Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-27
TRIALS OF A WRITER. :
He Becomes an Editor and Learns that
Editing" Is not Writing
Conflict with the Printers-llisery of Rejecting
Mss-9he Space Grabber, the Rehasher
and the ClIneher.

NEW YORK. Jan. ST. knew there was
a difference between aediting' a paper
and writing for one, but how much of n
difference L did not realize until my des-
tiny placed me temporarily in charge of
the Sunday supplement- of a city daily
which, in accordance with the regula
tons, or rather exactions of modern jour-
nalisn, published a Sunday paper, or
rather magazine, of sixteen pages. In
this case, iedncting the space allotted
for advertisements, il meant about loo
solid columns of reading matter. OF
this l had about forty-siX columns TO
stedit -
To s'edit'' is not TO write. Ispeak
thus plainly for the benefit of the many
young mea and maidens who are 10 swell
the ranks Of the great army now indus
triously engaged in sending contributions
to the editor 5 waste basket, and who
still imagine that the editor does nothing
but write for the paper.
pause here moment toask where, at
the present increase of size and amount
of matter published, are our Sunday pa
pers to stop? Already the contents of
some Sunday issues amount 10 more than
that of the average monthly magazine.
While this competition is going on at
such lively and increasing rate between
newspaper publishers to give the most
reading matter for the least money, L
wonder if the idea may not in the due
course of time strike them that they may
be giving to those who read more than
they can really read and digest.
Our business men to-day do not read
one half the contents of the daily paper.
They have only time TO glance at them.
They would really be much better suited
could some device of journalism give
them their news in readable print in the
compass of 4 handkerchief, and give them
no more.
[ entered on my duties in blissful ig
norance of the trials that awaited me.
die not know how to ''put a head - OH
an article or selected ''reprint. -
knew nothing of the hieroglyphics neces-
sary to let the printer know the various
kinds of type in which my headings
should be set IN 1 did not realize that
the writer manuscript must be, in n
sense, ground through the EDITORS mill
and go through certain process before
being putin the printers hands. l did
know that something was to be done,
but the extent of that something
[ did not know OF the signs to
be placed on manuscript to show whether
the type used should be BREWER or
'minion or "Eagate, or those to des-
ignate full face caps for my upper
headings and ''full face lower case" for
my lower headings, of a 9 display head
ing, - of 9 balancing the columns, nor
that the headings on page should not be
damned up together or too far apart. [
was in that condition of ignorance that
the smallest part of a printer was justified
in looking down on me with contempt.
n. BIN the composing room q
printer is a much larger sized Indian than
mere writer.
You who read the instructive and en-
tertaning columns of ghastliness, acct
dent and crime in your morning paper
you who are unfortunately or otherwise
neither writer's nor printers, you think
you conld easily write one of those star
ing sensational headings over the article
which tell all about it before you read it
and whet your appetite for reading it
But yon might not. 1t is not so much
the literary ability needed. 1t is the
printer who stands in the way. 1t is the
printer who must have just so many
words for one kind of head and SO many
for another. You must get your sense,
sensation and information condensed into
say twenty-four or twenty-six words for
one part of the ''head - and ten or
twelve for another part, and these must
neither run over nor run under these
numbers. If they do and the spaces are
uneven that issue of the paper would in
that printers estimation, be ruined. If
you, the editor, do not ''make up'' your
pages so that the columns balance" the
g.. L. 4 l
foreman of the composing room values a
newspaper for its typographical appear
ance. This is right. A paper, like a
house, should look neat. Only the
foreman need not forget that there is
something in the articles besides types.
The magnate of our composing room
called all written matter ''stuff -
''What are you going to do with this
stuff he would remark, and he used to
put such an lntlection of contempt on
that word stuff - that it would have
made any bnt an old tough writer sick to
hear him. Poems literally perspiring
with Inspiration, beautiful descriptive
articles reeking with soul and sen timent,
lively humor, manuscript written and
rewritten so lovingly and carefully
children of many q brilliant brain-all
with him was but 90 stuff!''
During all the years had been writing
l had bestowed no attention on the
s'making up of paper. had vague
idea that the paper made up itself. l
had passed in my articles, and had seen
them in their places few hours later,
and never dreamt that the placing of
these so that the columns should end
evenly or that the page should not look
like tiresome expanse of unbroken type,
required study, taste and experience.
/ was aroused from this dream when
first called on 10 make app my eight
page supplement. OF course, lhe.fore-
man expected me to go right on like an
old hand, and lay out in the printed form
where the continued story should be and
how mahy columns It should fill, where
the foreign correspondence and Illus
trated articles should appear, where the
paste pot and Sscissored matter, shorter
articles and paragraphs should be, so
that the printer could place his galleys in
the form as marked out per schedule.
l was confronted within a single week
with all this mass of my own editorial
aud typographical ignorance, and even
more than can here beaold. 1t had not
before downed upon me that an editor
should be-well, we will say, the skeleton
Of q printer. / was not even the ghost of
one. was not before aware that in the
reeesses of editorial 6ens and composing