eldest daughter was the image of Happiness at seventeen, and the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest place, was the image of Happiness grown old. They had found the "herb heart's-ease" in the bleakest spot of all New England. This family were situated in the Notch of the White Hills, where the wind was sharp throughout the year and pitilessly cold in the winter, giving their cottage all its fresh inclemency before it descended on the valley of the Saco. They dwelt in a cold spot and a dangerous one, for a mountain towered above their heads so steep that the stones would often rumble down its sides and startle them at midnight.

2. The daughter had just uttered some simple jest that filled them all with mirth, when the wind came through the Notch and seemed to pause before their cottage, rattling the door with a sound of wailing and lamentation before it passed into the valley. For a moment it saddened them, though there was nothing unusual in the tones. But the family were glad again when they perceived that the latch was lifted by some traveler whose footsteps had been unheard amid the dreary blast which heralded his approach and waited as he was entering and went moaning away from the door.

3. Though they dwelt in such a solitude, these people held daily converse with the world. The romantic pass of the Notch is a great artery through which the life-blood of internal commerce is continually throbbing between Maine on the one side and the Green Mountains and the shores of the St. Lawrence on the other. The stage-coach always drew up before the door of the cottage. The wayfarer with no companion but his staff paused here to exchange a word, that the sense of loneliness might not utterly overcome him ere he could pass through the cleft of the mountain or reach the first house in the valley. And here the teamster on his way to Portland market would put up for the night, and, if a bachelor, might sit an hour beyond the usual bedtime and steal a kiss from the mountain-maid at parting. It was one of those primitive taverns where the traveler pays only for food and lodging, but meets with a homely kindness beyond all price. When the footsteps were heard, therefore, between the outer door and the inner one, the whole family rose up, grandmother, children and all, as if about to welcome some one who belonged to them, and whose fate was linked with theirs.

4. The door was opened by a young man. His face at first wore the melancholy expression, almost despondency, of one who travels a wild and bleak road at nightfall and alone, but soon brightened up when he saw the kindly warmth of his reception. He felt his heart spring forward to meet them all, from the old woman who wiped a chair with her apron to the little child that held out its arms to him. One glance and smile placed the stranger on a footing of innocent familiarity with the eldest daughter.

5. "Ah! this fire is the right thing," cried he, "especially when there is such a pleasant circle round it. I am quite benumbed, for the Notch is just like the pipe of a great pair of bellows; it has blown a terrible blast in my face all the way from Bartlett."

6. "Then you are going toward Vermont?" said the master of the house as he helped to take a light knapsack off the young man's shoulders.

7. "Yes, to Burlington, and