=Bill Adams=: No course of any sort.
=Samuel Hopkins Adams=: No technical course of any kind. Such books as I
have looked into only served to befog my mind.
=Paul L. Anderson=: No course in fiction writing; stringent course in
the handling of words, in prep. school, college and since.
=William Ashley Anderson=: I have never "studied" short story or fiction
writing in any popular form.
=H. C. Bailey=: I know nothing of any course of instruction.
=Edwin Balmer=: I was in short story writing classes both at
Northwestern University and at Harvard, and I do not think they did me
any good; in fact, in neither university was my writing approved. The
teachers encouraged models of the past; I was writing after present-day
models and therefore was criticized. It did not worry me because I used
to sell to newspapers my classroom themes, and I thought the newspaper
editors knew more about writing than the professors.
=Ralph Henry Barbour=: I have had no classroom or correspondence course
in writing fiction. I was born too early for either. I have not
read--through--any books on the subject. I am not, therefore, able to
judge any of these. I have my own ideas, though, on the subject of being
taught to write fiction. Being of little value, I'll keep them to
myself.
=Frederick Orin Bartlett=: I never, thank God, took any course in
writing fiction. It might help some but I am sure from my experience
with college English that it would have only made me self-conscious.
=Nalbro Bartley=: No. I'm very much against courses in writing, schools
for authorship, journalism, etc.,--even if people do live them down.
From what I have seen, it produces a sort of professional-amateur and we
have so many of them just now and so few people doing the things which
would, if they were inclined that way, make them ultimately write. I
mean--you can't write unless you know what you are writing about and
technique is a thing belonging to a desk job, something which can be
acquired after you have either vicariously or otherwise been in the
arena. Personally, I found being a cub reporter on a paper for two
years, a special writer for two years and then--just going to it with
rejection-slips as my own teacher and life my classroom the most
satisfactory route.
=Konrad Bercovici=: No, no, no, no.
=Ferdinand Berthoud=: _NO!_ I don't think even God himself could write a
decent story from any classroom or correspondence-school course if He
hadn't the background. I know a man who is a critic for the ----
Correspondence School, and, from what I can see of it, the sole end and
aim of his organization is to string the poor, deluded aspiring writer
along and soak him for all he is worth. He tells me that out of over a
thousand stories he went over during last year _not one_ was good enough
to hit a magazine.
=H. H. Birney, Jr.=: No course of any kind in writing. Am considering
one.
=Farnham Bishop=: Wrote my first school "composition" at the age of ten,
my last one at eighteen, all in the same school, under the same
teachers, who encouraged creative work, criticized sanely, and banged
English grammar into me in the good old-fashioned way. Wrote for and
later edited the school paper. Also turned out a lot of wild kid stuff
in collaboration with another chap, and illustrated by Dwight Franklin,
for private circulation only.
My pal died just as we were about to enter Harvard together. His death,
and a douse of purely negative and rather supercilious criticism from an
overworked instructor in Freshman English took all the fun out of
writing. By the time I began to find myself at Harvard, I was in the Law
School. Failed there, swung over into the Graduate School, took English
5 under Dean Briggs, English 2 (Shakespeare) under Professor Kittredge,
and a course on Milton under Professor Nielson--all three the livest of
live wires. Worked my way through an extra year just to take Professor
Baker's English 47--the course on playwriting.
The school and graduate school courses helped me much more than the
undergraduate work in college, mainly, I think, because of the
difference in the personality of the teachers. I learned much more from
the men--the pick of the men--who taught me than I did from the
textbooks.
=Algernon Blackwood=: No. I began writing at the age of thirty-six
because I could not keep it back. I preferred an evening thus engaged to
any pleasure, social, theatre, music or anything else. After a day of
hard, uncongenial business, the imaginative release on paper was my real
recreation.
=Max Bonter=: I have never read any literature on fiction writing.
=Katharine Holland Brown=: Some classroom work, which was very valuable
in elementary work. And, too, the classroom insistence on system and
unity and all the virtues has always been valuable--when it has been
heeded.
=F. R. Buckley=: I once took half a course (at the age of eighteen)--in
short story writing (at a university). I had already written and sold
several yarns. That half-course killed me dead for five years. I was
self-conscious, and instead of telling a story I was inclined to wonder
whether the climacteric was all right, or if the anti-climax had been
put out-of-doors for the night. I now avoid anybody who wants to talk
nomenclature as being much more harmful than the devil, and
inexpressibly worse company.
=Prosper Buranelli=: I read two books on short story writing. Got a
couple of very elementary ideas. Got practical training writing Sunday
stories under a discerning editor. That counted. If a plumber serves an
apprenticeship to learn his trade--is a writer's craft any less exacting
in the matter of skill?
=Thompson Burtis=: I have never had a course on writing fiction. I have
read one book on it. All the help I ever got from it, as far as I can
remember, is to have it impressed on my mind that a story must build up
to a climax, which I believe I knew before. I had sold stories before I
ever read the book. However, I believed it helped me a little at the
start. Beyond the elementary stages, I can not see how it has helped me
at all.
