but there is nothing sufficiently remarkable about this to warrant its
publication: most people know that the sun occasionally sets in this
fashion. If the beauty of the sunset affected you strongly, lifting you
above earthly things, and giving you a vision--dim perhaps, but
nevertheless a vision--of the Glory that shall be revealed, then it is
for you so to describe the beauty of the sunset that you convey to your
readers the same feelings, the same uplifted sense, the same vision of
the yet greater Glory that is to be. When you can do this, the chances
are that you will be writing poetry. But until you can do this, you may
be writing nothing better than fragments of a rhyming guide-book.
You may argue that not only did you feel an uplift when you gazed on the
sunset, but you re-experience it as you read the poem you wrote upon it.
[Sidenote: You see the Scene you are describing: the Reader does not]
Possibly so; because to you the lines conjure up the whole scene; _i.e._
they serve to remind you of much that is not written down. One word may
be enough to recall to your mind the overwhelming grandeur of the
sundown in every detail; but it will not be sufficient to spread it out
before the eyes of those who did not see the actual occurrence; neither
will it reveal to them the uplift of the moment.
The novice so often forgets that his own mind fills in the details of
what he has seen, and makes a perfect picture out of an imperfect
description. But the reader cannot do this; he has nothing to help him
beyond the written words. Therefore the writer must take care to omit
nothing that is essential, nothing that will enforce the mental and
spiritual conception of a scene. And in order to do this, he must
analyse the scene, and ascertain (if he can) what it was that aroused
such deep emotion within him. If he can tabulate these items (sometimes
it is possible to do so, sometimes it is not), then he must give them
special emphasis in his description, no matter what else is omitted.
Whether you are writing descriptive matter in verse or prose, it is well
to bear in mind that memory helps _you_ to visualise the whole scene,
whereas the reader will have no such additional aid.
[Sidenote: Poetry should Voice Worldwide, rather than Individual, Need]
The primary object of the beginner, in writing verse, is often to voice
his own heart's longing; whereas, if his verse is to be of interest to
others besides himself, it must voice the longings of other people,
Poetry of the "longing" kind should touch on world-wide human need, not
merely on an individual want, if it is to waken response in the reader.
Of course the individual want may be a world-wide human need: it very
often is; but it is not wise to trust to chance in this particular.
Look about you, and see if your experiences are likely to be those of
your fellow-creatures. If so, there is more probability that your work
will appeal to others than if you take no count of their requirements
and centre on your own.
The poet, among other qualifications, has the ability to recognise what
humanity wants to say but cannot, and is able to set it down in black
and white, so that when the world reads it, it exclaims: "Why, that is
just what I think and feel! Only I could never put it into words!"
When Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote the "Sonnets from the Portuguese,"
she was writing of her own love for one particular man. So far she was
dealing with her own experiences; and if that had been all, the matter
might have ended there. But because uncountable women in every land have
loved in that same way, have thought those thoughts, and experienced
those identical emotions, though they were not able to write of them as
Mrs. Browning did, her "Sonnets" found an echo in hearts the world over:
they voiced a great human experience, a universal human longing.
[Sidenote: The So-called "New Poetry"]
One modern phase of verse-making has had a very demoralising effect on
the amateur. I refer to the outbreak of shapeless productions--devoid of
music, beauty, rhythm, and balance, and often lacking the rudiments of
sense--that developed before the war, and has been with us ever since.
The followers of this cult advocate the abolition of all law and order:
each goes gaily on his own way, writing whatsoever he pleases, no matter
how crude, or banal, or incoherent, or loathsome; lines any and every
length; unlimited full stops, or none at all; just what is in his
brain--and what a state of brain it reveals! This so-called "new poetry"
resembles nothing in the world so much as the MSS. an editor
occasionally receives from inmates of lunatic asylums!
Literary effusions of this type are on a par with the cubist and
futurist monstrosities that have tried to imagine themselves a new form
of pictorial art.
Unfortunately, the desire to kick over all laws and rules, and
everything that betokens restraint and discipline, is no new one.
