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Show fcj vrrru: ,. rs i. - i bbVSH M fdly I with -'jHHl ' " ""Id of fiction v.riiiM.- i would utlon him not I" ilcy- In It too strenuOUSlj :.t 'WtJ '''' Thai to weaken tin ' hu- ' l IW i ' v. . I t - ' ijj(J i ivlce! Be your- MrTP '' majority of novels urlr.eii ;)i.-.-e .lavs are loo similar enic. This is c.-p . ia'.l; ti ie Of the love novel. Originality Is what every author should strive fn,-Orlginallty fn,-Orlginallty generally means popularity, and the result Is likely to bo satisfactory from the financial side A novel should be written over twice. I believe In rewriting, re-writing, for the reason that It shows up the faults and they are always numerous of the previous attempt I have generally adhered to this rule myself. It took me Just a little ov-r fourteen months to write- "The F.tcrnal ( Ity, and I wrote the story over twice. It a a mistake, mis-take, however, to hurry oneself in writing to trv how main words or paces e.,n he crammed Into an hour or a' day. Too much haste results In faulty construction and ogic. and .specially so If the plot of the storv be an Intricate one. Some people say that they can work best when thev hurry most, but It Is not the rase with me. and I feel that Inspiration do. s not erne t,, the hum. .1 mind so readily as It docs when one Is able to ponder deeply and shape one's thoughts Into some trul perfected form M journalistic experience in the earlier days of my career hus not been of much assistance In the matter or speed. But fiction writing and journalism are two aitrerent things My newspaper experience, however has been of the greatest help to me In many other ways and to those who Intend entering the hazardous field "of novel writing, a few years spent in the school of Journalism, Journal-ism, especially where the opportunities for travel are .men Offers an excellent prellminrv training There used to be a time when a woman who wroto poetry or painted pictures or dabbled In novel writing was necessarily considered something of an Ink stained or paint daubed slattern but the bluestocking days once I-presented by down-nt-heel womanhood are fortunately-over fortunately-over In the literary field a woman nowadays Is not subject sub-ject to such criticism, she enjoys equal privileges and opportunities with the sterner sex, and she has Justlv deni- J?I'ulrilled her,r,s;nt to,them M Intellectual strength and delicacy of wit In writing women have. In hundreds of IHWH Cera. I cases shown n distinct suporlorltv over men And look, too, how splendidly they can, If thev wish display their subtle nature between the covers of a love novel In literature a man will Inevitably express hlmSelf nt the time and In the manner best suited to hie genius harks Mngsley wrote best beforo he had reached his majority Smollett wroto 'Robert Random" ot 26, Dickens Dick-ens produced "Oliver Twist" at the same age. At 25 n"' bad already written "The Sorrows of Werther " and Iord Lytton his first novel, and so It goes. On the ether hand. Scott, Hawthorne, Blackmore, George Eliot and many others did not ripen in their powers until each had reached his two-score years As for myself I have Just about got to the half century cen-tury mark, and although I wroto mv first book "Shadow of a 1 rime. In my early thirties. I do not think I have ". 1 l""'1-" '' wo, k, bv uiiv means In the case of a woman It Is different By the law of nature she matures earlier than man and It is not surprising, therefore, there-fore, that the majority of our greatest women noxcllsts enJoved their full literary powers before thev were 30 The literary allotment ground has been po well worked that a new potato po tc h Is no' easy to find The ten dencv. however, points In the direction of the commercial commer-cial noel. I do not mean the pot-boiler specieB but In the larger commercial and Industrial seniK. In' dealing w-lth periods that Is only natural, and tbe organization ..T mighty trusts and the magnates who control them offer an expansive theme to exploit Romance, you know, after all, endeavors only to re- instruct the history .f a period, or personallMea In picturesque pic-turesque form, and to be successful must not Ignore the general conditions oi lh- peri-l dealt wuh It is , ot . in-reasonable in-reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the romantic novel of the future will be highly colored with the romance ol trade American novelists have already given slight indications indi-cations of this trend of thought, and 1 do not think (1 s unlikely that America will produce the coming novelist novel-ist and that American history will have no small part In tho new romance. y |
