The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1884-05-07

How the Stories are Written and
What Is Paid for them.


familiar through the length and breadth
Of the land to all who read what IS
termed dime novels or sensational liter
AZURE. as in the city, in advance Of the
Buffalo Bill combination, and is stop
ping at the Southern. A Republican
reporter called upon Mr.. Ingraham
yesterday afternoon, and found him at
leisure, for a talk. Mr.. Ingraham is q
relative of Rev. DIR. Ingraham of this
city. He is man about medium size,
wears his hair long and eombed back
from high forehead. His upper lip is
covered with a moustache, dropping on
each side, and on the whole he does not
lOok like man who would write dime
novels. The reporter preached the OBJ
ject of his visit to learn something about
dime novels and serial stoFy-writing,
how it is done and all that sort of
thing.
Col. Ingraham said: a great deal has
been said and written as to trashy stor-
les and dime novels, and how they de-
can look in the papers any day and see
detailed accounts of crime and criminals
which do more than anything else to
turn children's feet from the paths in
which they should walk. As for myself
have never yet written story without
. moral.
"How long have you been writing
these novels?'
'Pye been at it for twelve years, right
straight along, and find it pays pretty
well. What's the use of writing for
magazines which come out once amOnth
The pay could not enable a man to sub
sist. / write for living and not for
glory"
Chow many novels and stories have
you written"
"About $50 more or less. Has it ever
been your misfortune-have you ever
read any of them?'
"No sir. Have your inquired the
reporter.
iNo, wouldn't read them for what l
get to write them. / never read any OF
my own productions. believe authors
seldom do that"
"How long does it take to write a
story?"
"Oh we generally take a month, at
least, to write a story out and fix it up
in good shape, but story has been
written on much shorter time. For
instance, | was once pushed on a story
and | finished it in three days and nights
OF course that's rare case, and, as a
general thing, story requires consider
able blocking out, SO to speak As for
me | rarely block out story. l just
take man and write story. Oh course
fellow has to have good imagination
and some tact Sometimes you have q
hero, you know, who has done so many
brave things that it would not be right
to let him live, and the only alternative
| is to kill him off in the last chapter.
Have / ever had my hero in scrape
where couldn't get him out unless by
miraculous Intervention? No, l have
never done that yet. often start Out
a story and run it in serial form, and
very often keep it running much as Jim
| BIudso does in Milton Mobiles play, but
| always manage to prevent my story
from coming to an end too soon"
ode you have to be particular as te
historical facts and so forth in your
writings"
eyes; more so than one would think
for people who read the stories are
pretty sharp. If / make mistake de-
scribing a certain place in St. Louis
some one would write to my pub
Usher. A little mistake made in one
of my Mexican stories brought out 8
letter from man down in Texas who
disputed an assertion that had travel.
ed in three hours from one hacienda to
another / write sea stories, society
stories and border stories. The sailors
read the stories and they come to the
front in communication to the pub
Usher if l speak of taking reef in the
rudder or heaving the jibboom. One OF
! those letters hurt man more than a
hundred letters in his praise help him.
| was on the Hornet in the expedition to
| Cuba, in the revenue service, and lived
| for years on the border. Many of my
border stories are taken from life, and
can say that / never wrote of anything
with which / was not familiar. | have
never plagiarized from anything in my
! literary career, and often wonder that
have hot repeated myself. Sometimes
/ have got into trouble. wrote novel
| from the adventures of one of my from
tier friends, in which, of course the
beautiful maiden appeared in divers bad
predicaments from which she was res
cued by her plighted lover. When the
novel appeared | received letter from
the hero's wife informing me of her re-
lation to him and stating that she was
his wife at the time the facts in the story
were alleged to have occurred. Ny
heroines. Oh, l make them. had a
scene where wanted to locate hand
some maiden. The only maiden was
pock-marked girl with red hair and /
metamorphosed her into vision of fe-
male loneliness, the daughter of the
old trapper. The unmetamorphosed fe-
male could drink and smoke with the
toughest one in the territory and she has
undoubtedly never learned how handed
her down to posterity.o
care there many dime novel writers
in the country"
One would think there were, but re-
Gently it was found that there were not
SO many as expected. A large novel
publishing firm announced that they
were going to get a lot of new authors.
When they came to look around for them
they found there were few who could
write an acceptable novel. Sylvanus
Cobb, Albert W. Aiken, Whitaker and
OH Comes are among the best.
Cody buffalo Bill) can write good
story, only he says, Life is too
short to use punctuation marks
and I never use two letters where
one will do I've written whole se-
ries of novels about Buffalo Bill, describ-
ing his adventures and his mishaps That
reminds me Of story heard Jim Fisk
tell. Some one wanted to know why he
didn't want the Mansfield letters pub
Iished. He replied that he didn't care
particularly only all the way through he
had spelled God with little G and Fisk
with . big F.
"What was your best story y
nWeIi here's the title, Merle the Mn
tineer or, Montezuma the Merciless. Il
was written on the plan of Monte Cristo,
which think is..a good story. While
was at it / determined to Guido the
Monte Christie, so made the hero rich,
immensely richer than Monte Christie. |
made him find buried piratical treasure
Web when the hero found the money
some newsboy sat down and wrote a let
ter to the publisher stating that the |
hero was getting too rich for their blood /
and please. TO let up on him. So You see /
that whatever may be the opinion Of /
our work, we write to q large c0nstit-
uencv and critical one. I've written the I
Ocean Guerillas' and the Sea Snug
glers; or Red Royers on Blue Waters.
A novel can't succeed unless it has an
title. CAN'T 2
ss0h res; but then allinteration looks
pretty and sounds well, and ! know that
The readers like such titles
ttT1oez this Kind az literature nav