Periodically the world has seemed to be attacked with wholesale madness,
as history shows; and a pronounced feature of each upheaval has been the
attempt of certain deranged imaginations to abolish that order which is
Heaven's first law (and which cannot be abolished without wide-spread
ruin), and in its place to exalt the deification of self. The years
preceding every outbreak have invariably been marked by excesses,
licence and extravagance of all kinds; while real art, wholesome living,
serious thinking, and steady, well-regulated work, have been at a
discount.
Do not be misled by high-sounding statements, that all the incoherency
and carelessness and indifferent workmanship exhibited in recent
travesties of Art was a groping after better things, the breaking of
shackles that chained the free heaven-born spirit of man to miserable
mundane convention.
It was nothing of the sort.
Rather, it was a form of hysteria that was the outcome of the "soft"
living, the feverish quest of pleasure, the craving for notoriety at the
least expenditure of effort, the longing to be perpetually in the
limelight, and the absence of self-discipline that was all too
noticeable in the earlier years of this century.
THE LIMITATIONS OF YOUTH
By EUGENE FIELD
I'd like to be a cowboy an' ride a fiery hoss
Way out into the big and boundless West;
I'd kill the bears an' catamounts an' wolves I come across,
An' I'd pluck the bal-head eagle from his nest!
With my pistols at my side,
I would roam the prarers wide,
An' to scalp the savage Injun in his wigwam would I ride--
If I darst; but I darsen't!
I'd like to go to Afriky an' hunt the lions there,
An' the biggest ollyfunts you ever saw!
I would track the fierce gorilla to his equatorial lair,
An' beard the cannybull that eats folks raw!
I'd chase the pizen snakes,
An' the 'pottimus that makes
His nest down at the bottom of unfathomable lakes--
If I darst; but I darsen't!
The "new" poetry was a manifestation of the decadence undermining
pre-war Art.
Do not be deluded into thinking that the aberrations of ill-trained
minds that sometimes flaunt themselves before your bewildered eyes, in
some very "thin" volume of verse, or in some freakish periodical, are
art, or even worth the paper they are printed on. They are not. Very
probably they would never have got into print at all, but for the fact
that those who affect the cult are, for the most part, people with more
money than discrimination, who can afford to pay for publicity.
Just as a certain type of eccentricity of action may be the precursor of
mental disease, so a certain type of eccentricity of thought may be the
forerunner of moral and spiritual disease.
Avoid unnecessary abbreviations: _th'_ for the, _o'_ for of, and similar
curtailments. These are often mere mannerisms, and introduced with the
idea that they are distinctive: but they are not.
[Sidenote: Some General Hints worth Noting]
Long lines are better for descriptive verse than short ones.
A stately metre, with well-marked cadence, is best suited to a lofty
theme. This is illustrated in "The Valley Song," by the late Mable
Earle, which we reprint by courtesy of the _American Sunday School
Times_.
A VALLEY SONG
By MABLE EARLE
_"Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of
the hills, but He is not God of the valleys."_
God of the heights where men walk free,
Above life's lure, beyond death's sting;
Lord of all souls that rise to Thee,
White with supreme self-offering;
Thou who hast crowned the hearts that dare,
Thou who hast nerved the hands to do,
God of the heights! give us to share
Thy kingdom in the valleys too.
Our eyes look up to those who stand
Vicegerents of Thy stainless sway,
Heroes and saints at Thy right hand,
Thy priests and kings of glory they.
Not ours to tread the path they trod,
Splendid and sharp, still reaching higher;
Not ours to lay before our God
The crowns they snatched from flood and fire.
Yet through the daily, dazing toil,
The crowding tasks of hand and brain,
Keep pure our lips, Lord Christ, from soil,
Keep pure our lives from sordid gain.
Come to the level of our days,
The lowly hours of dust and din,
And in the valley-lands upraise
Thy kingdom over self and sin.
Not ours the dawn-lit heights; and yet
Up to the hills where men walk free
We lift our eyes, lest faith forget
The Light which lighted them to Thee.
God of all heroes, ours and Thine,
God of all toilers! keep us true,
Till Love's eternal glory shine
In sunrise on the valleys too.
