Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-01-04
0UT-AGAIN IN-AGAINS
<<@N nee you get into the way of it.
it's almost as easy to write out
again in-again stories as it is

again in-again stories as it is
to fall out Of q window" was
the calm observation of q man who has
made considerable Of a success as
writer Of magazine fiction. "Out-again
in-again stories? Oh. that means the
vicissitudinousness-ra the scrappi-
ness-of the pat. of lovers in the story.
Out of love, back in love-tne thing all
fixed up at the finish.
"Why, there couldn't be greater snap
than writing an out-again in-again story
once you get the idea. The dialogue
writes itself. so to speak. You just stick
the paper in the typewriter and hammer
away-I often catch myself looking out
of the window and thinking Of all manner
of irrevelant things when I'm writing out
again in-again stories.
There's got to be an idea. of course.
When you've got the idea. why. it's all
Dumas. the elder. knew how to express
that. He was engaged upon a play.
| The manager who was to produce the
play asked Dumas how he was progress
ing with the play; Oh. replied Dumas.
its virtually finished. I've completed it.
except for the dialogue And that's the
| way it is with the out-again in-again
story. Get the idea and the mere words
just wrap themselves around the idea.
After you've written some thousands of
out-again, in-again stories you find your
self imagining that you're running out
Of ideas. but that's nothing but magma
ton. I thought myself that l was all in.
so far as those stories were concerned
several years ago. but all I needed was
| a little vacation of a week or so and then
| the stories began to swarm again.
| -"I couldn't even begin to enumerate the
different twists of the main themes Of
him scrappy. ..aughty and independent.
or you can make the girl that way. You
can fix them both that way If you want
to-a first-rate out-again fn-again fire.
quently results when they're both more
or less to blame. You can make the girl
bit of a bully and the man a Moody
| naddy. who'll stand for it, or you can
turn the situation around. making the
man the bully. You can make one or
| both of them the victim of misunder-
| standing. He can be sulker and so
can she. used to make them both sulk-
ers occasionally but I found that this
involved too much work getting them to-
gether at the windup. and I've got too
much TO think of-business matters and
such like-while engaged in writing out
again tn-again stories to feel like tack
| ling ideas that require actual thought. So
| now I make it just as easy for myself to
get thep1 together at the finish as possible.
OF course, locale has a good deal to
| do with the salableness and success of
| an out-again in-again story. It's pretty
safe to plant most of them in New York.
The magazines which print these out
again in-asain yarns circulate tremen-
dously in the middle west and the middle
| western tolks think that New York is
the most fascinating place ever. They
| pretend that the town rather bores them
when they go to New York, but don't
| YOU believe 'em-they're crazy over New
York
eff you make the man tall athletic
young lawyer or doctor. and the girl
very beautiful and wealthy heress who.
| very much against the will of her people
has gone to New York to study sociology
or something because she bankers to do
something higher and nobler in the world,
why. YOU can't go far wrong-that's es-
the busy young manager Of famous bro
kerase office, who has never had the time
nor the desire to cultivate his higher self
till he meets up with the girl. When he
and Keats and Walter Pater with a
thumD, and learns to hate the sor6fd oc-
cupatfon In which he IS engaged but you
can manage to an1elorate his hatred for
Of course-you don't want to have him go
through life despising his method of piling
up the millions.
"Of course, you can't plant all of the
is big enough world. There's Monte Car
10. for example. I've written scores of out
agains in-agains around Monte Carlo.
| though I've never happened to get there.
The Riviera has fine. 1oafng sound.
too for story of that kird and you can
finish them uD on,-the Nile somewhere,
with little allusion thrown, in about
Shepherds Hotel in Aiexandria-or IS 1t
Cairo? ALWAYS forget whether -Shep-
herds Hotel is in Alexandria or in Cairo.
and I invariably have to look it ,fp in a
Baedeker when I'm writing story in
which I have to use the name of that
hnstelry.
why. there's no end 70 places in which
YOU can plant these stories. All you need
is an atlas and an up-to-date encvclope-
dia from which to pet the atmosphere.
For several years following the Spanish
war there was keen demand for out
again in-agairs located in the Philippines.
but that's ell over and done with now.
Stories located in the Philippines are a
drug on the market and YOU couldn't give
then, away. You see thew were mostly
to Luzon or Mindanao. you know to teach
native school. and the young officer who
met up with her at the lonely schoolhouse.
while he was making p hike-but YOU
know all the rest The writer's Of The
Ph,lfpp1ne out-again in-agains couldn't
write Of the love affairs of Taealoes or
igorrotes or Macabebes-they had to rope
In the white folks down there and Of
course the officers and the school teach.
es from keokuk and Bin shamtnn and
Timn and Peoria are the only kind of
whites down there that we Know any,
thing about
"The out-again in-agains that get the
TOP prices these days are. of course,
the automobile kind-we never use the
word automobile. of course; it's ALWAYS
motor car I've written slews and
slathers of them during the past wear.
and they pay at least twice Us well as
ordinary out-again in-agains had
considerable bother with then, at first.
L got whole bunch of orders for
them all at about the SO me time, and
sat down and tried to fill these orders
without knowing anything whatever
about buzz wagons. except that thew
ran over folks and such like Well.
hardly any of the first automobile ont.
again in-agains that I sent i'm stuck.
You see. the editors were motor car
crankss and they knew all about auto-
mobiles, and my early batch of motor
car out-again in-agains weren't snffi-
GENTLY. technical for them. Well
didn't intend to let such a good thing
as the big demand for motor car ont.
again 1n-agains get away from me so
1 rented the car of a friend who was
going Off to Europe and began to study
IT. My idea then simply was to master
the sparkling patter for my writing
purposes, but it wasn't any time at ali
before became motoring bug nv
self, and then I was all in shane IN
fill an indefinite demand for motor
car out-again in-agains. The market
for these stories still is booming. and
for them.
It'll be amateur ballooning out-aeain
in-agains next. and you watch INV