SUGGESTIONS TO INEXPERIENCED AUTHORS.
There is some economy and much convenience in buying your paper by the
ream, (twenty quires,) having first tried a sample. The surface of the
paper should be smooth, and somewhat glossy; particularly if you write
with metallic pens. That which is soft and spongy, though a little lower
in price, wears out the pen so fast that what is saved in paper is lost
in pens; also, there is no possibility of writing on it with ease and
expedition. You will find it best to use paper ruled in lines. If you
write a large hand, take foolscap; if a small hand, use letter-paper
size. But note-paper is too small, when you are writing for the press.
Before you commence your manuscript, take a quire, and prepare each
sheet by splitting it all down the folded side, with a sharp
paper-cutter, thus dividing it into half-sheets. You can do this better
on a flat table than on the slope of a desk. Keep your left hand
pressing down hard on the quire, while you are cutting it with your
right.
The best paper-cutters are those of real ivory. A handle is of no
advantage to them, but rather the contrary. They should be thin, plain,
and perfectly straight, except being rounded off at the two ends. Ivory
paper-knives of this form are generally used by the book-binders, an
evidence that they are convenient and expeditious. Those of bone or horn
are scarcely worth buying, though but half the price; the edges soon
becoming blunt, and therefore useless. Wooden paper-knives are good for
nothing. Paper-knives of mother of pearl, and other ornamental
substances, are of little utility, being rarely sharp enough, (even when
new,) and in a short time becoming quite dull. Also, they break very
easily. Avoid cutting a sheet of paper, or the leaves of a book, with
scissors; it is comparatively a slow and awkward process; and cannot,
even with great care, be effected as smoothly and evenly as with a
cutter of ivory.
Before you split or divide the sheet, press the paper-knife all along
the fold, so as to flatten the crease, and make it cut evenly and
easily. Having split your whole sheets into leaves or half-sheets, take
each half-sheet separately, and fold over an inch or more all along the
left-hand edge; so as to leave a margin or space for sewing the
manuscript when finished. Do this with the paper-knife. Lay a pile of
these half-sheets beside you when you sit down to write, and take them
as you want them.
Write only on one side of the paper. If written on both sides, it will
cause trouble and inconvenience to the printers, by obliging them to
turn over at the end of every page. This rule, however, may be dispensed
with, when a manuscript is so short that it may be comprised in one
sheet, and is to be transmitted by mail. This may be the more easily
managed, by drawing with a pencil or pen a straight perpendicular line
down the middle of each page, so as to divide it into columns. When it
is finished, enclose it in an envelope, direct, and seal it, and put on
a post-office stamp. If the manuscript occupies two or three sheets, put
two or three stamps side by side. There are large envelopes that will
hold foolscap paper, properly folded.
Do not use _blue_ ink; for if any part of your manuscript should chance
to get wet, there is a risk of the blue ink being effaced or obliterated
by the damp, so as to render the writing illegible; and this has
frequently happened.
Let your writing be large enough, and plain enough to be read with ease,
and the compositor will be less likely to make mistakes. Printers,
though accustomed to read all sorts of writing, are sometimes completely
at a loss in deciphering a very bad hand. There is no excuse for a
person in respectable life persisting in writing illegibly, as it is
never too late to improve. You have only to take lessons of a good
instructor, and apply yourself sedulously to acquiring a new hand, and
you will succeed in doing so.
Do not, in writing for the press, affect the crowquill calligraphy that
is fashionable for album verses and complimentary billets. When your
manuscript is finished, sew the leaves _evenly_ together, with nothing
more than a strong thread; or, if it is very thick, it may be sewed with
a fine twine put into a large needle. A handsome cover, daintily
fastened with a pretty ribbon, is of no account in a printing-office,
where the first thing that is done with a manuscript is to remove the
cover, and cut the leaves loose from the fastening. The printers will
gladly dispense with covers, ribbons, and fairy-like penmanship, in
favour of a plain legible hand, pages regularly numbered, and leaves
written on one side only.
In commencing a manuscript, write the title or caption in large letters,
at some distance from the top of the first page; and if you are not
anonymous, put your name a little below the title. Then begin the
_first_ line of the first paragraph, several inches distant from the
left-hand side, or margin. In this manner commence every paragraph. The
length of the paragraphs may be regulated by the time when you think a
pause longer than that of a period or full stop may be effective; or to
give the reader an opportunity of resting for a minute; or to denote the
commencement of another subject.
