The short story
I should recommend all those fiction-writers who are anxious to obtain magazine work, to turn their attention to the short complete story, and to avoid for many a day all attempts at Serial fiction. A Short Story, if good, is likely to find a market somewhere—but then it must be good—by this I mean terse and full of plot, without a single unnecessary word, and with the whole range of subject clearly mapped out in the author’s mind before a word is written. The short story can be a character sketch, although this is very often intensely stupid, and has a by-way of clever air about it, which quickly vanishes as you approach it, or it can be a good exciting incident with plenty of movement.
The “pretty-pretty” school
For Heaven’s sake don’t let your friends say of your short story, “How pretty!” The “goody-goody” school has had its day, and is laughed out of fashion, but the “pretty-pretty” still flourishes in full vigour, though in its own way it is quite as objectionable. Avoid mere prettiness as you do all those things which lead to destruction. The merely pretty writer gets weaker and weaker the older he grows, until at last he is sheer inanity. It is a good plan to be in a certain sense a specialist, and to take up a line which has not already been done to death. Whatever you are, be true; write about things you know of; don’t sit in your drawing-room and invent an impossible scene in a London garret. If you want to talk of hunger and cold and the depths of sordid privation, go at least and see them, if you cannot feel them. Don’t write high-flown sentiments. It would be far more interesting to the world if you told quite simply what you really know. Tell of the life that you have lived—let others see it from your point of view. Each one who has the power to write has also a lesson to deliver. However small that lesson may be tell it with simplicity. If it rings true, you have done your part well.
It is a good plan to avoid morbid writing. This is a failing often to be seen in the works of the very young. Be as cheerful as you can; we want all the sunshine we can get.
Fiction as a profession
If you want to take up fiction as a profession, write a little bit every day, whether you are in the mood or not. Put your story into a frame—by this I mean make up your mind in advance what length it shall be, and stick to that length, whether you feel inclined to go farther or not. This is very good practice.
Methods of work
Try, if possible, to see the end of your story before you begin to write it. This is a good plan, for it keeps the motive clear and unwavering. It is also the surest way of exciting a strong interest. Avoid long descriptive bits, more particularly descriptions of scenery. You need to be a Richard Jeffries to do your scenery descriptions so that other people shall see them, shall feel the breezes blowing, and hear the singing of the birds. To write in this style is a special gift, given to very few.
Character drawing