The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-07-21
MUST WORK RAPIDLY
OFTEN CROWDED TO THE
LIMIT
LITERARY FINISH NEGLECTED
The Story Must Have a Coherent
Plot, However, and Al
ways Point
Moral.

New York Sun.
To the romantic Imagination of tn
small boy, the writer of dime novels
Of the same heroic and fire-eating typ
as the heroes he portrays. The actua
fact is so different that if it were know
the resultant loss Of glamour would un
doubtedly be accompanied by a CORE
spending decrease in sales.
The men who write dime novels do no
wear their hair long. They carry no six
shooters, no bowie knives and many o
them never saw live Indian or g. cow
boy. The writing of such literature is
business rather than a profession, an,
the only special qualifications requisite
to success are an imagination of grea
resource and fertility, and an unlimited
capacity for hard and rapid work.
Each publishing house engaged in thu
business employs staff Of regular writ
ers, paying those who do nothing els'
a salary, while those who do other worl
get a fixed sum for the manuscript ant
copyright of each story. Thus is carried
on the business of embodying and re-
embodying in history the good ole
heroes. Alkali Ike, Gentleman Joe, Big
| Foot Sandy, One-Eyed Pete, Deadwoo6
Dan. Daredevil Dick, The Man with the
| Iron Hand, The Boy Detective and al
the other popular favorites who are still
! en- duty. trailing Indians, hanging horse
| thieves. rescuing kidnapped maidens, find
| ing lost heirs. recovering lost fortunes
! and in other ways helping good people
| out of bad scrapes and leaving bad peo-
| pie "clinging, weak and despairing, to a
| yielding twig' that holds them 'for one
thrilling moment suspended between the
! edge of the cliff and the yaWning, rock
bound abyss thousand feet below"
In addition to the men who are en-
gagged to produce a certain amount Of
copy within given time in order to
supply the regular issues Of the various
libraries, each publisher has list of
men who can write story to order at
short notice. They are classed as extras,
or specials, and are called upon when
a regular writer Is i'll, on vacation, or
falls behind in the production Of copy.
These extra writer's are usually newspa-
per men employed on some paper in the
city, or men engaged in some other class
of literary work that does not fully oc-
cupy their time.
Nine-tenths Of all the so-called blood
and thunder stories produced are writ
ten to order. AS a rule the author does
not even select the title of his story,
and in many cases he is compelled to
follow plot suggested by the publisher
or to use some incident in real life as
a basis.
The publishers keep a close watch upon
tiOnal crimes and adventure that may
serve as incidents in the fiction prepared
for the small boy, and when a great
event or an incident Of national interest
occurs, there is an exciting race among
publishers to be the first to put upon
the market a dime novel relating in
some way to the affair in the public
mind.
Within a week Of Dewey's victory in
Manila bay a score of thrilling stories
in which that battle was the chief Incl
dent were on the news stands When the
sailors Of the United States cruiser Bal
timore were attacked in the streets of a
South American city a few years ago,
and there was much wild talk of war,
a publishing house in New York put on
sale forty-etght hours atLer the news OF
the affair reached this country a dime
novel with the murdered boatswain's
mate of the cruiser as the hero. The
author of the story wrote for thirty
six hours without rest or sleep, produc-
ing 10000 words Of copy, which went to
the printers sheet by sheet as he wrote
1t. This is probably the record for rapid
literary production. It often happens
that writer of such literature is called
upon to produce a story of 10000 to $1,000
words in three days.
Writers of dime novels do not as a rule
attempt a polished style Of English and |
rarely reread Or revise a page of their
copy. The publishers want action, plot,
Incident, dialogue and thrilling situa1
lions. A successful writer of dime
novels must possess at least superficial
knowledge Of a great variety of sub
5ects. He must be able to write
story Of life in the slums of a great |
city, one of adventure on the Western |
plains, or war in Cuba or the Philip !
pines, without making any material error |
in the descriptive sections.
1t is rigid rule that plot and in
cident must be plausible. No matter
how improbable the deeds of the hero |
may be, the author must be careful to
avoid imposs1bilities and absurdities II
Alkali Ike scalps an Indian IN the Black
hills In the morning and cleans out a
faro bank in Deadwood at night, the
story must explain satisfactorily how he
made his journey from one point to the
other in the time specified.
The dime novel writer must also be
able to take up character created by
another writer and carry the imaginary
individual along through other stories
and new adventures without changing
his habits or permitting him to repeat
nlmSelf In deeds Of daring. It often hap
pens that one central character is car
ried along by the hero through twenty
Or thirty stories published in the modern
library style or such fiction. WhiRs
The same name may appear on the title
page of each story. dozen different
authors perhaps contribute to the series.
each taking up the characters where
hey were left by the preceding writer
and carrying them on to new fields of
adventure.
A publisher who had created a roman
ic Western adventurer with a name
hat proved popular with the boys con-
racted with one of his regular writer's
or series Of twenty stories After
iXteen Of the series had been issued, one
very two weeks, and the other four were
extensively advertised to appear on GER
ain dates. the author fell i'll The pub
lsher sent for one Of his extra writers.
Who was employed on daily newspa-
Ter, and arranged with him to take up
he work and carry on the central char
cters unchanged.
In order to prevent delay in getting {
ut the stories as advertised, the extra
7riter had to read up the career of the !
ero from the start and write four nov.
Is OF $1,000 words each in twenty days.
he task was successfully accomplished.
nd the writer in question did not lose '
n hour from his regular work as a re-