3. Perhaps my third point ought to have come first. It relates to the obtaining of an expert's views on the matter and form of your story. This will cost you a guinea, perhaps more, but it will save your time and hasten the possibilities of success. You can easily spend a guinea in postage and two or three more in having the MS. re-typed,—and yet the tale be ever the same—"Declined with thanks." Spare yourself many disappointments by putting your literary efforts before a competent critic, and let him point out the crudities, the digressions, and those weaknesses which betray the 'prentice hand. It will not be pleasant to see a pen line through your "glorious" passages, or two blue pencil marks across a favourite piece of dialogue, but it is better to know your defects at once than to discover them by painful and constant rejections.
4. Be willing to learn; have no fear of hard work; do the best, and write the best that is in you; and never ape anybody, but be yourself.