=George M. A. Cain=: Never took any such courses. Never learned anything
from a book on the subject. I am strong for the idea of a correspondence
school of writing, financed by publishers, free to pupils, handled by a
man or men of real editorial experience or wide variety in authorship,
ready and willing to be brutally frank with the hopeless, and capable of
pointing out certain technical facts to those who can submit something
of promise. Such a fact I am going to mention under XI. I do not see how
any outside help can carry beyond the most elementary stages of actual
writing for publication, unless it might be in the "trade journal" line
of market information.
=Robert V. Carr=: Little schooling, no course of any kind on writing.
=George L. Catton=: Have had two correspondence courses in writing
fiction, but they did me little good. To tell the truth, I have never
read either of them through, and yet I have the diplomas that were given
for the final lesson answers. My own private opinion is that a man may
be taught to write, but if he hasn't a talent for "telling" a story he
might better never tackle it. Too much "rules and you-must and
you-mustn't" are plain murder to talent. The only training a man needs
is training in what he doesn't know; all other is waste of time and sand
on his fire. The only sane course of training for a writer is to find
out first what he doesn't know and then give him just that and not
another damn thing! It's a lot harder to forget than to learn, and the
"rules" of yesteryear are the mistakes of to-day. The world do move!
Have read several books on authorship and found that there was little in
them that I didn't already know. Sounds egotistical, but it's a fact
nevertheless. No, I can't say that courses or books ever helped me.
Corrections made on a manuscript or two and a bit of advice slammed at
me with a curse behind it was all I needed.
=Robert W. Chambers=: Rot!
=Roy P. Churchill=: Part of a correspondence course. A number of books.
These were a great help in elementary stages. Some help later on.
=Carl Clausen=: Never had any.
=Courtney Ryley Cooper=: I have had very little education of any kind,
except a varied experience and a lot of adventures and a long
apprenticeship on a newspaper which prided itself on its literary
excellence.
=Arthur Crabb=: I never had any education in fiction writing except from
literary agents and editors.
=Mary Stewart Cutting=: I have never had any tuition at all on story
writing.
=Elmer Davis=: No. Probably need it.
=William Harper Dean=: No courses in writing. I have some books
purchased years ago--I'll swear I never got a thing from them. I am
hopelessly confused when I try to follow such things. Of course that's
because of my own type of mind--others, I know, get a great deal from
books on technique and the like.
=Harris Dickson=: As a very young boy I started to write poetry. And did
you ever think how much this may help? How it leads one to cast about
for the exact word, for a word that balances with the sentence both in
thought and rhythm? Well, it does. After that I wrote a few rotten short
stories, one of which brought me five dollars. Then several historical
novels, because I had read so much of our southwestern colonial history
until I came to know the people. And I also knew the country. Out of
this grew several pioneering sword and cloak novels of Louisiana and
Mississippi.
My first magazine work was a special article which dealt with my
criminal experiences in the city court. Then I began to write short
stories of southern life, largely of negro life.
=Captain Dingle=: Neither course nor books. Lacking the educational
furniture of a writer, it has always seemed to me that the sort of stuff
I turn out must come bluntly from me, and that no amount of study will
help, except the study of MEN.
=Louis Dodge=: Alas, I have had no classroom or correspondence aids.
There's a knot to unravel. Things can be taught, certainly; but shall we
learn to do a thing as others would do it? Did Columbus? Gallileo?
Buddha? Shakespeare? Lincoln? Marconi? I suspect rules are like clothes:
you ought to get good ones and then forget all about them.
=Phyllis Duganne=: No courses or books in writing. But I've had advice
from older authors, which is immensely valuable. If teachers of writing
fiction were authors themselves, I think they would be very helpful.
=J. Allan Dunn=: I have had no classroom or correspondence course nor
have I read entirely any book on writing fiction. I have received
considerable help in the beginning from advice given by an editor.
Certain of his suggestions are strong with me to-day, such as his simile
for making a true rope of the story and tucking in all the ends.
I was greatly indebted also in the beginning to an agent of mine--since
retired--Helen Gardenhire, who taught me to keep my characters moving
when they were on the stage, to take them off when they were not needed
and not to let my hero stray up back-stage too often. In other words,
continued and precise action.
For myself I conceive my story as a play. I try not to destroy the
illusion or halt the action, not to take my audience round back of the
scenes and never to let down the curtain and come out in front to make
talk. I don't say I live up to this. I try to. But my first two yarns
were accepted, I am sure, with all their faults of technique because
they had been done over and over and over--because I had no real
technique those days.
It is hard to apply, to set down, this psychology of the art of writing.
Jack London used to say "you've got to learn the tricks, old man, then
it will go easily." I try to regard a rejected story as I would any
article of merchandize refused by customers--and find out what is the
matter with it. I do not believe in correspondence schools for writers.
The greatest advance lies in keeping at it and trying to find out what's
wrong.
=Walter A. Dyer=: I never had any sort of instruction in fiction
writing.
=Walter Prichard Eaton=: No, to this.
=E. O. Foster=: I have had no classroom or correspondence course in
writing fiction. I have read one or two books on it and have not found
they helped me to any great extent in short story writing.
=Arthur O. Friel=: Studied rhetoric, composition, etc., in school and
college, but made no particular study of fiction work and such. Highly
important as fundamentals.
