The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-08-23

| It is a curious axiom that humorous
 writer is seldom a humorous individual, gays London Tit-Bits If you met MT. w. w. Jacobs at dinner party or in the
 street you would not associate him with
 the writer of those amusing and laugh
 able seafaring yarns that delight so many thousands of readers of the Strand
 Magazine.
 Undoubtedly, too, if you inquired how he got his plots, the ideas for his stories.
 he would most likely answer he did not know. But many novelists would say the same, and the only way to learn how
 they produce their sidespliting yarns is for the interviewer, to use vernacular l expression, to stick to them like a leech. 1 This is what a Tit-Bits representative | did recently with MT. Jacobs and it must
 be left to the reader to judge whether he succeeded or not.
 It was at his home in Essex, ten-mle railway journey from Liverpool street,
 where we managed to run him to earth,
 and piled him with innumerable ques-
 tions about his methods and his work. '1t Is very difficult to describe how I
 work" he said. Sometimes I get a plot or bit of a plot, enough at all events to begin work I start, and, though l | do not know how the thing is going to end I work on and trust to luck to finish | it. Sometimes the story commences with l the idea of a character. Then I put him | in a certain position and bring out the | different sides of that character and | elaborate as I go on. If I start with a
 man and a girl-well they are pretty sure
 to lead me somewhere; man and girl always do.
 "Yes, it Is quite true that some of the men who appear in my stories are re-
 miniscences of those I have met on
 the boats that cruise around our coast" lnherits Love o, Sea.
 MT. Jacobs eat-grandfather was seaman, while his father is a wharfinger at Mapping. where he lived until he was
 young man, coming in contact at
 most impressionable age with a good many seamen on the coasting vessels and | getting to know the captains of most of them. "As a boy I accompanied them
 on their little trips. In this way I came in close contact with the men, and that is the reason, I suppose, why I am able to depict them. Although sailors are be- 1 leved to be proverbially good at spin hing yarns, l think I can honestly say that only in one instance have I ever got even part of story from the lips of a seaman.
 "No; there Is no particular reason why l make night watchman spin a sea yarn. unless it be that it sounds more ap- propriate to select an individual of this character for that purpose. I have made l the acquaintance of several night watch
 men, and they have all been good at tell | ing stories.
 "When l was about ten I knew one
 that had a wonderful gift in this drec- | lxs.z l he had, on every boat you could name
 from a pilot to man-o-war. As to 1 spinning yarns, there was no end to them. There was nothing he had not
 accomplished or any fight he had not
 taken part in. I remember once asking
 him if he ever fought pirates when he instantly declared how he had been
 chased several years ago by a pirate in | the China seas. and saved his ship by
 slashing off the chief pirates arm just as he was about to grab the rail of the
 vessel.
 Valuable Watchman.
 "If I could get hold of that watchman l today 1 fancy I could make a fortune out of him. He could sit for hours and spin yarns by the score. He had wonderful i imagination. l expect the poor fellow is
 dead now. Mapping and it's wharves
 have considerably altered since I was
 boy. The sailor, too has lost much of his individuality. This I put down to the board schools and the spread of educa-
 tion. The hearty and good natured sea-
 man of my boyhood days had little, if any, education, with the result that he
 often had the most extraordinary ideas
 and beliefs, giving him quite an interest
 ing personality
 On the door of Mir. Jacobs study, pretty little room overlooking a lovely garden and green fields beyond. he has had inscribed these words: "Office hours | 10 till A My sole reason" continued | the novelist flor putting that inscrip- tion above the door was to make me more energetic. Writing is really labor ! ious work to- me. Usually I come into | this room every day at 10 and sit here
 very often till 4, but I should be very l sorry to say how much work I do in | that time. sit down at the desk and if
 I happen to De lazy, think of the story as a whole instead of the bit which is in l front of me to do.
 q like to spread story over month, l though the actual writing may not occu- i py more than twenty or thirty hours. Sometimes. however, my stories hang about until at last sense of shame com pels me to finish them If do a good days work I write about 1000 words; sometimes, however. I only do 300 and then perhaps destroy them. never dic-