And about ninety-nine similar articles.
In the matter of topical articles, I must quote once more from When a Man's Single. Simms told Rob Angus "that when anything remarkable occurred in London he should at once do an article at the British Museum on the times the same thing had happened before." This kind of article, if delivered promptly, almost invariably finds a market; but it must be delivered promptly. Then, of course, there are the fixed and movable feasts--Christmas, Easter, &c.,--for which seasonable articles are required. Seasonable articles about these too trite festivals the editor must have (though he would much prefer to dispense with them), and he accepts the least hackneyed suggestions which offer themselves.
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Wide as the field for copy already is, it widens, as I have said, continually. In America it is always somewhat wider than in England, and a perusal of the Sunday editions of the leading New York papers, the Herald, World, Sun, Journal, &c. (which may be obtained in London), will not be profitless to the alert student. These huge and flaring productions have objectionable features which are only too obvious, but they are conducted by the cleverest journalists in the world, and the invaluable journalistic instinct is apparent on every page of them. The splendid pertinacity and ingenuity of the American journalist in wringing copy out of any and every side of existence cannot fail to quicken the pulses of those who are accustomed to the soberer, narrower, sleepier ways of English newspapers. Fleet Street pretends to despise and contemn American methods, yet a gradual Americanising of the English press is always taking place, with results on the whole admirable.
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Photography is an aid to the outside contributor. Illustrations always assist an article; sometimes they are sufficient to make an unsaleable article saleable. Many articles are capable of being illustrated by means of the camera, and almost any photographic pictures are capable of being "written round." For example, a series of pictures, with brief letterpress, under the title, "The Strand from dawn to dusk," showing incidents of traffic, such as a horse down, &c., would be easily disposed of to an illustrated weekly; such photographs could be taken instanteously on a bright day without any difficulty whatever.
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The foregoing remarks on the search for copy are of course addressed to the aspirant living in London, who possesses immense advantages over her rural sister. She has, chiefly, the British Museum, that blessed fount of universal information, and her first duty must be to apply to the Chief Librarian for a reading ticket. Some time will elapse before she is able to use handily the vast apparatus here placed at her disposal, but she will find the officials benignantly omniscient, and always ready to help the unskilled in research. Also, she must not be shy of going into the world and collecting such facts as she may require, ferreting things out, and refusing to be abashed. So soon as she has contributed to a few papers of standing, she should have some cards engraved with her name, and a list of these papers after the words "Contributor to." Such a card will constitute sufficient credentials on any expedition of enquiry, and will frequently aid her to obtain interviews with "people of importance in their day." Interviews, it need scarcely be said, are most popular with the average editor.
The provincial aspirant is less fortunately placed, though if she resides in a large town with a good public library, she may manage tolerably well. It is the woman sepulchred in a small village who finds herself most severely handicapped. Still, I know instances of women so situated who have gained the position of regular contributors to journals of dignity. Their success has been usually due to specialising on some single topic or group of topics, such as "nature notes," "household affairs," "country occupations," "parochial management," "home handiwork," "village sketches," and so on. There is copy even in a village. A woman afflicted with journalistic ambitions once wrote to an editor complaining that she was out of the world, actually two miles from a shop. "Then write an article," the editor replied, "entitled 'Two miles from a shop.'" She did so; it was accepted and followed by others of a similar kind.