Short lines, irregular metre and unusual construction, are best for
light or whimsical subjects. "The Limitations of Youth," by Eugene
Field, is an example.
To put it another way: when the subject is dignified, the lines should
roll along; when the subject is light and airy, the lines should ripple
past.
The more peaceful the subject, the more need for mellifluent treatment.
Stern or tragic subjects can stand rugged wording and shape.
Verses written for children, or on childish themes, should be simple in
construction, with rhymes near together, and lines of not more than
eight syllables as a rule. 8.6's, rhyming alternately, are the easiest
to memorise, and therefore the most popular with children.
Examine the poems in Stevenson's _A Child's Garden of Verses_, and note
the simplicity of their construction, the music of their rhymes, and
their clear, direct method of statement--the latter an essential if
children are to be interested.
One of the reasons for the appeal that "Hiawatha" makes invariably to
children is its direct form of statement, with few involved sentences;
and its eight-syllable lines.
Eugene Field's poems on childhood themes, and some of the passages in
"The Forest of Wild Thyme," by Alfred Noyes, are delightful examples of
the possibilities of 8.6 lines with alternate rhymes.
* * * * *
Merely to break up prose into lines of irregular length, is not to
produce poetry.
There must not only be beauty in individual lines and phrases, but there
must be beauty of idea and form in the verses as a whole.
At the same time, never sacrifice sense to sound.
Young writers sometimes say to me, "I see so much, and feel so much, yet
I cannot put it into words: the thoughts are beautiful while they are
inside my brain, but there seem no words adequate to express them; I am
baffled directly I try to put them down on paper."
Don't despair. Every poet has felt the same: but let it encourage you to
recollect that many have got the better of the feeling, by hard work and
sheer determination. After all you have all the words there are, and the
most famous of poets had no more than this to work with. We sometimes
forget that in the end, the greatest writer that ever lived had to
reduce everything to the same words you and I are free to use.
You may remember that Mark Twain once went to a well-known preacher, who
had delivered a magnificent sermon, and, after extolling it and thanking
him for it, the humourist added, "But I have seen every word of it
before, in print!"
The astonished preacher asked, indignantly, "Where?"
"In the dictionary," replied Mark Twain.
The Function of the Blue Pencil
Just as we all know that a king would be no king without a crown, and
the Lord Mayor of London would be but a mere mortal man without his mace
and his gorgeous gilt coach, so no self-respecting editor is supposed to
exist apart from a blue pencil. And I admit it is a serviceable article,
but, personally, I prefer that it should be used by the contributor. I
do not want to have to spend time in revising a MS., to get it into
publishable shape; neither does any other editor.
The blue pencil stands for deletion. Practically every writer needs to
cut down the first draft of a story or article. Some prune more severely
than others, but all experienced workers reduce and condense before they
finally pass a MS. for publication.
It is not until a MS. is completed--roughly--that one can actually tell
where it is balanced, and where it is light-weight or top-heavy. Things
expand in unexpected directions as we go along; developments suggest
themselves temptingly when we are halfway through, and then throw the
earlier chapters quite out of proportion to the story as a whole;
matters that seemed of great moment when we were in Chapter 2 have toned
down to the very ordinary by the time we have piled on ten more chapters
of stress and thrills and emotion.
One cannot stop to adjust it as one goes along, because no one can say
whether the re-adjustment itself may not be out of gear by the time the
finale is reached.
Consequently, the best way is to go right on, letting everything fall as
it happens (but keeping as near as you can to your original plan, unless
there is just cause for a departure therefrom). When you have written
"Finis," overhaul the MS. from beginning to end, sparing neither your
blue pencil nor your feelings, if common sense, and knowledge of your
craft, tell you that certain portions or sentences would be better
omitted.
It is neither an easy nor a pleasing task--especially to the novice. The
early children of our brain seem of such priceless worth, that we regard
them with a certain sense of awe. "Did _I_ write that beautiful passage
about the moon silvering the tree-tops? Then it _must_ belong just where
I put it. Cut it out? Certainly not! I consider it the most exquisite
paragraph in the whole story."
