The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-11-09
CONDENSERS OF NOVELS
NEW TRADE WHICH CALLS FOB
BRAINS.
Men Who Cut Down Popular Novels
So That They May Be Read
for Private Families or
Entertainments.

| New York Sun.
There goes one OF those con.lensers,"
| said the publishes pointing to a tall,
slender young fellow wearing glasses and
| with a number of books under his arm.
His business is condensing novels. and
| when a man becomes an expert at 1t ne
| doesn't have to look for work.
This has beer a very busy world for
some tine. There are thousands of peo-
| PIE who want to keep up with the novels
| Of the day, but haven't the time to read
! then as they are originally written. SO
| liz nists who go about reading condensed
| novels to literary circles, clubs, church
societies and private families.
| The demand for readers for private
| families Is growing astonishingly. The
readers go to this house or that one night
a week or possibly twice a week. The
| head of the house invites IN few friends.
or may be he and his family have the
| reading all To themselves.
| They don't want continuous per-
| for nance. They must have at least one
stoiy an evening. IL the stories they
want are too long for one evening they
| must be cut down to At the time.
l. That fellow who just walked into the
| ferryboat tackled The Crisis a little
while ago. The or1sr was to cut the
| book down to two hours.
He TO- md 1t took eight hours to read
1t as 1t was written. 1t took MIN over
a month working regularly part of
every day or evening to cut 1t down.
Then the people who hired him made up
their minds that 1t must be shorter. so he
had to go to work to hack 1t down to
one hour and quarter. What do you
| think of that!
He did it, although IT was fearful
JOB: It took him logger to cut of that nat
of the first six hours.
ut requires more brains sometimes to
cut a book down than it does to write 1t
in the first place. Nothing Of importance ,,aIS
the pretty scenes, the amusing dialogue
and so on must be left in.
| "It Is really surprising. however, how
little that is important Is cut out. II you
had read the original Crisis ana then
heard the condensed story you would have
to cudgel your brain little to make out
exactly what is missing.
to anything else. The condenser must
first read the story carefully to get It's
general effect. Then he very often reads
It to study the mechanism.
J. that may be dropped and no one be much
the wiser. On second reading he takes
out even more, and pretty soon he ha.
seen passages that may be dropped ant
no one be much the wiser. ON SECOND
reading he takes out even more, ant
pretty soon he has the thing cut dowr
| perhaps half.
VERY likely he will now take a copy
| or the DOCK ana cut all tnS pages loOse
The pages he has marked out he throws
away and the fragments of pages he
| pastes together to make the requisite
number of lines for a page.
He knows just how many minutes y
takes to read two pages. that Ii, both
sides of the sheet. Counting up the
sheets he inds the number OF minutes
there still are in the slaughtered book
He is now getting things down to a
working basis and here II Is that hts real
genius comes out He plays strange
tricks with that story as he goes on,
and he often surprises himself at the
things he dares take out. Every now
and then he roads the condensation to
some member of his family or to some
friend who has read the book and on
whose judgment he can place some re-
lance.
They tell me 1t is really most engross-
ing work, while 1t is very fatiguing at
the same time. That fellow who went
into the ferryboat just now is an enthu-
siast. He makes far more money than
many of the chaps who write the original
stories. Honestly. don't know but what
| he deserves It,"