Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1886-06-25
NOVEL WRITING HOW IT IS DONE.

cially writing nOvcls-except pen
ink, and paper, and a few.scatterec
ideas The public imagine that il
must be hardly any trouble to write
what takes so little trouble to read
They do not hold with Sheridan''
maxim that "easy writings curs
hard reading but think that
story which only takes half al
hour TO read must have cost The
author very little trouble indeed
"WIite - people sometimes say
"why, anybody can write. There is
no great art in that. We could al
write, if we only gave up the time
TO il. 1t must be such very easy
work" Aud so popular novelist
is often greeted with the remark
"What a pleasant life you must
have writing those charming sto
RES of yours. quite envy you
such a delightful amusement
~Imuscmcnr - delightful amuse
ment. forsooth. When the wretch
ed man has been in the agOnies OF
indecision for a whole mortal week
as TO whether he will make Edwin
propose for Angelina by letter OF
by word of mouth, and whether
Angelina's papa, old Mr.. Brown,
ought to enact the part Of the
"stern parent" or to relent and
crv. "Bless you, my children" Nc
one gives the poor novel.writeI
credit for any deep thought in the
matter. People think his stories
all came to him, looked over his
shoulder, as Hans Christian An
dersen said his did, and as for those
thrilling adventures his heroes and
heroines undergo by flood and fell
they were reeled off the line by
the ward, without any execution OF
worry on his part. Alas, is it so
There are certainly some favored
individuals who dash away at the
rate of a hunt. Anthony TrOllOpC
tells us that he was up every morn
ing at half past five, and turned
of two hundred and fifty words
every quarter of an hours, writing
regularly three hour a day.
But, then, every one is not like
lin. Most novelists find it alabol
sometimes to get up the necessary
amount Of steam, and Dr. John
sons advice to 'Sit down doggedly
is not always productive of salts
factory results. The chapter will
hang fire, the climax fails to ex-
cite. ard the author is at his wits
end how to work itup to fever heat
In one cfThackcray's wRoundabout
Papers he mentions Alexander
humans mode of action, how he
invented the plan Of a new work
lying silent on his back for two
whole days Oh the deck Of a yacht
i'm a Mediterranean port. At the
end of two days he arose and call
ed for dinner. In those two days
he had built his plot, the chapters
the characters, the incidents. The
combinations were all arranged III
the artists brain before he had put
pen to paper. "My Pegasus" adds
Thackeray, "won't fly so as to let
me survey the field before me. lie
has no wings, he is blind Of an eye
certainly, he is FESTIVE, stubborn
slow, crops a hedge when he ought
to be galloping, or gallops when he
ought to be quiet. lie will never
show Oft when | want him. Some
times he goes at a peace that sur
prises me, sometimes when l most
wish him to make the running the
brute turns FESTIVE, and ! am
obliged to let him take his own
time A very different author
from Thackeray, William Goodwin,
of "Caleb Williams" fame, describes
how his famous book was written,
how it grew upon him, bit by bit,
from the conclusion backwards,
through the first and second vol
umns to the central idea Of pursuer
and pursued. 81 then sat down,
he saws, "tO write my story from
the beginning. | wrote for the
most part but short portion in
each day. | wrote only when the
afllatus was on me. | held 1t Tor
a maxim that any portion written
when | was not fully in the vein
told for considerable worse than
nothing. Idleness was thousand
times better in this case than writ
ing against the grain. ldleness
was only time lost but a passage
written fatty, feebly, and in the
wrong spirit constituted an obstacle
that it was next to impossible to
set right again. | wrote, therefore,
by starts, sometimes for a week or
ten days not a line; yet all came to
the same thing in the end. On
an average a volume OF Caleb
Williams cost me four months,
neither less nor more" What
would Miss BraddOn or Mr.. Henry
Wood say to this slow rate OF
In four months they
would turn of with ease, not one,
bnt three volumes. Still, their
volumes are not works of art, as
'Caleb Williams" is. Let us hear
what Rosseau tells as about his
writing My MSS" he says,
'blotted, scratched, interlined, and