This is the way we look at our work when we have not many published
items to our name. Later, experience and the training that comes from
practice, teach us to arm ourselves as a matter of course with a blue
pencil, ignore personal sentiment, and look at our MSS. with a coldly
critical eye. Then we may discover that a sentence or paragraph, though
of undoubted merit and beauty--(we need not deny it that much!)--does
not quite fit in where we originally placed it. Possibly it is
superfluous, in view of what follows later; or redundant, in view of
what went before; or it may have lost life and colour with the passage
of time; or it may seem hackneyed, or weak, (though we do not use such
insulting words to our own writings till we are fairly advanced). But
whatever the reason, if on examining a sentence, it does not appear to
serve any vital purpose, take it out. If you think there is worth in it,
save it for a possible use at a later date in some other MS., though,
personally, I do not believe in any sort of _rechauffe_ of old matter,
simply because as time goes on we change in our style of writing as we
do in our tastes and preferences in neckties. And what you write this
year, will not necessarily dovetail in with what you write in a few
years' time. Still, if you feel it would be wasting flashes of genius
to destroy it, and it would be any comfort to you to hoard it--do so;
the main thing is to delete it from the MS. you are revising, if there
be any doubt about its value.
A beginner's MS. usually needs to be cut down to about half its original
length. Hard luck, for the beginner, I know, considering the way he will
have laboured lovingly over every sentence.
[Sidenote: MSS. need to be "Pulled Together"]
Nevertheless, it pulls the work together if the blue pencil be applied
generously. Some articles and stories appear to sprawl all over the
place (sprawl is not a pretty word, but it is expressive). The writer
does not seem able to follow up any idea to a logical conclusion,
without interpolating so much irrelevant matter that the main theme is
nearly smothered by the extraneous items, and the reader gets only a
confused impression of what it is all about.
Such work needs "pulling together," _i.e._ the essential portions that
should follow each other in natural sequence need to be brought closer
together; and this can only be done by clearing away the non-essentials
that separate them.
[Sidenote: The way Phil May made his Sketches]
The late Phil May once showed me how he drew his inimitable sketches,
that always looked so simple, oh _so_ simple! to the uninitiated. First
he made a sketch full of detail, with everything included, much as
other people make sketches. When this was finished to his satisfaction,
he started to take out every line that was not actually necessary to the
understanding of the picture. Finally he had left nothing but a few
strokes--yet, such was his genius for seeing what to delete and what to
leave, the picture had gained rather than lost in character, force, and
comprehensiveness.
The secret of the matter is this. By removing everything that is not of
vital importance to the whole, (whether in painting or in writing),
there is less confusion of vision, less to distract the mind, or switch
it off to side issues.
This does not mean that everything is better for being given in bare
outline. Undoubtedly certain additions and decorations and descriptions
can be made to emphasise the author's meaning, to impress a scene more
vividly on the mind. We do not want all our pictures to be modelled on
the lines of Phil May, clever as his work was. There is room for endless
variety. The author should remember, however, that it is better to err
on the side of drastic deletion, rather than leave in matter that is no
actual gain to the picture, and only serves to distract and confuse and
overload the reader's mind.
[Sidenote: Beware the Plausible Imp]
There is a Plausible Imp who perches on the top of every beginner's
inkstand, and passes his wicked little time assuring them all that they
are too clever to need hedging about by rules, that their work cannot be
improved upon, and would only be spoilt if it were altered in any way.
Don't heed him! The beginner's work is never spoilt by condensation;
rather it is invariably improved by cutting down. In the main, every
writer's work needs pruning, until he has had sufficient practice to
know what is not worth while to put down in the first place--and one
needs to be exceptionally gifted to know this.
If, on reading your MS. after its completion, you feel your work is so
good that it needs no blue pencil--beware! You have not got there yet!
PART FIVE
AUTHOR, PUBLISHER, AND PUBLIC
Everything resolves itself down, in the publisher's mind,
to the one simple question: "Is this MS. what the public
wants?"
When Offering Goods for Sale
Supposing--that when you go into the fishmonger's, he offers you a cod
that is slightly "off"; and, while apologising for its feebleness, begs
you to take it, as he has an invalid daughter suffering from spinal
complaint, who needs a change at the seaside.
