How to Become a Writer. Bennett Arnold

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СКАЧАТЬ life, especially quarrels and reconciliations of married and betrothed persons. The aspirant may discover other features of the popular weekly for himself. He must not, if he happen to have a refined literary taste, despise the popular weekly. In nine cases out of ten, he may take it for granted that if he cannot please this class of paper he can please no other class. The popular weekly does not demand a high literary standard. And it pays very well—a guinea a column of five to seven hundred words, and sometimes two guineas.

      It is most important that the aspirant should note the maximum length of the articles printed in every paper. The popular weekly, for instance, does not as a rule want anything over a thousand words in length. The first consideration with every editor is the length of the article submitted. If it is too long or too short, it may be the finest article in the world, but it will be refused. The aspirant should always count the number of words in his articles.

      A secondary class of popular penny weeklies is now formed by M. A. P. and T.P.'s Weekly, both of which appeal to a slightly higher order of intelligence than the Tit-Bits class. M. A. P. desires personal paragraphs. And here I must quote from Mr. J. M. Barrie’s novel of journalistic life, When a Maris Single, which every aspirant should read. A clever journalist in that book remarks to a beginner: “An editor tosses aside your column and a half about evolution, but is glad to have a paragraph saying that you saw Herbert Spencer the day before yesterday gazing solemnly for ten minutes in a milliner’s window.” T.P.'s Weekly has a literary cast Both - these papers offer opportunities to the enterprising tyro.

      I come next to the daily papers. Of the penny morning papers the Daily Chronicle and the Daily News are the most hospitable to the freelance. The three principal halfpenny papers, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, and the Morning Leader, welcome outside contributions. Morning papers want short, very topical and timely articles or interviews, with or without illustrations. The halfpenny papers have also a "magazine page,” which is really a Tit-Bits day by day. The aspirant should try to get into this magazine page.

      But the recognised lawful prey of the ambitious outside contributor is the penny evening paper, and especially the Pall Mall Gazette, Westminster Gazette, and St. James’s Gazette. These three papers appeal to a literary public, and they demand from the freelance, whom they encourage, a high standard of style. Social sketches, interviews, and topical articles, will find a home in the “gazettes” when they are good enough. The other two penny evening papers, the Globe and the Evening Standard, each print every day an article, in the form of an essay not necessarily topical, which is frequently accepted from an outside source. This article is the first on the first page of the Evening Standard, and the last on the first page of the Globe. In both cases it is imperative that the article should conform to the requirement of length. The halfpenny evening papers will not be of much use to the freelance.

      Next in order of importance to the freelance come the high-class sixpenny illustrated weeklies, the Illustrated London News, Graphic, Sketch, Sphere, Tatler, and Black and White. Of these the first and fourth are the most literary, and the second is the least benignant towards the freelance. All pay well, and one or two handsomely. And all are prepared to accept topical or personal articles, preferably illustrated by striking photographs.

      The ladies’ papers form an important class. The sixpenny organs are The Queen, The Ladys Pictorial, The Gentlewoman, and The Lady's Field. The first and last are best suited to the outside contributor; they pay well. The threepenny organs, Hearth and Home and The Lady, do not spontaneously encourage the freelance, but the latter buys occasional articles. The penny women’s papers —Home Notes, Home Chat, Woman, &c.— appealing without exception to a popular public, do not offer much scope to the outsider.

      The politico-literary weeklies should engage the attention of the serious ambitious beginner with a taste for letters, which, be it remembered, is not quite the same thing as a taste for journalism. The Pilot, Spectator, Saturday Review, and Speaker are open to receive topical and miscellaneous articles in essay form, with a literary or political turn. But they do not buy their views or their reviews from the outsider. The Outlook takes very short articles of a light texture. One or two of these organs do not err on the side of generosity in remuneration.

      I cannot deal with the hundreds of weeklies which appeal to special publics, such as the Athenceum (literary), the British Weekly (religious), the Investors Review (financial), the British Architect (professional), the Draper’s Record (trade). The majority of them depend little on the outsider, but it is probable that very few of them would refuse to listen to an outsider who approached with an original idea specially suited to them. Some of them are very wealthy organs.

      The monthly publications are divisible into three classes: general magazines appealing to a popular public; general magazines appealing to a cultured public; and reviews. The first class, of which the principal specimens are Pearson’s, Strand, Windsor, Lady’s, Woman at Home, Lady's Realm (6d.), Royal (4d.), London (¹/₂d.), has the readiest welcome for novelty, and pays the best. Its articles are essentially Tit-Bits articles glorified in fine raiment; they must be illustrated. The second class comprises both illustrated—Pall Mall Magazine — and unillustrated—Blackwood’s, Cornhill, Longman’s, and Macmillans. The unillustrated demand the higher literary standard. I shall discuss these magazines from the point of view of their requirements in fiction in a subsequent chapter. The “reviews” which pay for outside contributions are the Fortnightly, Nineteenth Century, Contemporary, National, and New Liberal. The aspirant need not trouble to woo these excessively difficile old ladies until he has had considerable experience. A book dealing fully with magazine work is How to Write for the Magazines, published by Mr. Grant Richards, at 3s. 6d.

      The foregoing conspectus of the British Press is, of course, far from complete, but it indicates the main outlines of the subject, and the aspirant must fill in minor details from his own observation and study. He must learn to differentiate the characteristics of one organ from the characteristics of another, and must thoroughly familiarise himself with the contents of every paper. He should on no account put any of the more popular papers aside as being beyond his enterprise. The less he limits the variety of his efforts, the more successful are his efforts likely to be.

      First Efforts of the Freelance.

      I have now shown how the third of my three maxims for the guidance of the freelance is to be carried into practice. I will go back to the other two. In choosing subjects to write about, the freelance must always bear in mind my first maxim. He may leave to great editors the task of educating the public; his own business is to minister to their desires. He must not be ashamed to be popular, and he must not be ashamed to write the kind of stuff that he would not dream of reading were it written by some one else. His first efforts cannot be too humble. The point is that he wants to get into print, and he will the most quickly and easily achieve his desire by appealing to a large audience. He must put away all sentimentality about the art of literature and the moral mission of journalism. It is of no use beginning to air one’s views until one has collected an audience. A young man of talent, capable of distinguished work, may hammer at the doors of the Spectator and the Fortnightly Review for years with dissertations upon literature, morals, or world-politics; ultimately, when he has attained sufficient skill and shown sufficient pertinacity, he will be admitted within these august portals. I say that it would have been better for him, not only financially but in experience and in other ways, had he been content to make a start by amusing or instructing the populace. I would repeat and repeat again: Begin humbly.

      It is well to begin with the paragraph. The piquant paragraph of two or three hundred words is enormously in demand. There is scarcely any paper with a general circulation that does not gladly buy paragraphs—paragraphs about anything and everything. Paragraphs are not a gold-mine, and only a freelance of miraculous ingenuity could make a living out of them; but they require much less constructive skill than even the shortest article, and just as completely as an article they afford the aspirant the satisfaction of seeing himself in print, and СКАЧАТЬ