In the _Atalanta Magazine_, for this month, (which by its title, should
be ahead of all competitors until the _homme à la pomme_ appears) Mr.
WALTER BESANT has an article "On the writing of Novels," in which he
offers his advice to young girls afflicted with irrepressible
scribblemania,--_i.e._ "girls who try to write stories, and burn to
write novels,"--as to the best and easiest means of attaining their
object. _Advice gratis_ is, as we all know, of the gratis't value, and
Mr. BESANT offers his two penn'orth-of-"all-sorts and conditions," to
embryonic authoresses, but had _Mr. Punch_ been dealing with these dear
little literary aspirants, he would have simply repeated his world-famed
epigrammatic advice to "persons about to marry," and said, most
unequivocally, to girls about to write novels--"Don't." Not so Mr.
BESANT, who proceeds to lay down rules for those "who wish to acquire
the art of fiction." He commences with, "_Practise writing, something
original everyday_,"--"_Cultivate the habit of observation_," and so on,
in good old-fashioned copy-book style.
We will assist him with some rules for those to whom Mr. W. BESANT gives
this advice: "Be bold: never mind ridicule," ... "State fairly, what
ordinary people never understand, that Fiction, like Painting, is an
Art, and that you are setting yourself to the acquisition of that Art,
if it be in your power, whatever may come of it in the end."
Very good. Now here is, as the Cookery books have it, "Another and a
shorter way."
_To acquire the Art of Fiction._--Clearly understand that Fiction is the
opposite of Fact. If you invariably state facts, you become a
matter-of-fact sort of person. No Genius is a matter-of-fact sort of
person. So to "acquire the Art of Fiction," _you must never tell the
truth. Practice telling some original lie every day._ If it be a
description of scenery--well, this offers a large field--several large
fields. Give an account to your relatives, or to your friends at a
distance of the walk you have taken in the morning. First of all, of
course, to be quite perfect, _you must not have been out of the house_.
You will then proceed to describe the roaring Waterfalls over which you
leaped, your hairbreadth escapes, &c., &c., and always remember that, as
Mr. BESANT says, "description is not slavish enumeration."
RULE I.--_Tell a lie._ RULE II.--_Don't stick to it, but tell another,
and a bigger one._ Pile 'em up, and thus at last you may become an
unrivalled Fictionist.
RULE III.--"_Work regularly, at certain hours._" Ascertain the time the
Lark rises, and be up with it. Always be up to time, and to any amount
of Larks. Let everybody in the house know you're at work. Sing as the
Lark does, and be joyous. Insist on your room being fitted up for
work,--at your parents' expense, of course,--with writing-desk, silver
inkstand, paper, pens, a library of books, &c., and you must let it be
distinctly understood by everyone that you are "not to be disturbed on
any account," as you are going in for being a Fictionist.
RULE IV.--"Read no Rubbish," says Mr. BESANT. But this is what every
author would say, making certain exceptions. But we should say, "_Read
Everything_." _Then begin to write._ Here is an example: say you read
_Pickwick_. Well, you _write_ a book called _Nikpik_, a Russian story,
plot in St. Petersburg, characters, _Nikpik_, _Kinkel_, _Grazsnod_, and
_Putmann_. You represent a sporting scene where _Putmann_, with his eyes
shut, kills a bird, and afterwards _Kinkel_ wounds _Putmann_. "Hullo,"
says the reader, "uncommonly like _Pickwick_, and writes impetuously and
indignantly to papers. Whereupon, you write in reply, saying "it may be
so: _les grands esprits se rencontrent_: but that you have never heard
of _Pickwick_, much less read it." By this time everyone will allow that
you are entitled to be regarded as the greatest Fictionist of the age.
Other rules Mr. BESANT gives, for which anyone sufficiently interested
in detecting the errors of his advice _gratis_, may search the _Atalanta
Magazine_ with considerable profit to himself (or herself) especially if
he reads _A Christmas Carol_, by CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI, and one tail of
_Three Lions_, by that undefeated Fictionist, Mr. RIDER HAGGARD.
* * * * *