THE CRITICS
"Ahem!" said Billie, rapping for order as the girls began all at once to
say what they thought of "Fairy Godmothers Wanted." The one with the
burning plot began rattling her paper in preparation of the turn she
hoped for.
"First general impressions are in order! One at a time, please! You,
Miss Oldham, you tell us how it strikes you."
"Pleasing on the whole, but----"
"We'll come to the 'buts' later," was the stern mandate of the chairman
of the day.
"You, Lilian Swift, you next!"
"Too long!" from the blunt Lilian.
"The idea! I think it was just sweet," from the gentle Alabamian.
"I got kind of mixed in the middle and couldn't tell which was the nurse
and which Polly Nelson," declared one who had evidently gone off into a
cataleptic fit, no doubt dreaming of a story she meant to write some
day.
"I never, never could love a man who had deceived me," sighed the
sentimental one with big eyes and a little mouth.
"Personal predilections not valuable as criticism," said Billie sternly.
Many and various were the opinions expressed. Molly diligently and
meekly took notes, agreeing heartily with the ones who thought it was
too long.
"Where must I cut it?" she asked eagerly.
"Cut out all the letters!" suggested Lilian.
"How could she? It is all letters," asked Billie, whose chair was
becoming a burden as she felt she must get into the discussion.
"Cut 'em, anyhow. Letters in fiction are no good."
"Humph! How about the early English novelists?" asked Molly.
"Dead! Dead! All of them dead!" stormed Lilian.
"Then how about Mary Roberts Rinehart and Booth Tarkington and lots of
others? Daddy Longlegs is all letters."
"All the samey, it is a poor stunt," insisted the intrepid Lilian. "I
call it a lazy way to get your idea over."
"Perhaps you are right, but the point is: did I get my idea over?"
"We-ll, yes,--but they tell me editors don't like letter form of
fiction."
"Certainly none of them have liked this," sighed Molly, who had devoutly
hoped her little story would sell. The money she made herself was very
delightful to receive and more delightful to spend. A professor's salary
can as a rule stand a good deal of supplementing.
"How about the plot, now?" asked Billie, having finished with the
general impression.
"Slight!"
"Strong!"
"Weak!"
"Impossible!"
"Plausible!"
"Original!"
"Bromidic!"
"Involved!" were the verdicts. The matter was thoroughly threshed out,
Billie with difficulty keeping order. Nance was called on for the "but"
that she had been left holding.
"The plot is slight but certainly original in its way. The letters are
too long, longer than a Godmother would be apt to write, I think. The
story could be cut to three thousand words, I believe, to its
advantage."
"I have already cut out about fifteen hundred words," wailed Molly. "The
first writing was lots longer."
"Gee!" breathed the one eager for a hearing.
"Now for the characterization! Don't all speak at once, but one at a
time tell what you think of it."
"Did you mean to make Polly so silly?" asked Lilian.
"I--I--perhaps!" faltered Molly.
"Of course if you meant to, why then your characterization is perfect."
"Silly! Why, she is dear," declared the girl from Alabama. "I don't like
her having to nurse that black man, though."
"Too many points of view!" suddenly blurted out a member who had
hitherto kept perfectly silent, but she had been eagerly scanning a
paper whereon was written the requisites for a short story.
"But you see----" meekly began Molly.
"The point of view must either be that of the author solely or one of
the characters," asserted the knowing one. "Why, you even let us know
how the Bedouin feels."
"Oh!" gasped the poor author. "I think you would limit the story teller
too much if you eliminated such things as that."
"Here's what the correspondence course says----"
"Spare us!" cried the club in a chorus.
"I hate all these cut and dried rules!" cried Billie. "It would take all
the spice out of literature if we stuck to them."
"That's just it," answered Lilian. "We are not making literature but
trying to sell our stuff. Persons who have arrived can write any old
way. They can start off with the climax and end up with an introduction
and their things go, but I'll bet you my hat that you will not find a
single story by a new writer that does not have to toe the mark drawn by
the teachers of short story writing."
"Which hat?" teased Billie. "The one you put on for Great-aunt Gertrude?
If it is that one, I won't bet. I wouldn't read a short story by a new
writer for it."
"To return to my story," pleaded Molly, "do you think if I rewrite it,
leave out the letters, strengthen the plot a bit and make Polly a little
wiser that I might sell it?"
"Sure!" encouraged Lilian.
"Yes, indeed!" echoed Nance.
"And the black man--please cut him out! I can't bear to think of him,"
from the girl from Alabama.
"Dialogue,--how about it?" asked the chairman.
"Pretty good, but a little stilted," was the verdict of several critics.
"I think you are all of you simply horrid!" exclaimed Mary Neil, who had
been silent and sullen through the whole evening. "I think it is the
best story that has been read all year and I believe you are just
jealous to tear it to pieces this way."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Lilian.
"We do hope we haven't hurt your feelings, Mrs. Green," cried the girl
who was taking the correspondence course.
"Hurt my feelings! The very idea! I read my story to get help from you
and not praise. I am going to think over what you have said and do my
best to correct the faults, if I come to the conclusion you are right."
"You would have a hard time doing what everybody says," laughed Nance,
"as no two have agreed."
"Well, I can pick and choose among so many opinions," said Molly,
putting her manuscript back in its big envelope. "I might do as my
mother did when she got the opinion of two physicians on the diet she
was to have: she simply took from each man the advice that best suited
her taste and between the two managed to be very well fed, and, strange
to say, got well of her malady under the composite treatment."
"Ahem!" said the girl with the burning plot, rattling her manuscript
audibly so that the hardhearted Billie must perforce recognize her and
give her the floor.