In writing a dialogue, begin every separate speech with a capital, and
commence each speech on a new line, and at some distance from the
left-hand margin. Also mark the beginning and end of every speech with
double commas. If the names of the speakers are given at the
_commencement_ of every speech, write those names in _large_ letters,
putting a dot and a dash after them. All these arrangements are the same
in writing as in printing.
If you are, unfortunately, not familiar with the rules of punctuation,
refresh your memory by referring to them in a grammar-book. They must be
strictly observed; otherwise your meaning will be unintelligible. Always
remember that every period or full stop, and every note of
interrogation, or of admiration, must be followed by a capital letter,
beginning the next word. Dashes, particularly in a dialogue, add much to
the effect, if not used too lavishly.
Errors of orthography are rarely committed by any one who presumes to
write for the press. It is scarcely possible for a person who reads much
to spell incorrectly, as the appearance of the printed words becomes
insensibly and indelibly fixed in the mind. Still it may be well to
write with a dictionary on your table, in case you should have any doubt
as to the proper spelling and meaning of a word with which you may not
be very familiar.
Keep also a grammar on your table. Grammatical errors are annoying to
the reader, and disgraceful to the writer, unless it is well known that
she has not had the advantage of an education, even at a common school.
Then she is to be pitied. But it is never too late to study grammar, and
she had best do so before she ventures to write for the public. If she
writes ungrammatically, how must she talk! In a work of fiction it is
shocking to have lords and ladies, or the noble and dignified hero, and
the elegant and refined heroine, conversing in “bad grammar,” because
the author knew no better. Yet such books we have seen. There are,
luckily, not many of them. But there should be none.
Every morning, previous to commencing your task, revise carefully all
that you have written on the preceding day, and correct and alter
whatever you may deem susceptible of improvement. Some authors revise
every page as soon as they have written it. But, unless you are much
pressed for time, it is best to do this next morning, when your
perceptions are fresh and clear. In crossing or blotting out, do it
effectually, so that the original words may not appear through, and
remain still legible. If you find that you have omitted a word, or if
you wish to change one word for another, interline it; inserting the new
word just above the line to which it belongs, and placing this mark Ʌ
below. Lay aside each page as you finish it. Be particular in numbering
every page; and it is best to do this before you begin, placing the
number near the top of the right-hand corner. Let not your lines be too
close, or there will not be space enough for legible interlining.
If the publisher lives in your own town, it will be sufficient to roll
up the manuscript in clean white paper, twisted at each end, and wafered
in the middle. But however short the distance, write on the outside of
the paper the full direction of the publishing office; that, in case of
its being dropped in the street, any person finding it may know exactly
where to take it.
In putting up a large manuscript, in a packet for transmission to a
distant place, use strong nankeen paper for the cover, and secure it
with wafers, or paste, if it is to go a voyage in a steamer, as a wax
seal may be melted by the heat of the fire. If it will reach its
destination in a few hours, you may seal it with wax, having tied red
tape about. Do not use twine, as that may cut the paper. Newspapers are
generally put up in a brownish paper cover, pasted at the side and
bottom, with one end left open.
Postage is now so cheap, that manuscripts had best always be transmitted
by mail; putting a sufficient number of stamps on the outside, all close
to each other.
Few women can write well enough for publication, without going twice
over the subject; first in what is called the rough copy, and then
making a fair copy with all the original errors corrected, and all
proper alterations inserted. If you have time, make _two_ fair copies;
one for the printer, and one to keep for yourself, in case the other
should be accidentally destroyed or lost—retaining it till after the
work is actually in print. Much postage is wasted, and much annoyance is
given to the editors of periodicals, by applications for the restoration
of unpublished verses, and other “Rejected Addresses,” consisting,
perhaps, of a sheet of poetry, or a few pages of prose, of which it
would have been very easy to have made another copy for the author’s
keeping.
In writing articles for Annuals, let it be remembered that the printing
of these books is always completed some months before they are published
or announced for sale. Therefore, all contributions should be sent to
the publisher before February, or March at farthest. For a magazine,
they should be transmitted at least two months in advance. For a weekly
paper, two weeks ahead.
