On the art of writing fiction

by Unknown

FROM THE EDITOR’S STANDPOINT

L. T. Meade

A practical point

I feel a particular pleasure in writing this paper. In the articles which have preceded mine, valuable hints have been given for the guidance of the fictionist. Broad rules have been laid down, and some of that personal experience, far more valuable than mere empty rules, has been related for the benefit of the student. I have written stories of all sorts, and can endorse the excellence of the suggestions given. But in this paper I want to touch on a very practical point indeed, namely, how best the fiction writer, when he has produced his work, can dispose of it.

To effect this most desirable end, he has got to please either a publisher or an editor. I have had a great deal to do with publishers, and find them most kind and encouraging when they are approached in a proper business spirit. But as I am not a publisher, and have been an editor, I can perhaps best help my readers by telling them a few of my own experiences during several years.

Writing for magazines

Articles of all sorts, written by all classes of people, are offered to magazines. A comparatively small number are accepted, for the simple reason that a magazine can only hold a certain amount of letter-press; and not all the cramming and pushing and squeezing in the world will allow an extra line to be printed, if the pages of the magazine are already full.

This patent fact is quite forgotten by would-be contributors, who feel themselves aggrieved when this most truthful reason is given for the return of their articles. In exceptional cases of striking brilliancy room of course is made for the article, but brilliant articles, like brilliant people, interfere but seldom with the ordinary routine. Magazines, however, are so numerous that the chances of average work being accepted become greater day by day, and as there is no better opening for a young writer than to become a contributor to a good magazine, he ought to leave no stone unturned to effect this desirable end. By so doing, he has the opportunity of having his work immediately presented to an assured public. A book, however clever, has to find its own public, and this—except in a few cases—is a slow and laborious process. It is a mistaken idea that books are sold in thousands. This is only the case with authors who have made a very wide reputation. The magazine is, therefore, the best opening for the young writer, and the sooner he knows the right way to set to work to get his articles taken, the better.

Pitfalls to avoid

Primarily, of course, he must have the necessary talent, or, at least, the knack of gauging popular taste, but, granted that he possesses this important gift, it is well for him to know certain pitfalls into which he may stumble.

To quote from my own Editorial experience may be the best method of showing some of these.

Rejected contributions

A contribution like the following was not accepted, although the author had a great deal of learning, and other valuable qualifications to recommend him. An epic poem to run as a serial through six months of the magazine—to occupy six pages monthly, printed double column; the subject to be devoted to a description of Indian life. For quite different reasons the following proposal was also rejected—a series of six papers on “Rogues,” in which every type of wickedness was elaborately discussed. Neither of these subjects was in the least suitable for the magazine to which they were offered, and the writers who sent them made the grand mistake of knowing nothing of the periodical to which they offered their contributions. Their work, however excellent it may have been, was useless to us, and a glance at our magazine would have told them this, for themselves.

Different classes of contributors

Another class of would-be contributor is the utterly silly person who thinks that it would be great fun to have something in print, and imagines that this desirable result can be attained with no labour or previous study. On a certain summer’s afternoon, my co-editor and I were startled by hearing violent giggles outside the office door. Presently two blushing, rosy-faced girls entered. The spokeswoman said she didn’t know our magazine at all—she had never written anything before in her life, but she and her friend thought they would like to make an attempt, if we would give them something to do. We were to suggest a subject, they did not mind in the least what they wrote about. I need scarcely say that the services of these accomplished ladies were not secured.

The obtuse

The obtuse, though earnest-minded aspirant is also a hopeless example. Her utter lack of perception as to what is necessary for periodical literature makes it useless to argue with her, and hopeless to advise her. I recall a case in point. I was asked to give advice on the desirability of the applicant’s resigning a good post as resident governess with a large salary, in favour of literature.

I inquired if she had had much experience as a writer, and if she had been encouraged by the success of her books.

The lady in question stared at me with round eyes.

“I have never printed a word in my life,” she said; “but I am tired of teaching, and should like to take up literature. I have brought a little article with me, which you may care to see. The subject I am sure ought to interest—it is on Hamlet.”

I gently begged my would-be contributor not to throw up the certainty of earning a comfortable living as a governess until she had tested her powers a little further. I promised to read her expositions on Hamlet, and she withdrew. I need scarcely say what the result of my perusal was.