=J. U. Giesy=: No.
=George Gilbert=: Took no course.
=Kenneth Gilbert=: I've read books on short story writing and found that
they helped somewhat in the elementary stages, but I have yet to find
one that is other than elementary. Recently, a set of volumes was sent
to me on approval, after I had been assured that they were just what I
had been looking for. I returned them when it dawned on me that I knew
more about technique than the man who wrote them.
=Holworthy Hall=: No classroom or correspondence course. I buy every
book on "fiction writing" I can find. The majority of them are classed
in my library as "humor." That is why I buy them. In the last ten years,
only six books of this sort have emerged from that class; generally,
they are funny without being short enough.
=Richard Matthews Hallet=: I did not fall to writing fiction until I had
left the classroom; and I never took a correspondence course in same. I
think there is a big field for a book on certain practical features,
such as you hint at. I have a shelf full of books on rhetoric and
etymology, but nothing on how to write fiction. After all, it's a
process. If it goes on in you at all, you can chip and file at it; if it
doesn't go on, you have to seek other trades. I'm a border-line case.
=William H. Hamby=: In the beginning I took a three months'
correspondence course and had real benefit from it.
=A. Judson Hanna=: No, all around.
=Joseph Mills Hanson=: Never have had any course on fiction writing
other than in English courses at school. I have, however, taken
magazines for writers and read books on the subject, and do still. I
believe both to have been helpful in the early stages of writing for
publication, and that they are still helpful. It is stimulating to read
of the experience of others in one's own craft and to digest their
suggestions and the suggestions of those who endeavor to be instructors
in the art of narration, whether or not one attempts to follow their
pronouncements.
=E. E. Harriman=: Never had a correspondence course or classroom
training in writing. Read a book and spent two hours over one by ----.
These helped me some in the elementary stages. Got most help in plot
writing or making from a little sheet published by Willard Hawkins,
Denver, in one page written by him. He concentrated the whole thing and
made it as plain as a pikestaff. Epitomized it.
=Nevil G. Henshaw=: I've never taken any kind of course in writing,
although at first I read a book or two on the subject. They helped in
telling me what not to do. But, if I've learned anything at all, it is
due almost entirely to the criticism and counsel of kindly editors.
=Joseph Hergesheimer=: Nothing--none!
=Robert Hichens=: I spent a year in a school of journalism in London. I
haven't specially studied many books on writing, but I have studied many
of the best prose writers.
=Roy de S. Horn=: I had a correspondence course in writing, but I never
finished it. I finished twenty-eight of the forty lessons and then went
at the game directly. But I still buy and study books on it whenever I
can find a new one. And I frequently sit down and study a current story
just as I was taught to do in the old course. I believe that both the
course and the books were and are of incalculable assistance. The great
thing to the beginner of a course is that they are short cuts. They give
him other authors' experiences and deductions in concentrated form. They
make him get a clear idea of what he is about. And most of all they tell
him what not to write, thus saving him the trouble and delay of finding
out by personal experiment.
=Clyde B. Hough=: I have had no course of any sort on writing fiction.
Have read a few text-books and the greatest impression they made on me
was that I must work hard, must expect many disappointments, but that I
must never holler "'nough." They, the text-books, are agreed, and
they're right, that the time to holler "'nough" is before you start at
the game.
=Emerson Hough=: Thank God, no, I never did.
=A. S. M. Hutchinson=: (First and second questions) No.
=Inez Haynes Irwin=: I took writing courses in my early twenties for two
years at Radcliffe College. I think these courses were an enormous help
_then_, because it was so stimulating to be writing in a group. Also it
developed my taste and strengthened my ambition. It helped me to acquire
the habit of writing. Beyond these elementary stages, I think it was of
no special assistance. And in the case of a girl like my niece, Phyllis
Duganne, it would be, I am sure, utterly unnecessary. She grew up in a
household in which there were always three writers and, when visitors
came, sometimes six. She acquired her technique painlessly as artists'
children learn to paint. She can not remember when she began to write
and I am sure she has no memories of difficulties in learning to write.
Her first short story was accepted when she was sixteen and her first
novel was published before she was twenty-one. No course in writing
could have helped her much.
=Will Irwin=: I never had any formal instruction in story writing except
the expert coaching of Gellett Burgess in collaboration with whom I
wrote my first two books of fiction, and later the criticisms of my wife
who is a better technician than I.
=Charles Tenney Jackson=: As to "classroom, correspondence, text-books
on writing," I am innocent of all of 'em. Never had any, read any.
=Frederick J. Jackson=: No classroom course on writing fiction. No
books. Correspondence course, yes. In 1913 a complete course from an
editor. I sent him thirty or forty stories. He returned them all and had
so little to do in those days that he sent a letter criticizing or
commenting upon each story. He made a bull's eye with each shot of
criticism. I made a hell of a lot of mistakes, but never made the same
one twice. The letters of this bird kept me interested in writing, made
me keep on, thereby ruining the makings of a live-wire press agent or
advertising man. I sold a lot of the stories he returned, mostly due to
the hints he dropped.