Those who write for periodicals should remember that it is the custom to
address all letters on compensations, copies of work, &c. to the
publisher; and not to the editor, who seldom has any concern in the
pecuniary affairs, his business being solely to receive, and read the
manuscripts, to accept or reject them, and to arrange them for the
press. It is not usual for the compensation to be paid till after the
book is published. Some publishers send to every contributor one copy of
the work. Others do not present a copy when the article is very
short—for instance, a few stanzas of verse. Prose obtains a higher price
than poetry, of which there is always a superabundance in the market.
Much poetry is published without any pay at all; the writers being
contented with seeing their effusions in print. No _good_ author has any
occasion to write gratuitously. A “merely passable” or “just tolerable”
writer of poetry or fiction, should give up the inventive line, and try
something else—something for which genius is not indispensable; and from
which, by patience and industry, a sort of living may be wrought out.
In composing poetry, a common, but unpardonable fault is that of
introducing a lame or halting line—a line with one syllable too many, or
too few. And if the author does not understand that it is an intolerable
blemish, and sends it uncorrected to the press, she is unworthy of being
called a poetess. We are inclined to believe that no person devoid of an
ear for music, can write poetry deserving of the name. The ideas may be
good, but the lines will have no melody, and will move harshly and
ruggedly, very much like rough prose.
Some writers seem to think that blank verse is nothing but prose with a
capital at the beginning of each line; never having learnt or remembered
that though the lines do not rhyme, they must all comprise ten
syllables, (syllables, not words,) otherwise the effect when read, will,
to even a tolerable ear, be absolutely painful. We saw a play, (the
first attempt of a since distinguished dramatist,) the dialogue of which
was unintelligible to the audience, and nearly impracticable to the
actors, who found it absolutely beyond their skill to enunciate; or
rather beneath it. We afterward heard the manager of the Chestnut-street
Theatre explain, that the difficulty, both with the speakers and the
hearers, was the execrable blank verse in which the play was written;
some of the lines containing but seven or eight syllables, (instead of
ten,) and some twelve or fourteen. A very few English authors write
irregular blank verse; but we are sorry to say that a great many
Americans do not seem to understand the process, simple as it is, of
confining themselves to ten syllables only,—neither more nor less. Can
they have read Shakspeare?
There is no blank verse in French poetry. That language seems incapable
of it.
If you are writing for a periodical, and are desirous of ascertaining
beforehand how many pages your manuscript will make when printed, take,
at random, any printed page of the work, and copy it in your usual hand,
and on a sheet of the same paper you intend using throughout. You will
thus, by comparison, be able to judge with tolerable accuracy, how much
of your writing will make a page when printed.
Keep a memorandum-book for the express purpose of setting down whatever
relates to your literary affairs. Insert the day when you commenced a
manuscript, the day when you finished it, and the day on which it went
to the publisher. Also, the whole number of its pages. When you see it
in print, put down the number of its printed pages. In this book, set
down, _immediately on receiving them_, whatever sums are paid to you for
your writings.
If you are a writer of fiction, have a large book for memorandums, of
any amusing or remarkable things you may chance to hear, and which you
may turn to account afterward. If you write truth only, keep a book for
the reception of useful or interesting facts. A written book of names,
alphabetically arranged, (surnames and christian names,) will be of
great advantage in selecting appellations for your characters. Do not
give elegant names to your common people; or to your patrician
characters names that are coarse and vulgar. A fault in Dickens is that
nearly all his names are rugged, uncouth, and ill-sounding, and seldom
characteristic. Why should a very excellent and generous brother and
sister be called Tom Pinch and Ruth Pinch. What did they pinch?
There is a proof-reader in every printing-office, but after he has done,
the proofs are generally sent to the author for farther revisal.
In correcting proof-sheets, first see that they are quite dry. Draw your
pen through any word you desire to change, and then write the new word
on the margin, placing it even with the line of the rejected word. When
you alter the punctuation, converting a comma into a semicolon, or a
period into a note of admiration, make a slight mark on the margin of
that line, that the printer may not overlook it. If you have occasion to
change a whole sentence, cross it out, and put the new sentence on the
margin at the bottom of the page.
If the printer’s boy can wait, you had best correct the proofs while he
stays.