Use common sense when sending your manuscript. Read the magazines and
mark the kind of story they use. For example, should you have a story
dealing with the _egoism a deux_ called marriage, it would be of no
use to send it to the _Saturday Evening Post_. Similarly, a tale of
business success would find no friendly reception in the office of the
_Dial_.
There are many magazines, especially the younger ventures, exceedingly
hospitable to unknown writers. I name the _Double Dealer_, Vincent
Starret’s _Wave_, the _Reviewer_, and _Broom_.
For established magazines with editors very much on the _qui vive_ for
good work, watch the _Century_, _Smart Set_, _Little Review_, _Freeman_
and _Midland_. There are probably many others, but I’m speaking from my
own experience.
I would advise you to read the editorials and literary criticisms of H.
L. Mencken in the _Smart Set_, Glen Frank in the _Century_, and if you
care for this, my own periodical _All’s Well_.
There follows a very complete list giving the addresses of magazines
using short stories.
Adventure, Spring and Macdougal Sts., New York City.
Ainslee’s Magazine, 79 7th Ave., New York City.
All’s Well, Fayetteville, Ark.
American Boy, 142 Lafayette Blvd., Detroit, Mich.
American Magazine, 381 Fourth Ave., New York City.
Argosy All-Story, 280 Broadway, New York City.
Asia, 627 Lexington Ave., New York City.
Atlantic Monthly, 8 Arlington St., Boston, Mass.
Black Cat, 229 West 28th St., New York City.
Broom, 3 East 9th St., New York City.
Catholic World, 120 West 60th St., New York City.
Century, 353 4th Ave., New York City.
Collier’s Weekly, 416 West 13th St., New York City.
Cosmopolitan Magazine, 119 West 40th St., New York City.
Dial, 152 West 13th St., New York City.
Double Dealer, 204 Baronne St., New Orleans, La.
Everybody’s Magazine, Spring and Macdougal Sts., New York City.
Freeman, 32 West 58th St., New York City.
Good Housekeeping, 119 West 40th St., New York City.
Harper’s Bazaar, 119 West 40th St., New York City.
Harper’s Magazine, Franklin Square, New York City.
Hearst’s Magazine, 119 West 40th St., New York City.
Holland’s Magazine, Dallas, Tex.
Ladies’ Home Journal, Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pa.
Liberator, 34 Union Square East, New York City.
Little Review, 24 West 16th St., New York City.
Little Story Magazine, 714 Drexel Bldg., Philadelphia, Pa.
Live Stories, 35 West 39th St., New York City.
McCall’s Magazine, 236 West 37th St., New York City.
McClure’s Magazine, 76 Fifth Ave., New York City.
Magnificant, Manchester, N. H.
Metropolitan, 432 4th Ave., New York City.
Midland, Glennie, Alcona County, Mich.
Munsey’s Magazine, 280 Broadway, New York City.
Outlook, 381 5th Ave., New York City.
Pagan, 7 East 15th St., New York City.
Parisienne, 25 West 45th St., New York City.
People’s Favorite Magazine, 79 7th Ave., New York City.
Pictorial Review, 216 West 39th St., New York City.
Popular Magazine, 79 West 39th Ave., New York City.
Queen’s Work, 626 North Vandeventer Ave., St. Louis, Mo.
Reviewer, 809¹⁄₂ Floyd Ave., Richmond, Va.
Saturday Evening Post, Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pa.
The Red Book Magazine, North American Bldg., Chicago, Ill.
Scribner’s Magazine, 597 5th Ave., New York City.
Short Stories, Garden City, Long Island, New York City.
Smart Set, 25 West 45th St., New York City.
Snappy Stories, 35 West 39th St., New York City.
Sunset, 460 Fourth St., San Francisco, Calif.
Today’s Housewife, Coopertown, N. Y.
Top-Notch Magazine, 79 West 47th Ave., New York City.
Toutchstone, 1 West 47th St., New York City.
The Woman’s Home Companion, 381 4th Ave., New York City.
Woman’s World, 107 South Clinton St., Chicago, Ill.
A word in conclusion. Keep your ears open as well as your eyes. You
will find it pays to be somewhat of what Shakespeare called a “snapper
up of unconsidered trifles.” On every side of us, good things are being
said, characters are being revealed. It was but last week when saying
something to a lad who was plowing, I being sorry for what I took to be
very hard work, he said:
“Why, I love it--turning up the sod, seeing the different things coming
up all the time, the smell of the earth, hearing the purr of the plow
and the little grunts of the horses--it’s fun.”
