River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1906-09-27
BY MARGARET e. sANGsTER.

A clever girl who has received a
passably good education, who is fond
of books and who wants to earn lit
! tie money, sometimes decides that she
will enter the lists and write novel.
She procures supply of foolscap and
sits down with story in her head.
Nothing appears easier to the dream
| ing girl or to the girl who took prizes
| at school in the composition class. She
means to write a book, and before she
has finished the first chapter she sees
herself in imagination famous and sue
cessful and the possessor of fortune
Have there not been examples Of sue
cess so swift, so dazzling, so almost
miraculous that there is no reason for
Encouragement, but on the other hand,
every reason for hope? What woman
has done, woman may do. Has not our
friend heard of the quiet little New
England girl never 20 miles from
her village until she had written a
| dozen short stories that fairly took the
world by storm? Has she not heard
of the southern girl brought up in her
fathers library and familiar from
childhood with the picturesque litera-
ture of colonial life, the girl whose first
novel was published in the Atlantic
| Monthly and whose work was known
on two continents and brought her a
| golden harvest?
| These and other examples fit before
the busy brain and she feels in her in
most soul that she is as likely to
reach the top of the ladder at bound,
as they were. So, filled with conf
| dence, she begins to write.
| There is never much difficulty about
| the first chapter. The pen flies over
| the paper and the hero and heroine
with their attendants step briskly upon
| the stage. But unless the young au-
thor belong to the exceptionally gifted
few, she soon encounters trouble. She
does not know what to do with her
people; they are puppets and wooden
at that; they are not living and breath
| ing realities, full of red blood and
| throbbing flesh as the characters are in
the stories of novelists endowed with
creative power. Before very long, If
| she is fortunate, our girl-writer real
ICES that it is not worth while to
meander through 300 dull pages only
to be rejected by the publisher in the
end If she does plod doggedly on, she
may win her experience at dearer
rate.
Only here and there do we find those
who have come into the world with
the heayen-sent gift of the story-teller.
NovelistS are born, not made. All the
teaching and training in the world
never yet put spark of the divine fire
into the work of a romancer who had
not the romance faculty in her soul.
True, there are many abortive books
published every season; more is the
pity. The girl l am thinking of is too
sensible to write a hopelessly dull
book with her eyes open.
Perhaps the better way is usually for
the youthful aspirant to test her mettle
by attempting to write short stories.
There is ready market for strong,
bright and charming short stories in
the monthly magazines, and the weekly
periodicals. They sometimes find
place, too, in the daily newspaper. A
story must have pith and point. 1t
must have clearly defined motive. 1t
must have atmosphere and local color
and above all, it must describe some
thing in a manner so life-like that 1t
takes rank above mere invention and
carries with it a conviction of sim
certify.
Not for imitation, but for study, the
girl who thinks she can write short
stories should read those of~the popu-
lar writer's of the day. Alice Brown,
Mary Wilkins Freeman, Abby Roach
MacGuire, Harriet Prescott Spofford.
Margaret Deland and others will afford
her excellent examples of finished art
in story-writing.
Nothing is oftener heard than the
woeful complaint that there is no room
for a new writer. The fact is that ed
itors are always on the lookout for
new writer's. The public clamors for
novelty. There is, of course, a well
come for men and women whose work
has distinction and whose style is OF
certain fine individuality, but it is
gala day in an editorial Office when a
new star looms up on the horizon.
Equally in the publishing world there
is JOY when the new novelist brings
the product of genius to the front.
Editors and publishers not infre-
quently make mistakes. As every one
knows David Harum was sent from