Did this help beyond the elementary stages? It did. It made me determine
to learn the writing game so that some day I could make the
above-mentioned editor apologize when returning a story. Something over
one hundred and sixty magazine and picture stories sold is his pupil's
record so far. The said pupil considers that he is still serving an
apprenticeship in the writing game. If he works hard enough he may be
able to graduate by the time he's thirty-five.
=Mary Johnston=: No.
=John Joseph=: Have had no "classroom" or other instruction, except such
as I have received from kindly disposed editors. And these little notes
are highly prized, believe me.
=Lloyd Kohler=: About four or five years ago I subscribed to the ----
course of the ---- Correspondence School. However, I don't believe that
I sent in over two or three of the lessons. I was in the Navy at the
time, and whoever has been in the "outfit" knows that the average
sailorman is lucky if he can write a letter home occasionally. However,
I think that I digested pretty thoroughly ----'s book on the short
story. Since that time I have read a great number of books on fiction
writing. There is no doubt but what they serve a very great purpose, but
there must be a natural talent for the work first--of that I am
satisfied.
A word as to genius and talent. One chap has said that genius is hard
work, or words to that effect. I don't agree. For instance: I might
study music for fifty years and at the end of that period I'm well
satisfied that I wouldn't even be able to extract a harmonious note from
a jew's-harp. On the other hand, I believe that if there is such a thing
as genius, it is merely a combination, or the result of a combination,
of _talent_ (every-day natural talent) and a capacity for _hard work_.
If a fellow has a natural talent, plus a capacity for darned hard work,
he's got the "makin's" for genius.
=Harold Lamb=: One classroom course in short story-writing, after I had
had a good deal published--and filled space for the newspapers, bless
'em, and been part editor of a trade journal. I could not hear anything
the professor said, but at the time his book was good reading. Beyond
the elementary stages it helped a good deal. In clearing up ideas before
beginning work, and following the thread when a story was begun. (I
think I missed a lot by not studying it more closely, being certain at
the time that I knew more than editors or professors.)
=Sinclair Lewis=: Yes, classroom in Yale--that _only_ (no books, etc.).
Classroom of NO value at all.
=Hapsburg Liebe=: I dickered a little (dabbled, rather) with some
so-called story doctors along at the beginning. I don't believe it
helped much. I've always had to do things my own way (very likely it's
usually the wrong way).
=Romaine H. Lowdermilk=: I don't know whether to be sorry or glad to
admit I have had no special training. I suppose I am still in the
elementary stage to a certain extent. I have purchased some books on
story writing and the like and have long taken the ---- [magazine] but
can sum the results as more inspirational than anything else. I have
learned more about the actual wants of editors from chance notes they
have sent with rejected or semi-accepted manuscripts. The actual
building of the story is more common sense than anything else and I have
done what I have done by plain "bare-handed writing." Still, there is
something wrong with this system, I know, for my best stories--those
that appeal most to me and the ones I put the most into--have been
rejected everywhere. Why is that? To me they are far better than many I
have sold, still they don't suit any editor. The story is surely there
and possibly if the editors knew how I love to revise they would mention
what seemed the matter. Still, they haven't the time and don't care that
much, I suppose. Possibly a professional critic could spot the trouble,
but I doubt it. I haven't tried it. But I suppose each writer has the
same trouble.
=Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.=: Outside of college rhetoric, I've had no
instruction in fiction writing beyond the helpful letters of editors.
Nor books, until after I had been writing for years. I can see that the
books would have been a great help, possibly, had I had them in the
elementary stages. But I was abroad and didn't happen to know about
them.
=Rose Macaulay=: Never had them.
=Crittenden Marriott=: No to everything. Twelve years' newspaper work
all over the world before I tried fiction.
=Homer I. McEldowney=: I have had a couple of courses in the short
story, under a mighty fine scout--Doc Weirick, one of the best in the
English department here at Illinois--a good-natured, long suffering,
able critic, and a fertile source of interesting information. I've got a
lot out of the past year of hobnobbing with him. The course helped
considerably, first, because it made us get down with nose to the
key-board and knock out words, great stacks of them; and second, because
there was a good man in charge, with ready and worth-while criticism of
yarns submitted, and a real knowledge of what to read in the course. We
"learned the way to promotion and pay," as Kipling has it, not
fundamentally from the pages of a book, but from writing.
=Ray McGillivray=: I took aboard huge hunks of literary fodder in
college, going the pace that killed--originality--through every course,
from Old English to a postgrad with Barrett Wendell. Then, after
applying this undigested knowledge to such pursuits as manual labor at
Sears, Roebuck's, mixing ruby champagne cocktails at Mouquin's, and
cutting up a cadaver at Medical School (ugh!), I reached, by devious
byways of labor and loafing, a post as sub-sub-editor on one of the most
unconventional national-circulation magazines in the world. I had
contributed a few personal narrative articles, and needed a job.... The
editor, a spunky Irishman (gosh, come to think of it, I believe he
claimed to be English!) jumped all over my "lit'ry allusions." He
appeared abruptly before me one day, thrust two photos under my nose,
and bade me assimilate an eyeful. I obeyed. One picture showed a
Japanese trench outside Port Arthur. Headless bodies, detached limbs and
blobs of entrails were festooned about the broken entanglements. It was
brutal, terrible, but it depicted war and death. The second photo also
dealt with death, but differently. Six men were carrying a draped
coffin, in which rested a man who in his lifetime had won a way into the
heart of a nation. There was nothing in the picture save the varied
expressions of restrained, sincere sorrow on the faces of the dead man's
six friends.