If you do not see strength and ecstasy and philosophy in that, you are
hopeless.
At a meeting, I heard a business man say:
“Although there was a talkative crowd there, I ate silently, revolving
plans.”
The five words “I ate silently, revolving plans” presents a picture.
An inexpert writer might waste words in vain putting the idea across
to a reader that a man engrossed in his business withdrew from the
confusion about him. Observe, the conversation of men is not often
clear cut, sharp chiseled. Too often it is a macedoine of tautologies,
contradictions, slang and inaccuracy, but let a man think strongly on
any one thing, and ten to one what he has to say comes out clear cut.
It is the flake of gold in the midst of much gravel that you must learn
to catch.
I find this again in my notebook. Two girls were talking in a
street car and I could not but help overhear. It was poor stuff and
uninteresting, with much of “I says” and “says he to me” and “I says,
says I” but in one place this came like a bright light:
“I did not hear the reply, because of the faint rustle of my own
movements.”
The sentence stands perfect. What it conveys could not be better put.
Once I heard an old sailor telling a tale. He was full of oaths and
obscenities and he wandered in the telling of it. Then this came:
“As the sun sank, a patch of trees on the point stood out against the
light and it seemed that they had come by magic.”
A Texas freighter I heard say of a man:
“He had the gift of friendship.”
This was said by a child of seven years: “She was so proud, that she
became white and tight lipped.”
If you will examine the examples given, you will see that each speaker
had something to express, and expressed it directly. There was no
stuffing, no padding.
As an example of positive flash of insight, I copy this from the story
“Villette” by Currer Bell:
“The cook, in a jacket, a short petticoat, and sabots, brought me
supper, to wit, some meat, nature unknown, served in an odd and acid
but pleasant sauce; some chopped potatoes made savory with I know not
what, vinegar and sugar, I think; a tartarine or slice of bread and
butter and a baked pear. Being hungry, I ate and was grateful.”
The passage that next follows, I find in my scrap book clipped from _T.
P.’s Weekly_. It is the opinion of an old grayheaded man at Rydal Mount
who remembered Wordsworth and who, in spite of the evidence of many
poems, held that the Lake poet had no interest in children.
“He never cared for childer, however; yan may be cartain of that, for
didn’t I have to pass him four times in t’ week, up to the door wi’
meat: and he niver onest said owt. Ye’re well aware if he’d been fond
of children, he ’ud ’a spoke.”
Now watch how Mark Twain does things. His Huckleberry Finn talks as
the boys that you know talk, and, like so many of the unlearned, he
supports his views with a philosophical tag. He is giving his opinion
of the _King_ and the _Duke_, two rapscallions who were parasites on
the lads.
“It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars wasn’t no
kings and dukes at all, but just low down humbugs and frauds. But I
never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself. It’s the best way;
then you don’t have no quarrels and don’t get into no trouble.”
And this, for scenic description in miniature, with a record of
personal impression is hard to beat:
“It was a-kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying
on our backs looking up at the stars; and we didn’t feel like talkin’
loud and it wasn’t often that we laughed, only a little kind of a low
chuckle.”
One more passage I must quote from Huckleberry. Compare it with the
brief remark of the plowboy I copied for you, for Huck might have said
what that lad said, or that lad might have talked as did Huck:
“Not a sound anywheres--perfectly still--just like the whole world
was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-clattering maybe. The
first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull
line--that was the woods on t’other side--you couldn’t make nothing
else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness; spreading
around; then the river softened up, away off, and warn’t black any
more, but gray; you could see little dark spots driftin’ along, ever so
far away--tradin’ scows an’ such things; and long black streaks--rafts;
sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices,
it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see
a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that
there’s a snag there in the swift current which breaks on it and makes
that streak look that way.”
Perhaps, if you have never tried to write a story, you will think
that it is an easy task to put into the words of an unlettered lad a
description such as that. But try. If you can come anything near it you
will do well. If you can do as well as that your future as a writer
is assured. Doubtless, you as a boy loved the still and solemn night,
the creatures in the woods--squirrels, turtles, snakes. Doubtless, you
too looked with indignation upon the things men did around you. If so,
you have the foundation for a story within you. All that remains to be
done then is to set down your own experiences without holding back,
without exaggeration--to set down the things as they were in simple,
plain words; to remember, all the time, that truth is the final test of
literature.
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