An amateur’s treatment of Hamlet was scarcely likely to possess anything fresh to recommend it. I was obliged to return the Paper with the mildest of hints that this subject was rather used up. Why must beginners in the great Art of Literature try to give their puny ideas on those giant problems over which the greatest minds have thought and puzzled, and thought and puzzled in vain? Nobody wants their poor little ideas, which are after all only feeble reflections of the thoughts of greater minds. Such papers are only suited for Amateur Essay Societies.

Three requisites

Equally silly are the writers who choose hackneyed topics that have been discussed and worn threadbare years ago. Such is the writer who offers a series of twelve Papers on the Higher Education of Women, or Woman’s Suffrage, or the Poetry of Wordsworth. The Papers that find favour with Editors must first be fresh as regards Subject, second, be fresh as regards Style, third, fresh as regards Idea. The writer who possesses this triple gift, requires no further hints to tell him how and where to succeed. Success with him is a certainty.

What not to do

Perhaps the best way to emphasise the above remarks is to tell my readers what to do and what not to do.

Do not send an article to a magazine until you have first looked through at least one of its numbers; carefully observe its tone, try to gather for yourself what its motive is, and to what sort of public it appeals. If after a short or a long perusal you discover that you and it are not in touch—that its scope is too wide for you, or your thoughts are too big for its limits, leave it alone, and try your luck somewhere else.

When you write, don’t fly too high. Get a subject into your head and feel that, small as this subject may be, you have something either useful or amusing to say about it.

Do not write a poem on April, and send it for insertion in the April number of a magazine on the day that number issues from the press. This has been a constant experience in my Editorial life. Try to remember, if you know it already, and try to learn the fact if you do not, that magazines take a certain number of days to print, and that, as a rule, the number is practically made up weeks, and sometimes months before publication.

False humility

When you offer a contribution to sin Editor, do not have resource to a sort of false humility, which some writers are fond of adopting. For instance, I have received letters with offers of verses which the writer deprecates as “unworthy of publication, and only fit for the waste-paper basket,” nevertheless, I am expected to read them, and give a critical opinion, because the friends of the writer in question have urged him or her as the case may be, to forward them. This false humility is always prejudicial to the would-be contributor.

Be business-like

In offering contributions be as terse and business-like as possible. Editors have hearts, and sometimes these hearts are made to ache pretty considerably. But first and foremost an Editor, if he is a good one, must be business-like. He has to place the interests of the magazine before your private wants, however pressing and painful they may be to yourself. I feel that I am saying cruel things when I write like this, but they are true, and if I would really help you, you must know the truth.

There would be no magazines worth reading if MSS. were accepted on such pleas, and yet they are constantly being urged.

Try to think of yourself as a merchant who has something of value for sale. The Editor represents the public, who want to buy. He will quickly appreciate you if he sees that you can give him what his readers want, and, believe me, he will never care for you, as a writer, on any other grounds, whatever.

“My dear,” an old lady and a very celebrated author said to me many years ago, “please bear one fact in mind. Your Publisher or your Editor may love you as well as himself, but he will never love you better.”

Now the Editor or Publisher who takes unsuitable work from a mere sense of pity, inevitably courts financial disaster, and he can scarcely be expected to love the would-be contributor to that extent.

Introductions

I should like to say a word here with regard to Introductions. Many people who wish to write have an idea that an introduction from a successful author is “Open Sesame!” to the world of literature. This is a vast mistake. You stand or fall on your own merits, and on those only. The utmost your influential friends can do for you is to get your MS. looked at. If it is silly or unsuitable, back it goes just as surely as if it had not been supported by any great name. This is a fact which is worth knowing.

I am afraid I must mention one more don’t.

One last don’t

Don’t send a MS. to a very busy Editor, with the remark that you know it is unsuitable, but you would be so much obliged if he would read it carefully, and give you his candid opinion as to whether you have got the literary faculty or not. Editors are usually kind-hearted, and don’t like to refuse requests of this sort. But do the people who worry them with ill-written, bulky and all but illegible MSS., realise what a large demand they are making upon valuable time, and by what right they demand a professional opinion from, in many cases, a total stranger? The same people would be much shocked if they were told that they expected advice from their doctor or lawyer for nothing, and yet the Author or Editor who has amassed his knowledge through years of patient toil, must give it away to any one who has the impertinence to ask for it. I feel strongly on this point, for in very truth it is, as a rule, casting pearls before swine, as those who could be really helped with advantage are generally far too modest to ask for such assistance.

