A Short Story 
 
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 By LESLIE W. QUIRK 
 
CAROLINE E. LE CONTE 
 
 
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HOW TO WRITE A SHORT STORY 
 
How TO WRITE 
 A SHORT STORY 
 
 AN EXPOSITION 
 OF THE TECHNIQUE 
 OF SHORT FICTION 
 
 BY 
 
 LESLIE W. QUIRK 
 
 THE EDITOR PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 150 Nassau St., New York City 
 
 1906 
 

 . A/ i4~J*~+ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 19041 BY 
 EDITOR PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 THE OUTING PRB86 
 DEPOSIT, N. Y. 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 THE material in the following pages 
 is a series of suggestive talks 
 rather than a scholarly dis- 
 course. I leave to others the discussion 
 of polish, atmosphere, and artistic hand- 
 ling; I take for my theme the writing of 
 a short story that will sell. 
 
 There are many writers throughout 
 the country, with good educations, with 
 clear brains, and with the ambition to 
 see their work in print, who are failing 
 merely because they are not familiar 
 with the technique of the short story. 
 It is to these that I would appeal. 
 
 In the following pages, therefore, I 
 have aimed above all else to be prac- 
 tical. I have written in the first per- 
 son, without even the shield of the edi- 
 torial "we." I have addressed my 
 
4 Preface 
 
 reader directly, in a desire to impress 
 upon his mind the fundamental requi- 
 sites of a salable short story. In a 
 word, I have endeavored to point out, 
 more or less systematically, every step 
 by which an idea may be converted into 
 a short story, fit to appear between the 
 covers of a reputable magazine. 
 
 L. W. Q. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 PREFACE ..... 3 
 INTRODUCTION .... 7 
 
 I THE PLOT n 
 
 II METHOD OF NARRATION . .21 
 
 III THE INTRODUCTION . . .31 
 
 IV THE STORY PROPER . . .41 
 V CONCLUSION AND CLIMAX . . 51 
 
 VI THE PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT 59 
 VII THE PLACING OF THE STORY 69 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 NOWADAYS a good short story is 
 a cash asset. The demand is 
 steady, the market unlimited, 
 and the prices good. No other form of 
 writing attracts half the attention nor 
 commands half the rates of payment. 
 " Fiction," says Jack London, "pays 
 best of all, and when it is of a fair quality, 
 is most easily sold." A literary begin- 
 ner, I firmly believe, has a much better 
 chance in this field than in any other; 
 and if he possesses a fair education and 
 is in earnest, he has the chance to make 
 a good living and acquire a modest 
 fame. 
 
 Every day that passes adds new mar- 
 kets for the short story. Says Frank A. 
 Munsey : 
 
 "The great field to-day is for writers 
 of fiction. There is not half enough to 
 go around. Publishers all over the 
 world are reaching out for both short and 
 
8 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 long stories. Good ones are extremely 
 difficult to find. Prices have gone up 
 and up and up, but the supply does not 
 begin to equal the demand. Nothing 
 appeals to so wide a class or gives so 
 much pleasure. Love, romance, mys- 
 tery, adventure, will never lose their 
 charm. They are as fresh to-day with 
 the human heart as they were in old 
 Pompeii and countless ages before." 
 
 Nor is the call only for stories by well- 
 known authors. The editors of the very 
 best magazines are constantly on the 
 alert for new writers. Mr. Alden, editor 
 of Harper's, says that were it not for 
 these contributors "the magazine would 
 languish in all its fine tissues for lack of 
 the infusion of new blood." 
 
 To-day the literary beginner who suc- 
 ceeds is the one who welcomes sugges- 
 tions. He knows he cannot turn author 
 on the instant, merely by wishing; the 
 wish-appeasing genii are not abroad in 
 this enlightened age. On the contrary 
 he realizes that he must study the pro- 
 fession; must fit himself for the work. 
 
 "In my own case," says William Dean 
 
Introduction 9 
 
 Ho wells, in his recent book, " Literature 
 and Life," "I noticed that the contribu- 
 tors who could be best left to themselves 
 were those who were most amenable to 
 suggestion and even correction, who 
 took the blue pencil with a smile, and 
 bowed gladly to the rod of the proof- 
 reader. Those who were on the alert 
 for offence, who resented a marginal 
 note as a slight, and bumptiously de- 
 manded that their work be printed just 
 as they had written it, were commonly 
 not much more desired by the reader 
 than by the editor." 
 
 In conclusion, it may not be amiss to 
 suggest that the short story writer often 
 becomes a novelist. It is true that all 
 who can write short fiction cannot pro- 
 duce a readable book, but a little reflec- 
 tion will show that a large percentage of 
 the novelists served an apprenticeship 
 writing short stories. 
 