"This trench picture," quoth my boss, "is Journalism. This other is Art.
Now, _to hell with Art_!" By that he meant that henceforth I was to tie
a jingling can to my Aristophanes, my Tacitus--yea, even my Bullfinch
and my finchless Bull. And I did. You never would have suspected how
many miles of galley-proof a Socrates-Six could cover with five
cylinders stripped out of the chassis!
=Helen Topping Miller=: I had been selling short stories for about
twelve years before I read any books on the subject. I have never found
a book from which I felt that I received any material benefit. Many
books have inspired me--but none of them ever helped me in the actual
work of writing.
=Thomas Samson Miller=: Never had a lesson of any kind from any one in
story writing. Don't believe in them. One's got to learn how to write by
writing; to learn what not to do and what to do by experience. My only
study was to take a short story that appealed to me in a magazine and
_live_ with it; cut out all other reading. Analyzed its plot, its
characterization. Wrote out every word written in it about a certain
character to see just how the author got the character across. Wrote the
story from memory. Read it so far, put it down, then tried to write the
rest out of my head.
=Anne Shannon Monroe=: I have had neither classroom nor correspondence
work in writing fiction. Have read no books on the subject that I can
remember, save a few stray passages from Flaubert--seems to me he knew
how.
=L. M. Montgomery=: I never took any kind of a course in writing
fiction. Such things may be helpful if the real root of the matter is in
you, but I had to get along without them. I was born and brought up in a
remote country settlement, twenty-four miles from a town and ten from a
railway. There I wrote my first stories and my first four books. So no
beginner need feel discouraged because of remote location or lack of
literary "atmosphere."
=Frederick Moore=: No. There may be people who can teach story
writing--that is, stimulate to endeavor. The old hand can give tips to
the beginner that keep him from getting off the track, but the writer
must actually do his own creating. The creative impulse must exist to
create, though technique is another thing. I believe everybody has the
creative impulse in some degree. If it is weak, technique will avail
nothing. The experts on technique are generally deficient in creative
ability. If they had both, their expertness in technique would be
smothered--that is, not apparent--while their creative ability would
make them rich and famous. To put it another way, the mass of readers
are not conscious of technique and simply say, "That writer writes fine
stories." But the expert, or the novelist, says: "He is a wizard at
creation, and good at technique." Of course, technique may come as
naturally to a writer as his creative ability--he or she may know how to
handle the story so as to get the strongest effect, and we get, say,
another _Robinson Crusoe_. But it is very apparent, in reading the
complete story by DeFoe that he did not know where he was going when he
set out. He flopped all over the shop until he got to his island, and I
am convinced that at that point he struck his gait and knew what he was
about. Every story presents its own problem in technique--that is,
merely the best way to tell that kind of a story. And there is a best
way for every story--a way that fits the environment, the characters,
and the happenings in that particular combination. Once in a dog's age
it is done, like _Ethan Frome_, or _The Red Badge of Courage_, or _The
Call of the Wild_. I regard every story as an experiment in chemistry.
It is possible to blow yourself up, so to speak, or discover an elixir
of life. Most writers are known for one piece of work, though they have
done many others. DeFoe wrote volumes and is known for _Robinson
Crusoe_, while _Lorna Doone_ was the work of a novelist who wrote other
volumes; also, consider _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. And I believe that each of
these three books was written at just the right moment to insure
success: _Crusoe_, when the English were fired with foreign exploration,
_Lorna Doone_ when a peaceful life in the English countryside had become
the ideal, and _Uncle Tom_ when the nation needed its arguments on
slavery focussed into a tract which could be handed out with a kind of
"Here! Read this, and see what you think of slavery _then_!" Also,
Empey's _Over the Top_ came when the men getting ready for war needed
something in the way of a text-book on war--"This is the sort of thing
we can expect to get into."
To me, one of the most discouraging things (but not personally) is that
the higher the art in fiction, the less the number of appreciative
readers. Of course, I mean by that the kind of novels in which little
actually happens outside the minds of the characters. I do not say such
novels are best, but most critics do. And why do critics always
criticize from a "trade standpoint," that is, as if novels were written
for other novelists? The story that is most violently attacked by
critics generally sells best. I am not saying that stories are written
to sell, but that they are written to entertain, to arouse emotions, to
give an experience in life that is likely to be missing in the life of
the reader. The reader likes to see himself in the condition described
and to wonder how he would react. And most great books have had
difficulty in reaching print. So many editors are shouting for original
stories, but they are actually afraid of stories that are too
original--until that type of story has proved successful. Then they all
want something like it, and we develop another "school of fiction." But
don't blame the editor for that--the public must be trained to that
type, and an editor has to be a practical man if he wants to continue to
edit. Merely because a story is bizarre does not make it necessarily
original, and if original, not necessarily desirable. What editors mean
when they say "originality" is a new angle on an old idea or an old
plot--but the age not apparent.
