CHAPTER VIII
WHAT THE EDITOR WANTS
Suppose you were the manager of an immense forum, a stadium like the one in San Diego, California, where with the aid of a glass cage and an electrical device increasing the intensity of the human voice, it is possible to reach the ears of a world's record audience of 50,000 persons. What sort of themes would you favor when candidates for a place on your speaking program asked you what they ought to discuss? "The Style of Walter Pater?" "The Fourth Dimension?" "Florentine Art of the Fourteenth Century?" Not likely! You would insist upon simple and homely themes, of the widest possible appeal.
A parallel case is that of the editor of a magazine of general circulation. He manages a forum so much larger than the famous stadium at San Diego that the imagination is put to a strain to picture it. On the generally accepted assumption that each sold copy of a popular magazine eventually reaches an average of five persons, there is one forum in the magazine world of America which every week assembles a throng of ten million or more assorted citizens, gathered from everywhere, coast to coast, men and women, young and old, every walk of life. A dozen other periodicals address at least half that number, and the humblest of the widely known magazines reaches a quarter of a million—five times as many persons as jammed their way into the San Diego stadium one time to hear a speech by the President of the United States.
Put yourself into the shoes of the manager of one of these forums, and try to understand some of his difficulties.
A dozen times a day the editor of a popular periodical is besieged by contributors to make some sort of answer to the question: "What kind of material are you seeking?"
What else can he reply, in a general way, but "something of wide appeal, to interest our wide circle of readers"?
There are times, of course, when he can speak specifically and with assurance, if all he happens to require at the moment to give proper balance to his table of contents is one or two manuscripts of a definite type. Then he may be able to say, off-hand: "An adventure novelette of twenty thousand words," or, "An article on the high cost of shoe leather, three thousand five hundred words." But this is a happy situation which is not at all typical. Ordinarily, he stands in constant need of half a dozen varieties of material; but to describe them all in detail to every caller would take more time than he could possibly afford to spare.
He cannot stop to explain to every applicant that among what Robert Louis Stevenson described as "the real deficiencies of social intercourse" is the fact that while two's company three's a crowd; that with each addition to this crowd the topics of conversation must broaden in appeal, seeking the greatest common divisor of interests; and that a corollary is the unfortunate fact that the larger the crowd the fewer and more elemental must become the subjects that are possible for discussion.
Every editor knows that a lack of judgment in selecting themes of broad enough appeal to interest a nation-wide public is one of the novice scribbler's most common failings. It is due chiefly to a lack of imagination on the part of the would-be contributor, who appears to be incapable of projecting himself into the editorial viewpoint. I can testify from my own experience that a single day's work as an editor, wading through a bushel of mail, taught me more about how to make a selection of subjects than six months of shooting in the dark as a free lance.