G. A. Wells: I have had no classroom course in story writing and deplore that fact a great deal. Correspondence courses are valuable to this extent—they urge one to work and study by the reflection that he will have thrown away his money if he doesn't. The same results may be obtained by investing in a few good books on the subject of writing. I would strongly advise the beginner to let the correspondence schools alone. I have had much experience with them. None of them can possibly do what they so boldly assert in their literature. Not so long ago I paid ninety dollars cash for a course in picture play writing. For that sum I received two thin books of instruction, three detailed synopses of plays produced (all of them rotten!) and twelve pamphlets of lectures. I learned nothing that I had not previously learned from text-books got from the public library. Never again: (Right hand up and left on heart.)
It is of interest that most of these correspondence schools can't cite students who have been successful. One school cited me —— ——. Her stories appear in the —— but nowhere else that I have ever noticed. I do not call that success. That is the only school of correspondence of about a dozen I have investigated that can cite a student who has had anything published in a reliable magazine, and I think that unless such a school can show such graduates it is scarcely worth bothering about.
I attach great importance to books on the art of fiction writing. They have been of great value to me. The chief fault I find with these books is that they refer the student for examples to stories that are not easily available to a great many people. Too, they incline too much toward citation of the classics, such as Poe, Dickens, Thackeray and others. The student should have for his examples Kipling, O. Henry, London, Melville Post and the modern writers. Current magazine fiction is as a rule out of the question.
But after all the only way to learn to write fiction is to write fiction. I am of that number who contend that fiction writing can't be taught. It must be learned. But first of all one must have talent for it. That talent can't be acquired, though, given that, it can be cultivated. If one hasn't a talent for writing fiction all the teaching of all the teachers won't make one a writer of fiction. Education alone will not suffice, though I have had people say to me, "He should be able to write stories, he is so highly educated." It is to laugh. I say that the man with the gift or knack for writing fiction will turn out a writer in the end if he applies himself, regardless of schools and books teaching the method and art.
In this town is a woman, very highly educated, who studied two years in the classes of Dr. —— at Columbia. She has tried time and again to sell stories she has written, but up to date without success. From time to time I have had people come to me for information on the business of writing. The first thing I ask for is some of their stuff. Not an editor in the country would print such truck. This is rather unseemly in one who himself turns out a great deal of worthless truck, but I can see the faults of others better than my own. I can't see my own at all.
The best text books on the subject are to be found on the news-stands—Adventure, American, Saturday Evening Post, Harper's, etc. These should come first because they show the finished product of people who are actually succeeding at what the student aspires to do. It is the whole machine that can be taken down to learn how it was assembled in the first place.
Text-books, I think, are valuable to the student in proportion to their relationship to him. Are they really prepared for the student, or written because the author had certain views he wished to publish about a certain subject? I think they should suggest rather than dictate. The author should say, "Let's try this and see what happens," and not "Do this or you are damned." In short, I have found most text-books far too dictatorial.
Detailed laws and rules should be avoided. The student should get the general impression, but be left free to modify his performances to suit existing needs or to satisfy his individual point of view. Of course there are certain laws of story writing that preclude dispute by their very obviousness. I don't pay any more attention to the rules of story writing than I do to a fly on a Chinaman's nose in Canton.
It therefore galls me to have a text-book author tell me that I must do thus and so. All I want him to do is to give me the platform to stand on. I'll make and speak my own piece in my own way. If he is going to write and make my speech I'll step down.
William Wells: No.