I believe that the best fiction written in this country today is being
published in the so-called "cheap magazines." That is, magazines devoted
to fiction alone. They actually cost more than many of the "better
magazines," and they are free of "jazz," degeneracy and sex. Coated
paper and good illustrations do not give quality to fiction. The Bible
printed on news stock would still be the Bible, and the same is true of
all other fiction, from Shakespeare to date. There can be just as much
art used in telling an adventure story as in any other kind--and as a
matter of fact, more is needed in that kind of story than in the story
which depends on sex for its interest. The fiction magazines have to
deliver the goods, and many of them have a higher manuscript-account for
their material than the fancier looking products. The so-called "cheap
fiction" magazines have really developed our best American writers,
generally speaking. These magazines have provided a market for the
beginners and have encouraged them during their apprenticeship. If the
same writers had to wait until they were able to sell to the
"highbrows," many writers famous to-day would never have struggled on.
Many a person who has paid two dollars for a book held up as a fine
piece of work is unaware that the chauffeur read the same story as a
serial in a "cheap magazine." And _Treasure Island_ was sold as a serial
to a "boy's shocker" and published under the name of _Captain John
North_. Most people know _Robinson Crusoe_ as a classic, in spite of the
fact that it has shipwreck, cannibalism, and killings galore. So "blood
and thunder" comes nearer to representing life than many a devious study
of some maniac's brain written in Russia, for all the loud cries of the
critics and others. For several years past the world has been all "blood
and thunder" and many woke up to the fact that the human animal is given
to violence and murder. This must all be considered by the person who
sets out to write--and that person must remember that art is not always
done with deliberation. Sometimes it just happens.
=Talbot Mundy=: No.
=Kathleen Norris=: I had some college work in "daily themes," a sort of
primary fiction work, for some six months, and I think it did me
incalculable good. (This was before I ever wrote a line.)
=Anne O'Hagan=: No.
=Grant Overton=: I have never had any training in writing except what I
have learned or sensed myself. I have read books about it but none of
them amounts to a great deal.
=Sir Gilbert Parker=: Never. Fiction can't be taught!
=Hugh Pendexter=: No.
=Clay Perry=: At the age of fifteen years I subscribed to a combination
course in journalism and short-story writing. It was absurd. In college
I took a course in "The Study of the Novel" which helped steer my course
toward a liking for good fiction ... perhaps. I have never read anything
on fiction writing which helped me, that I know of, either in the
elementary stages or beyond them. One friend who writes helped me more
by a few suggestions and criticisms than anything I have ever read on
the subject of writing.
=Michael J. Phillips=: No.
=Walter B. Pitkin=: I never studied writing under any teacher. I dodged
all writing courses in college because they bored me to death and seemed
to be engaged in unutterable piffle. I never read any text-books on
rhetoric or style or story writing until I had been a professional
journalist and writer for nearly ten years!
=E. S. Pladwell=: I have never studied anything in books or classrooms
about fiction. I have glanced over one or two books on writing, but have
not found them simplified enough. They start off with their arguments
and then ramble away into the realms of theories, technique and other
things which tend to becloud the mind away from the few broad general
rules.
=Lucia Mead Priest=: I have had a not very thorough classroom training,
with whatever books were prescribed--Hill, Wendell, etc., etc.
I found them necessary, mildly stimulating. They brought me to the
realization that literature was work of a profound character.
Everything has helped. I have not gone beyond the elementary stage. It
is a big, big craft, a long, long trail.
=Eugene Manlove Rhodes=: None.
=Frank C. Robertson=: I have had no classroom nor correspondence course
and have read not to exceed a half dozen text-books on the subject,
though I have long been a subscriber to the _Editor_ magazine and more
recently to the _Writer's Monthly_. Such reading as I have done has
helped, yet I am rather glad that I did not read enough at the start to
become rule-bound. Now I think I have literary poise enough that I can
discard what is inapplicable to my own needs, and so I am constantly
adding to my collection of books on the art of writing. Also, within the
last two months, I have formed the habit of sending my stories to a
capable critic before offering them to magazines. I wish now that I had
adopted this method long ago. The resulting self-analysis of my own work
has been of more value to me than any other one factor.
=Ruth Sawyer=: Neither.
=Chester L. Saxby=: I have read books on writing, but I found all of
them vague and general or else too elementary. I have had a fair
education in English, and I have the rudiments of an imagination for the
English to work upon. The link between is for the most part a judgment
of values (such as it is) gleaned in the college of hard knocks and nine
danged slaving years of schooling in that institution, slaving and
heart-rupture. But in beginning, books on writing and even courses
certainly have their value. I've had the correspondence drill--with
editors who've stood me up and knocked me down. But that's rough on the
editors, if everybody does it.
=Barry Scobee=: Before I was twenty, or about that time, I took a course
in short-story writing and newspaper also. Don't remember what school of
correspondence. I may have acquired a few basic principles; it probably
did me some good. I never had classroom instruction in writing. I have
studied a dozen books on the subject of fiction writing. At first, for a
year or two, I struggled along without even knowing there was such a
thing as books on the subject, or without ever talking to a single
person in the world who knew the first thing about writing. Then _The
Editor_ began to help me, and various books, especially on plot and, I
think, Price on the Drama. These were a tremendous help to me in the
preliminary stages. A fuller answer will be found under VII.