The short story

I should recommend all those fiction-writers who are anxious to obtain magazine work, to turn their attention to the short complete story, and to avoid for many a day all attempts at Serial fiction. A Short Story, if good, is likely to find a market somewhere—but then it must be good—by this I mean terse and full of plot, without a single unnecessary word, and with the whole range of subject clearly mapped out in the author’s mind before a word is written. The short story can be a character sketch, although this is very often intensely stupid, and has a by-way of clever air about it, which quickly vanishes as you approach it, or it can be a good exciting incident with plenty of movement.

The “pretty-pretty” school

For Heaven’s sake don’t let your friends say of your short story, “How pretty!” The “goody-goody” school has had its day, and is laughed out of fashion, but the “pretty-pretty” still flourishes in full vigour, though in its own way it is quite as objectionable. Avoid mere prettiness as you do all those things which lead to destruction. The merely pretty writer gets weaker and weaker the older he grows, until at last he is sheer inanity. It is a good plan to be in a certain sense a specialist, and to take up a line which has not already been done to death. Whatever you are, be true; write about things you know of; don’t sit in your drawing-room and invent an impossible scene in a London garret. If you want to talk of hunger and cold and the depths of sordid privation, go at least and see them, if you cannot feel them. Don’t write high-flown sentiments. It would be far more interesting to the world if you told quite simply what you really know. Tell of the life that you have lived—let others see it from your point of view. Each one who has the power to write has also a lesson to deliver. However small that lesson may be tell it with simplicity. If it rings true, you have done your part well.

It is a good plan to avoid morbid writing. This is a failing often to be seen in the works of the very young. Be as cheerful as you can; we want all the sunshine we can get.

Fiction as a profession

If you want to take up fiction as a profession, write a little bit every day, whether you are in the mood or not. Put your story into a frame—by this I mean make up your mind in advance what length it shall be, and stick to that length, whether you feel inclined to go farther or not. This is very good practice.

Methods of work

Try, if possible, to see the end of your story before you begin to write it. This is a good plan, for it keeps the motive clear and unwavering. It is also the surest way of exciting a strong interest. Avoid long descriptive bits, more particularly descriptions of scenery. You need to be a Richard Jeffries to do your scenery descriptions so that other people shall see them, shall feel the breezes blowing, and hear the singing of the birds. To write in this style is a special gift, given to very few.

Character drawing

I have always found in writing my own stories, that there came a certain point when the characters ceased to be machines, and began to live. They were flesh and blood, creations as real as those I lived with. I hated some of them, and loved others. All those characters that remained merely puppets I eliminated from the story; they were useless to its progress, they took from its effect. When your characters become alive to you, as they will to all those who have even the slightest touch of inspiration in writing, you will find a strange thing happen. They will begin to dominate you, not you them. They will grow in spite of you, and take a certain direction and fulfil their destinies just as surely as if they really lived. You may wish to make a villain of a certain character, but in spite of you he may turn out a saint or vice-versâ. This is a mystery which I cannot pretend to account for, but I think all fiction writers have felt it more or less. And what is more, the better and stronger the story grows, the more will the characters dominate their author, and turn him whither they will.

Daily practice

Inspiration is the grandest of all gifts for the fiction writer, but he must not suppose that it comes daily, and if he never writes except when he thinks it has visited him, he will seldom or never write at all. Again I repeat that daily practice in writing is the best of all training. It is wonderful how this daily practice overcomes difficulties, one by one. How supple the mind becomes, how easy is the flow of language, how completely the writer masters the difficult problem of concentration of thought.

But I could go on talking indefinitely and, after all, although a few broad rules are necessary and useful, each man must be his own teacher—each life must inculcate its own lessons, and bring forth its own fruit.

“The end crowns all”

If to ability is added courage, and to courage perseverance, you will succeed; and I hope to shake hands with you in spirit over the good work you have accomplished.

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
London & Edinburgh.