The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-09-12

ter than they can any other. this one thing is, and sticks to
 This is just as true in the W the man or woman who want sess those qualifications whic have story-sense be able to d tive; be able to recognize st whip that plot into critic-p
 Of course. there are other neces- sary attributes. the actual writing of the story being no insignificant one. It all takes hours, days. weeks and years of hard study and work-work ment 1t is begun until the eyes close in the last Ions sleep.
 A very important thing for the young writer is to determine the character of fiction he is best quaI- flied to write. With some this comes naturally, with others 1t takes ex- perimenting.
 There are successful writers who handle equally well any class of story from side-bursting humor to the story which brings tears to the eyes and quiver to the lips. There are others who can picture only the serious side of life. just as there are those whose forte is humor.
 The thing is for the writer to de- ternine just what he writes best and stick to that. If he is one of those with no special field, but who writes funny story today a serious story tomorrow, a love story (which is sometimes a part of both) the next day, he will naturally write that which harmoqizes with his then ex- istent mood.
 But if he is naturally a humorist and his fiction ideas will not swerve from the humorous track, one of the first things he has to learn is not to be serious.
 Henry C. Vance, Birmingham writ CT of humorous stories, may have some serious ideas about the time his automobile develops some of the internal troubles peculiar to automo- piles, necessitating his getting "out and under" on those occasions where no repair man Is handy, or at other times. just as does any other man, but only on one occasion has he ever allowed such ideas to creep into one of his stories.
 That story" said Henry to a friend, was intended to be very se- rious. one of those tragic things you know. Well. it was the funniest thing ever written because of the travesty. If I could only get some of the stuff that I put in that story into one where it really should be, I'd have a bird"
 From this it is easy to surmise that Henry c. Vance now sticks to humor, and humor only. And it has become the rule of the magazines publishing his stories to introduce them with something like: This is a story of a dub prize fighter who thought he could only fight when there were three black eyes at the ringside-and went out and made the black eyes. Written as only Henry c. Vance writes this sort of a yarn" Henry spent his first winter in Florida in 1890, arriving hale and hearty at the home of his parents II. the city of Orlando, December 12 of that year. Ills parents had no idea at that time that Henry was des- tined to be humorist. As matter of fact, they felt that he would either be singer. auctioneer or the champion eater of the world be- cause of the fact that when he wasn't disturbing the atmosphere with his ha making frantic effort to satisfy his hunger.
 But Henry evidently didn't care for Orlando. Early In youth he moved with his parents. to small town in northeast Georgia. He had only been in that state 8 dozen years when he shocked his family and friends by informing them that he was to be writer. A weekly newspaper was the victim. Henry refuses to state
 what became of the paper.
 In 1907 he moved to Alabama, be. lieving that he was through with the newspaper game. But he wasn't He suffered a relapse in Jasper and worked for some time on the Walker County News under Frank V. Evans a one-time editor of The Age Herald Later he was editor, solicitor, report CT. ad compositor and pressman on the Mountaln Eagle, weekly news paper of Jasper. for two years.
 Then he came to Birmingham breaking into the daily game as sporting editor of the Birmingham News in 1913. He was with the News as sports editor and feature writer until October, 1919, when he went to Atlanta with the Hearst organiza- tion, serving as sports editor on the Atlanta Georgian for one year. He now writes sports for The Age Her aid and humorous fiction for a num- Der of nationally popular magazines More than 20 of his stories have been published within the past sev- eral months.
 Henry has been writing fiction for little more than two years. He counts only one year of his life as being wasted. and that was the year ating from October. 1919, because of the fact that he was away from The L1 afers, of which club he is charter member.
 His first story was sold two years | ago His latest. Pin Money" was delivered this week to Snappy Stories. Peoples Magazine of Septem- car Obscure parts she got at with a hose.
 The ablu.ions ended, Miss Natalie