FURNISHING FICTIONISTS.
In the Atalanta Magazine, for this month, (which by its title, should be ahead of all competitors until the homme à la pomme appears) Mr. Walter Besant has an article "On the writing of Novels," in which he offers his advice to young girls afflicted with irrepressible scribblemania,—i.e. "girls who try to write stories, and burn to write novels,"—as to the best and easiest means of attaining their object. Advice gratis is, as we all know, of the gratis't value, and Mr. Besant offers his two penn'orth-of-"all-sorts and conditions," to embryonic authoresses, but had Mr. Punch been dealing with these dear little literary aspirants, he would have simply repeated his world-famed epigrammatic advice to "persons about to marry," and said, most unequivocally, to girls about to write novels—"Don't." Not so Mr. Besant, who proceeds to lay down rules for those "who wish to acquire the art of fiction." He commences with, "Practise writing, something original everyday,"—"Cultivate the habit of observation," and so on, in good old-fashioned copy-book style.
We will assist him with some rules for those to whom Mr. W. Besant gives this advice: "Be bold: never mind ridicule," ... "State fairly, what ordinary people never understand, that Fiction, like Painting, is an Art, and that you are setting yourself to the acquisition of that Art, if it be in your power, whatever may come of it in the end."
Very good. Now here is, as the Cookery books have it, "Another and a shorter way."
To acquire the Art of Fiction.—Clearly understand that Fiction is the opposite of Fact. If you invariably state facts, you become a matter-of-fact sort of person. No Genius is a matter-of-fact sort of person. So to "acquire the Art of Fiction," you must never tell the truth. Practice telling some original lie every day. If it be a description of scenery—well, this offers a large field—several large fields. Give an account to your relatives, or to your friends at a distance of the walk you have taken in the morning. First of all, of course, to be quite perfect, you must not have been out of the house. You will then proceed to describe the roaring Waterfalls over which you leaped, your hairbreadth escapes, &c., &c., and always remember that, as Mr. Besant says, "description is not slavish enumeration."
Rule I.—Tell a lie. Rule II.—Don't stick to it, but tell another, and a bigger one. Pile 'em up, and thus at last you may become an unrivalled Fictionist.
Rule III.—"Work regularly, at certain hours." Ascertain the time the Lark rises, and be up with it. Always be up to time, and to any amount of Larks. Let everybody in the house know you're at work. Sing as the Lark does, and be joyous. Insist on your room being fitted up for work,—at your parents' expense, of course,—with writing-desk, silver inkstand, paper, pens, a library of books, &c., and you must let it be distinctly understood by everyone that you are "not to be disturbed on any account," as you are going in for being a Fictionist.
Rule IV.—"Read no Rubbish," says Mr. Besant. But this is what every author would say, making certain exceptions. But we should say, "Read Everything." Then begin to write. Here is an example: say you read Pickwick. Well, you write a book called Nikpik, a Russian story, plot in St. Petersburg, characters, Nikpik, Kinkel, Grazsnod, and Putmann. You represent a sporting scene where Putmann, with his eyes shut, kills a bird, and afterwards Kinkel wounds Putmann. "Hullo," says the reader, "uncommonly like Pickwick, and writes impetuously and indignantly to papers. Whereupon, you write in reply, saying "it may be so: les grands esprits se rencontrent: but that you have never heard of Pickwick, much less read it." By this time everyone will allow that you are entitled to be regarded as the greatest Fictionist of the age.
Other rules Mr. Besant gives, for which anyone sufficiently interested in detecting the errors of his advice gratis, may search the Atalanta Magazine with considerable profit to himself (or herself) especially if he reads A Christmas Carol, by Christina G. Rossetti, and one tail of Three Lions, by that undefeated Fictionist, Mr. Rider Haggard.