The daily press is the great mirror of human events. When we open the paper at our breakfast table we find a literal record of the previous day's joy and sorrow—marriages and murders, failures and successes, news from afar and news from the next street—they all find a place. The would-be novel writer should be a diligent student of the newspaper. In no other sphere will he discover such a plenitude of raw material. Some of the cases tried at the Courts contain elements of dramatic quality far beyond those he has ever imagined; and here and there may be found in miniature the outlines of a splendid plot. Of course everything depends on the reader's mind. If you cannot read between the lines—that is the end of the matter, and your novel will remain unwritten; but if you can—some day you may expect to succeed.
I once came across a practical illustration of the manner in which a newspaper paragraph was treated imaginatively. The result is rather crude and unfinished, but most likely it was never intended to stand as a finished production, occurring as it does, in an American book on American journalism.[18:A]
Here is the paragraph:
"John Simpson and Michael Flannagan, two railroad labourers, quarrelled yesterday morning, and Flannagan killed Simpson with a coupling-pin. The murderer is in jail. He says Simpson provoked him and dared him to strike."
Now the question arises: What was the quarrel about? We don't know; so an originating cause must be invented. The inventor whose illustration I am about to give conceived the story thus:
"'Taint none o' yer business how often I go to see the girl."
"Ef Oi ketch yez around my Nora's house agin, Oi'll break a hole in yer shneakin' head, d'ye moind thot!"
"You braggin' Irish coward, you haint got sand enough in you to come down off'n that car and say that to my face."
It was John Simpson, a yard switchman who spoke this taunt to a section hand. A moment more and Michael Flannagan stood on the ground beside him. There was a murderous fire in the Irishman's eyes, and in his hand he held a heavy coupling-pin.
"Tut! tut! Mike. Throw away the iron and play fair. You can wallup him!" cried the rest of the gang.