=R. T. M. Scott=: I have never taken a course of any kind in fiction
writing. I have breezed through a few books on short stories but I have
never studied them. Most of the stories which I have sold have violated
the rules laid down in these books. I am still in the elementary stage,
however, and perhaps, some day, I shall be able to stick to the rules
and still sell the stories.
=Robert Simpson=: I have had no classroom or correspondence course.
Neither, as it happens, have I ever read any books on writing fiction.
This was more a matter of chance than anything else. I've learned most
of what I know of the technique of story writing from writing "bad ones"
and finding out why they were bad; from the good advice of an editor or
two, and from simple, cold-blooded analysis of my own and other men's
work. This is a long and tedious process, but it has the advantage of
being thorough if one is built for it. If I may say so, the method of
study is largely up to the make-up of the individual, but, in agreement
with a certain advertisement, "there are no short-cuts to quality."
=Arthur D. Howden Smith=: No.
=Theodore Seixas Solomons=: I never had a course. I have studied, or
rather carefully read, one or two books on writing, and numerous
articles. I think that the idea of unity has been the main derivative to
me. The rest I usually saw to be true enough, almost axiomatically, from
general considerations of art, but I do not think they helped--probably
more because I did not actually study such writings than because they
are incapable of lending real help. I do not see how a proper study of
them in connection with exercise in writing can fail to be beneficial.
Yet such works, for the most part, are analyses of the reasons for
things which must be understood instinctively and by experience, and
then acquired, before the reasons make such appeal.
=Raymond S. Spears=: No literary course except reading, deliberately
undertaken for certain purpose, as reading Ruskin to learn how to
describe.
I've read and tried to profit by practical books, handbooks, books on
authorship, writers' biographies, etc. But I find my own view-point and
methods are nowhere described or much helped by experience of others.
=Norman Springer=: No. I once tried a university extension course in
play writing. It was silly. Of course, I read all the books I could find
on the subject of story writing. They didn't help much. They told me
something about the mechanics of a story (though even this information
was usually buried beneath mountains of pompous academic phraseology),
but they never gave me a clue to the solution of the more important
question that worries the beginner--"How can I infuse spirit into the
story; how can I make it live?" This questionnaire is really the first
attempt I have encountered to _get behind the mechanics_.
Being of the "self-raised" variety of writer, I've had some experience
with the "How To Write a Story" books, and I confess they harmed rather
than helped me. All those I opened merely told me in technical, often
almost unintelligible language just what my story sense was telling me
in simple language. I didn't find a single book that took me behind the
mechanics of the story.
That is where the beginner is always trying to get to. About the hardest
thing he has to learn is how to weigh, select and subdue thoughts.
Memorizing all the rules and learning all of O. Henry's tricks by heart
won't help him. But access to information such as your third query will
bring out will help him. So will the news that he must discipline his
imagination and make it obedient. Think how we run wild and waste
ourselves in the beginning.
=Julian Street=: No courses. I've read, written and in my early stages
been criticized by abler men--men like Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson.
I think it well for the absolute greenhorn to read and learn everything
he can about the art, but he must have the power to discriminate between
good and bad advice; and he must know whether he himself wishes to aim
high or aim low--whether he wishes to run the risk of trying to produce
something that may possibly live, always facing the great danger of
failing in that aim, or whether he wishes to write popular truck. That
will be determined ultimately, I think, by the character and tastes of
the aspirant, but the sooner he acquires a definite aim, the better for
him.
=T. S. Stribling=: Have never had classroom or correspondence course in
fiction. I did pay a dollar once to have a story criticized. Afterward I
wrote to the man and offered him his criticism back if he would return
my dollar, but he wouldn't do it.
=Booth Tarkington=: No course or books on writing fiction, ever.
=W. C. Tuttle=: I have never had any instructions on story writing,
beyond the kindly help of a certain editor. Once upon a time I bought
some books on short-story writing. After reading them I ached from the
reaction. I understood that I was all wrong. But there seemed to be no
help for it; so I hid the books and went back to work.
=Lucille Van Slyke=: Very superficial daily theme course in college my
freshman year. Very bad for me, I think, because I did it easily, got
good marks and took no pains whatever. Took me years to live that down!
I have read and continue to read every book on fiction writing that I
can find. In the elementary stages they helped a very little--oh, very
little. Not their fault, but mine, because I did not see how to apply
them to my case. Beyond the elementary stage I found that Polti's
_Thirty Six Dramatic Situations_ helped me to straighten out the plot
difficulty I already mentioned. ----'s _Short Story Writing_ did me good
this way--I disagreed with it so violently that it cleared my ideas on
many points--but I found myself singing, "Now mother has a sausage
machine and to-day she said to me, Tom, Tom, hurry back home, there'll
be sausages for your tea--"
=Atreus von Schrader=: I put in the winter of 1913 working with Walter
B. Pitkin at Columbia; I had written, without success, for some time.
His genius, for that is what it amounts to, gave me a foundation and
understanding that have been invaluable. General formulas and methods
can be used to great advantage; to the greatest advantage when practise
has made their use instinctive.