I 
 
 THE PLOT 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PLOT 
 
 IF you want to write a short story, 
 and doubt if you have anything 
 worth the telling, go to bed early 
 some night, get up with the sun the next 
 morning, and take a long walk. Now, 
 with the smell of nature in your nostrils, 
 let your imagination run "as wild as a 
 spook on a spree." Suppose that cloud 
 up there were an air-ship, with a kid- 
 napper aboard, and suppose the boy 
 who had been stolen were the king of 
 Spain. Can't you work out the details 
 of what might happen? Or suppose 
 that girl over there should come to you, 
 silently and mysteriously, and place a 
 roll of greenbacks in your hand, with 
 the words, "To pay for your burial." 
 How would it end? Or suppose you 
 stumbled over that bush there and 
 dropped into a deep hole, where you lay, 
 
14 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 far below the surface, listening to the 
 drip! drip! of water near you. And sup- 
 pose you became thirsty and crawled 
 nearer for a drink, and instead of water 
 found a stream of red blood gurgling 
 among the rocks. Can't you make a 
 story out of that? 
 
 All this smacks of the sensational, I 
 grant, but I am going at this theme in 
 a practical manner. I believe your first 
 story will be sold because of its plot. 
 Nine first stories out of ten are. The 
 language is handled carelessly, the situa- 
 tions clumsily, and the development illog- 
 ically. Yet the stories go right into the 
 heart of things, and are different from 
 those of the rank and file. So I say, if 
 you want to get into print, your story 
 must have a strong plot. 
 
 Write love stories. "All the world 
 loves a lover," and editors are human. 
 But make your love story one of action. 
 Don't, as many writers do, take a man 
 and a woman and a dozen meetings and 
 an engagement, and call it a story. 
 Make it unique, make it worth while, 
 make it different from the other love 
 
The Plot 15 
 
 stories of yesterday and the day before. 
 Make it dramatic; melodramatic, if you 
 will. But wake up your reader; startle 
 the editor and make him read it in spite 
 of himself. 
 
 It may interest you to know that fully 
 three-fourths of all the stories submitted 
 nowadays are rejected because of weak 
 or trite plot-interest. In this connection, 
 the following statement, issued by the 
 Frank A. Munsey Co. to its contribu- 
 tors, is of interest: 
 
 "We want stories; not dialect sketches, 
 not washed out studies of effete human 
 nature, not weak tales of sickly senti- 
 mentality, not pretty writing. We want 
 fiction in which there is a story action, 
 force, complications. Good writing is 
 as common as clam shells; good stories 
 are as rare as statesmanship. We get 
 thousands of manuscripts, alleged stories, 
 in which the story is not worth the telling, 
 meaningless, flat, inane; and yet many 
 of these stories are cleverly told. They 
 lack merely one thing, and that is the 
 story itself." 
 
 In this statement lies the nucleus of 
 
16 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 all I would say. Your first story is not 
 going to be accepted because it has the 
 grace and polish of a master-hand, but 
 because it has something in it worth 
 the telling. This does not mean that 
 it must be sensational or impossible, by 
 any means, but that it is something out 
 of the rut, something that has not been 
 repeated again and again since the be- 
 ginning of time, something that shall 
 interest the editor and make the public 
 glad that it has been written. 
 
 The prime requisite in the manufac- 
 ture of all such plots is imagination. 
 You may get your suggestion as you 
 will, in the night-time staring hard into 
 the darkness, from a stray paragraph 
 in a paper, from a scene on the street, 
 or in any other way; but you must dress 
 it up, and smooth off the corners that are 
 impossible, and the edges that are not 
 to. be told, and build up the hollow 
 places, all with your imagination. 
 
 Your plot must be simple enough to 
 meet the requirements of a short story. 
 In novels and in dramas there are a 
 dozen skeins to be untangled, and a 
 
The Plot 17 
 
 dozen joyous reunions in the last chap- 
 ter, or just before the curtain drops. 
 The short story should concern itself 
 with but one of these tangles. 
 
 Action is the fundamental requisite 
 of a good plot. It transposes affec- 
 tions and situations from what they 
 were at the beginning. A good, selling 
 plot should bridge seeming impossibil- 
 ities over practically certain disasters to 
 a pleasing end. It should have unity of 
 time, place and action; it should be 
 brief, compact and plausible. 
 
 All these qualities are the result of 
 the molder's skill. Let me outline a 
 few methods of obtaining the raw ma- 
 terial. 
 
