Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-05-28


was passed.
All this trouble over a 5000 word
story submitted by mail by an unknown
author, who had never written any
thing before, and by magazine that
receives several hundred manuscripts
a month and can command the best
writer's!
Why? Because the story was there,
and s. S. Mcclure knew it the moment
he saw it and he rose to the bait like a
pike. The author was one Of his finds.
What is the particular element that
you imply as so desirable when you
speak of the story in a manuscript"
the writer asked Mr.. Mcclure.
1T must be human and there must
be some motive in It," he answered i'm
mediately. 1T may be cleverly written;
but so are advertisements. Adventure
and incident may be there, but IL there
Is nothing human in it no laughter will
ever shake the readers hand, no tear
will ever fall upon the page"
Many readers who were interviewed
expressed the same opinion in various
ways, insisting that it was this want Of
the human touch that caused the rejec-
tion Of 80 per cent of the stories sub
mitted to magazines.
| "A story must act on the readers
feelings as we'll as on his mind" re-
marked one. ut must quicken his i'm
pulses somehow. II it is story Of ad-
venture it should be able to carry you
along with it, just as the audience used
to hold on to the backs Of the seats In
front Of them when John B. Cough de-
scribed the stagecoach tearing down
hill close to the edge of the precipice
with a drunken driver on the box.
| 1.-The habitual magazine reader re-
members a story that has made him
feel long after he has forgotten those
that made him think"
Frank Munsey classifies stories sim
ply by their commercial value and puts
pathos first. love second, adventure
third and humor last.
"And one can invent love plots and
adventures" he says, land some men
cannot put pen to paper without being
humorous; but the pathetic story is al
ways from the heart, and IL 1t Is gen.
uine 1t always reaches the heart Of the
reader. Those are the stories that are
hard to find"
the novice in authorship is sending his
manuscripts to the wrong place. The
further he is from the right place in
his selection the longer he will probably
have to wait for its return. This de-
lay and the repetition Of refusals is one
Of the most disheartening things the
budding author has to contend with,
but 1t is entirely his own fault. He
may imagine that all the editors have
conspired against him, whereas there
is nothing against him but his own lack
Of judgment.
If a man had a patent churn to sell
and went hawking 1t among the house
wives on the West Side you would
laugh at him and tell him to take it to
the country and sell it to the farmers
wives If he replied that the country
was just the same as the city, all houses
and people, you would laugh still loud
er at his folly. Yet the author who
sends the manuscripts to the wrong
place is just as misguided.
The first thing that a new writer
usually does is to send his story off to
his favorite magazine or to the mag
azine that he hears most highly spoken
of. All amateur actors want to play
Hamlet from the start. The high class,
well known magazines, like Harper's
have to wade through more trash than
any others.
"a story was submitted to me pri-
vately by friend of mine," said one
reader "The author was young lady
who did not know that was employed
on a magazine. She thought 1t was
the greatest thing that ever happened,
that story of hers. Most authors think
that about their first attempts.
"She was in doubt whether to send
it to Harper's or the Century, as she
did not want to offend either Of them
giving the other the refusal Of It, At
ter reading it over advised her to try
it on the Waverly Magazine first and
not to expect any pay for 1t.
"She has not spoken to me since, but
learned from friend Of hers that she
sent it from one magazine to another
for nearly two years. having to copy It
again once or twice when 1t got shah
by The funny part Of it was that she
finally sent it to the Waverly and they
used it."
There Is young woman in Brooklyn
who has just brought out a book that
promises to be a success. She has a
classified list of magazines. beginning
with those that she would like best to
publish her stories and ending with
those that are better than the waste
basket.
She has twenty-five magazines on
this list, and every short story she
writes Is sent to each in turn and upon
its rejection to the next magazine In
line. If the manuscript sticks any
where on the trip, we'll and good. If it
is rejected by the whole twenty-five,
into the waste basket it goes.
While this scheme may impress some
persons as clever, 1t Is really a confess
sion of bad judgment. 1t is like Of
fering to sell carpenters tools to twen-
ty-five different trades. when only two
or three trades use them, although all
trades use tools.
Every one who hopes to be success
full as a magazine writer should buy
and read at least one or two numbers
during the year of every magazine pub
lished, or of twenty or thirty of the
leaders. The sort Of stories and arti-
cles they contain should be carefully
studied.
Unless his story is of exceptional
merit, which Of course every author
amagines 1t is, there are never more
than four or five magazines that would
even consider it. When magazines buy
stories from authors with big names