=T. Von Ziekursch=: Never had anything in that line. Was introduced to a
teacher of how to write fiction once and he bored me.
=Henry Kitchell Webster=: I've never had a classroom course or a
correspondence course on writing fiction. I have read books on it, some
of which interested me because I agreed with the writers and some of
which interested me because I disagreed with them altogether. I am not
conscious that the first sort ever caused me to cry out, "Eureka!"
though I may have decided, over an item in the second, "This is what I
never do."
=G. A. Wells=: I have had no classroom course in story writing and
deplore that fact a great deal. Correspondence courses are valuable to
this extent--they urge one to work and study by the reflection that he
will have thrown away his money if he doesn't. The same results may be
obtained by investing in a few good books on the subject of writing. I
would strongly advise the beginner to let the correspondence schools
alone. I have had much experience with them. None of them can possibly
do what they so boldly assert in their literature. Not so long ago I
paid ninety dollars cash for a course in picture play writing. For that
sum I received two thin books of instruction, three detailed synopses of
plays produced (all of them rotten!) and twelve pamphlets of lectures. I
learned nothing that I had not previously learned from text-books got
from the public library. Never again: (Right hand up and left on heart.)
It is of interest that most of these correspondence schools can't cite
students who have been successful. One school cited me ---- ----. Her
stories appear in the ---- but nowhere else that I have ever noticed. I
do not call that success. That is the only school of correspondence of
about a dozen I have investigated that can cite a student who has had
anything published in a reliable magazine, and I think that unless such
a school can show such graduates it is scarcely worth bothering about.
I attach great importance to books on the art of fiction writing. They
have been of great value to me. The chief fault I find with these books
is that they refer the student for examples to stories that are not
easily available to a great many people. Too, they incline too much
toward citation of the classics, such as Poe, Dickens, Thackeray and
others. The student should have for his examples Kipling, O. Henry,
London, Melville Post and the modern writers. Current magazine fiction
is as a rule out of the question.
But after all the only way to learn to write fiction is to write
fiction. I am of that number who contend that fiction writing can't be
taught. It must be learned. But first of all one must have talent for
it. That talent can't be acquired, though, given that, it can be
cultivated. If one hasn't a talent for writing fiction all the teaching
of all the teachers won't make one a writer of fiction. Education alone
will not suffice, though I have had people say to me, "He should be able
to write stories, he is so highly educated." It is to laugh. I say that
the man with the gift or knack for writing fiction will turn out a
writer in the end if he applies himself, regardless of schools and books
teaching the method and art.
In this town is a woman, very highly educated, who studied two years in
the classes of Dr. ---- at Columbia. She has tried time and again to
sell stories she has written, but up to date without success. From time
to time I have had people come to me for information on the business of
writing. The first thing I ask for is some of their stuff. Not an editor
in the country would print such truck. This is rather unseemly in one
who himself turns out a great deal of worthless truck, but I can see the
faults of others better than my own. I can't see my own at all.
The best text books on the subject are to be found on the
news-stands--_Adventure_, _American_, _Saturday Evening Post_,
_Harper's_, etc. These should come first because they show the finished
product of people who are actually succeeding at what the student
aspires to do. It is the whole machine that can be taken down to learn
how it was assembled in the first place.
Text-books, I think, are valuable to the student in proportion to their
relationship to him. Are they really prepared for the student, or
written because the author had certain views he wished to publish about
a certain subject? I think they should suggest rather than dictate. The
author should say, "Let's try this and see what happens," and not "Do
this or you are damned." In short, I have found most text-books far too
dictatorial.
Detailed laws and rules should be avoided. The student should get the
general impression, but be left free to modify his performances to suit
existing needs or to satisfy his individual point of view. Of course
there are certain laws of story writing that preclude dispute by their
very obviousness. I don't pay any more attention to the rules of story
writing than I do to a fly on a Chinaman's nose in Canton.
It therefore galls me to have a text-book author tell me that I must do
thus and so. All I want him to do is to give me the platform to stand
on. I'll make and speak my own piece in my own way. If he is going to
write and make my speech I'll step down.
=William Wells=: No.
=Ben Ames Williams=: I've never taken any "course" in story writing. I
once read a book on it. It helped me not at all. The books that have
helped me most in the technical work of writing are books of criticism.
Any of the standard works.
=Honore Willsie=: Neither.
=H. C. Witwer=: I have never had any course of any kind in short story
writing, or, I should say, in writing. Nor have I read or studied books
on the art, gift, trade, profession, crime, or whatever it may be. I
have about me at all times as working tools, a dictionary, Roget's
_Thesaurus_, Shakespeare, _Encylopedia Brittanica_, Bartlett's _Familiar
Quotations_. Find all invaluable.
=William Almon Wolff=: No courses at all. The best book I know is not
about narrative fiction at all--it's William Archer's _Play Making_.
That has been and remains, invaluable to me. I think, incidentally, that
it's helpful to think of a story in "scenes."
=Edgar Young=: No classroom course. Wrote several stories before I ever
knew there was such a thing as a book on the subject. Must have learned
something by reading current magazines but was where I couldn't get them
for years when in South America. Since being here in New York have read
many of the books concerning writing.