Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1908-02-07
JONES HAS AN
IDEA
But He Is Unable to Put It on Paper

!Shlng OF it; and even when these facts
have been accomplished to the salts
faction of the writer he still has an
arduous task to perform, which is to
sell it. There have been cases on rec
ord in which the last feat has never
been accomplished at all.
To the young writer, like Jones, for
instance, the beginning of his story
appears the most painful. Jones has
his idea, his story skeleton, dancing
in his brain, but he can't get a holt
on any of its limbs and lay it fat. 1t
eludes him and laughs him to scorn
as he tries to put paper and ink flesh
on it's bones.
Jones thinks of the various open
ings of stories he has read. The ro-
mantle style, as adopted by Scott,
Dumas and G. P. R. James, comes to
his mind:
Two solitary horsemen were travers-
ing lonely wood at the end of hot
July day The steeds picked their way
carefully as they passed over the un-
derbrush, and for an hour or two the
animals footballs were the only
sounds heard. At length Eyes, of
course) the elder horseman was the
first to break the silence. (The elder
horseman always is the first to break
the silence.)
But there aren't any horsemen in
jones story, and it's a matter of in
difference to him who breaks the ST.
lence first.
The New England style next occurs
to him:
Louisa" called a hard, sharp voice
from the rear kitchen, you come right
in this minnit! Louisa! Loo-ee-zer!
Drat the gal, where is she? Gallivantin'
araound them Hicks's medders, reck-
on. Fer the lan's sake, here she is
naow!"
Jones realizes that this kind Of open
ing attracts attention from the start
and gives promise of interesting do
nestle trouble for Louisa. The Pc
culiar spelling of "minnit," though un-
necessary, has a strong local color,
and if Jones has young girl and a
cross stepmother in Concord, N. H,
for his principal characters he will do
well to ponder this opening. But he
hasn't
He thinks and thinks. All, here is
the society novel style:
Helen Van Mustard came down the
steps of Mrs. Gallashin's house in the
Seventies, near the park, with com.
pressed lips and cloudy eyes.
'Home, JULIUS" she said, as she
stepped into her limousine, and as the
well appointed machine flew along
the avenue, barely within the limits
of the law, she wondered dumbly how
she was going to right herself with
her recent hostess. Helen felt con-
WINGED that the Countess Szlgzkzow.
ski had cheated, but how to prove 1t?
No, that won't do. There are no over
moneyed people in Jones work.
spending twice as much as they've
got.
Once upon time there was "a
Ridiculous. 1t sounds too much like
a fairy story. Going to the other ex
IRENE suddenly, Jones conceives this
start:
The thousands and thousands of CO.
medicines which occur in the daily
lives of the present century toiler in
fallibly lead to the conclusion that
what we term accident or chance is
really only
Hang it! That leads nowhere. BY
this time Jones has forgotten what
his story is about.
Well, he must concentrate his mind.
Let him think. There's a man and a
woman who marry and who separate
Immediately afterward. Why? Now,
why? Oh, yes, because they must
meet again 20 years later in order to
threaten ruin to the lives of the hero
and heroine, one of whom Is the child
Of the woman by previous marriage
and the other the child of the man by
a subsequent and bigamous marriage
And the point is-the point is-weli
what is the point?
The point might be several things,
bat Jones hasn't got that far yet All
Jones wants to do is to begin his story,
but he can't decide whether to begin
with the marriage of the parents or
the lovemaking of the youngsters and
go backward when he's in the middle
of the narrative He might start this
way:
Esther yawned and threw down her
book. The hammock felt uncomfort-
able to her shoulders and she wished
life held more novelty for her Oh, for
the medieval days of glory when
knights came riding up from the east
and threw down gauntlets. Oh, for
the
Jones began to get nervous himself
now. One more try:
well, fer newly married couple
them two is the most businesslike par.
ties as ever l seen," mnttered the
sexton as he watched the ceremony
from the rear of the church. He
thought of the blushing brides and the
eager bridegrooms who had stood up
before the Rev. Amos Daingerf1eld
during the last IA years of the latter's
of the
Suddenly there was a muff1ed cry
and dark flash through the air.
Jones had lost his reason and thrown
The bottle of ink at himself.