Or--that the assistant in the men's hosiery shop begs you to take half a
dozen extra neckties, as he is anxious to buy the baby a much-needed
pram, and his salary depends primarily on his commissions.
Or--that the sewing-machine agent, when sending around circulars, adds a
devout hope, as a P.S., that you will purchase a machine, since he is
anxious to increase his subscription to foreign missions.
Or--that the incompetent dressmaker beseeches you to take a garment that
would fit nobody and suit nobody, because she has a widowed mother to
support.
"Preposterous!" you say. "Such things would never occur."
And yet this is precisely what is happening every day of the year in the
literary business!
Here are some sentences from letters accompanying MSS. sent to my office
the week I am writing this.
"I should esteem it a great kindness if you could stretch a point in
favour of my story, even though it may not be quite up to your standard
(and I can see, on re-reading, that it has defects); but I am anxious to
make some money in order to take a friend in whom I am deeply interested
to the seaside for a much-needed change. She is an invalid, and----"
here follow copious details about the friend.
Another writes: "I must ask you to give this every consideration, as I
devote all the money I make by my writings to charity."
A third says frankly, "you really _must_ accept this story, as I need
money badly."
And for a truly nauseating letter, I think the following is as
objectionable as any I have received in this connection:
"My dear wife has recently passed away, after years of acute and
protracted suffering. My heart was rent with sympathy for her while she
lived, and now the blank caused by her death is almost intolerable. How
I shall face life without her I do not know; for she was indeed a
help-meet in every sense of the word, In order to divert my mind from
this well-nigh insurmountable sorrow, I have written a story 'The Forged
Cheque,' which I feel is just the thing for your magazine. I ask you to
regard it leniently, remembering that it is written with a breaking
heart," etc.
[Sidenote: The Problem of Youth]
Then there are other reasons advanced why the editor should accept a
MS., the youthfulness or the inexperience of the author being frequently
mentioned.
While it is no crime to be young, it is no particular advantage when one
is seeking to place a story. Inexperience, on the other hand, might be
regarded as a distinct drawback.
But in any case, the editor does not purchase MSS. merely because they
are the writers' first attempts. However good they may be for first
attempts, or however promising they may be considering the age of the
writer, all that has practically nothing to do with the editor's
decision, unless he is running any pages in his periodical for the
exploitation of immature work or juvenile effort. And in these days of
high-priced paper and expensive production, very few papers do this.
[Sidenote: The way Phil May made his Sketches]
It is hard to make the amateur understand that a magazine is first and
foremost a business proposition, as much as a shop or a factory. The
editor must make it pay; and in order to do this, he must publish the
type of matter that his readers are willing to purchase. Each magazine
appeals to a definite section of the public (or it should do so, if it
is to be a success). No one magazine appeals to every human being. Some
want sensation, some want art, some want fashions, and so on. And as it
is impossible to include everything in any one publication, each editor
aims to please a certain class of tastes--good, bad or indifferent,
according to the policy of his paper. And he knows to a fraction almost,
what will suit his public, and what they will not care about.
How does he know?
It is part of his mental and business equipment: the knowledge often
costs him years of study and observation; and it is one of the
qualifications for which he is paid his salary.
And because he knows what his public will buy, and what they do not
want, he purchases MSS. accordingly. It is immaterial to him whether the
writer needs money for charity, or to support an aged relative, or
merely to soothe a bereaved soul: the only question he considers is
whether the public will want a certain MS. or not. He is not engaged by
the proprietors to aid charity, or to minister to the necessitous; his
work is to provide goods that the public will buy--just like any other
business man. And he is unmoved, therefore, by irrelevant appeals.
Of course he has other matters to look to as well as the providing of
goods the public will buy; he helps to shape public opinion, for
instance, and raises, or lowers, the public taste. But so far as the
amateur is concerned, the point to remember is the fact that an editor
is in no way influenced by the writer's need for pecuniary assistance.
If he were, his post-bag would be a hundred times heavier than it is
already, and it is quite heavy enough as it is!
[Sidenote: A Publisher is not an Agent for Philanthropy]