Use good white paper, of ordinary letter size, eight by eleven inches, and leave a margin of about an inch on either side of the text and at both top and bottom. Number each page. Don't write your "copy" with a ribbon which is too worn to be bright; and, while you are about it, clean up those letters on the typebars that have a tendency to fill up with ink and dust. You may have noticed, for example, that "a," "e," "o," "s," "m," and "w" are not always clear-cut upon the page.
You are doing all this to make the reading of your contribution as easy a task as possible from the purely physical side. You are simply using a little common sense in the process of addressing yourself to the favorable attention of a force of extremely busy persons who are paid to "wade through" a formidable stack of mail.
If you have an overpowering distaste for doing your own typewriting, you may hire a typist to turn your handwritten "copy" into something easier to read. This procedure, however, may prove to be rather too costly for a beginner's purse. It is the part of wisdom to learn to operate a machine yourself. At first the task may seem rather a tough one, but even after so short a time as a month of practice you are likely to be surprised at the progress you will make. Before long you will be able to write much faster upon a machine than with a pencil or a pen.
The danger then lies in a temptation to haste and carelessness. This is one reason why many fastidious magazine writers always do the first draft of an article in longhand and turn to the typewriter only when they are ready to set down the final version. Temperament and habit should decide the matter. Nearly any one can learn to compose newspaper "copy" at the keyboard, but not so many of us dare attempt to do magazine articles at the same high rate of speed. Particularly does this hold true of the first page of a magazine manuscript. The opening paragraph of such a manuscript is likely to make a much more exacting demand upon the writer's skill than the "lead" of a newspaper "story." All that the newspaper usually demands is that the reporter cram the gist of his facts into the first few sentences. The magazine insists that the first paragraph of a manuscript not only catch attention but also sound the keynote of many words to follow, for the "punch" of the magazine story is more often near the end of the article than the beginning.
Though the technique of newspaper and magazine writing may differ on this matter of the "lead," do not make the mistake of supposing that the magazine introduction need not be just as chock full of interest as the opening of a newspaper "story." You are no longer under any compulsion, when you write for the magazines, to cram the meat of the story into the first sentence, but one thing you must do—you must rouse the reader to sit up and listen. You can well afford to spend any amount of effort upon that opening paragraph. Write your lead a dozen times, a hundred times, if necessary, until you make it rivet the attention.
CHAPTER III
HOW TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS
After he has bought or rented a typewriter, the would-be free lance in the non-fiction field has his workshop only half equipped. One more machine is an urgent necessity. Get a camera.