 Since the origin of advice, writers have 
 been told to search the newspapers for 
 plots. It is probable, indeed, that a 
 majority are secured through these med- 
 iums. Sometimes the plot is the devel- 
 opment of a hint or suggestion, some- 
 times the completion of an unfinished 
 bit of action, and sometimes, more rarely, 
 an incident itself, precisely as it hap- 
 pened. 
 
18 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 Again, writers are told to observe the 
 unrecorded incidents of a busy world, 
 the everyday events of their own lives. 
 This method, too, is responsible for 
 many good plots. 
 
 In spite of a process for manufac- 
 turing plots, however, there are many 
 writers who sit at their desks, gazing 
 blankly at the white paper and praying 
 for inspiration, which in most cases in- 
 cludes something to write and the 
 thoughts to clothe that something. If 
 writers would only concede that in many 
 instances inspiration is only another 
 name for inclination, there would be 
 less praying of this nature. 
 
 Very naturally the voluminous writer, 
 i. e., the much inspired writer, soon runs 
 short of plots. Here the amateur floun- 
 ders; the experienced writer plods on 
 with scarcely a pause. If plots fail him 
 for the moment, he creates situations 
 that afford ample opportunity for dra- 
 matic action. The man who writes the 
 Nick Carter weeklies confesses that he 
 forces his characters into some position 
 from which escape, by all the laws of 
 
The Plot 19 
 
 chance, is impossible. Then he leans 
 back, presumably elated over his skill, 
 and for the first time conceives some 
 method by which the characters may 
 once more acquire liberty and the privi- 
 lege of more adventures. 
 
 In this method lies another plot pro- 
 ducer. Outline, in your mind, some 
 situation, improbable, inconsistent, in- 
 explicable. Then fit in the characters 
 and incidents necessary to make it alto- 
 gether probable, consistent, explainable. 
 Have the country lass, whom the hero 
 loves devoutly, discover him in her 
 father's chicken-coop with a fat pullet 
 under his arm. There's material for a 
 little love comedy. Or have the tourist, 
 begging a drink at the hermit's hut, sud- 
 denly cringe at his feet. There's ma- 
 terial for a melodramatic tale. Or have 
 a page from a diary, telling of a man's 
 undying passion for a woman, flutter to 
 her feet in some deserted place, prefer- 
 ably from a balloon, an air-ship, an ex- 
 ploding shell far overhead, or what you 
 will. There's material for an unique 
 love story. 
 
20 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 It takes imagination, of course, to 
 work out the logical explanation; but 
 if your intellect is not equal to the task, 
 you have no business in the profession 
 of writing fiction. And even when you 
 have supplied your plot in this fashion, 
 and written your story, it will not be a 
 literary production. It will be just the 
 "stuff" of a hack-writer, just a "pot- 
 boiler"; but pot-boilers sell. 
 
II 
 
 METHOD OF NARRATION 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 METHOD OF NARRATION 
 
 NOW that you have your plot well 
 in mind, you must decide how 
 your story is to be told. You 
 must not go about writing it in a hap- 
 hazard, hit-and-miss fashion, just be- 
 cause you have an idea. 
 
 First of all, as I say, you must decide 
 on the method of narration. And right 
 here let me set down a few "don'ts." 
 
 Don't write in the first person till the 
 conceit of being a mainstay of a story 
 is a thing of the past. If you persist in 
 being one of the characters, just study 
 yourself. You will find that in the story 
 you are either a conceited ass or a person 
 of impossible intelligence. Telling a 
 story in the first person is open to serious 
 objections. Either you must keep in 
 the background and only guess at what 
 is going on around you, or else you must 
 
24 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 put yourself in the middle of the stage, 
 where you can see the full action and 
 where you will be certain to indulge in 
 bits of moralizing and criticising. In a 
 short story, absolutely every paragraph, 
 and even every sentence, should be an un- 
 folding and a development of the plot. 
 You must not preach nor teach in your 
 story; not even hint at such things. 
 
 Secondly, don't tell your story by the 
 use of letters or diaries. It is just as im- 
 possible to narrate a good story in this 
 manner as it is for an old soldier who 
 fought at Gettysburg to describe the 
 charge up San Juan Hill. To be nat- 
 ural, you must bring in details foreign 
 to your plot, and the story that is not 
 sharply condensed is hopeless. 
 
 Thirdly, don't allow an animal or 
 inanimate object to relate the story. 
 The one argument against this course 
 is that no magazine in the country will 
 accept such a story. 
 
 Fourthly, don't attempt dialect stories. 
 Although they were in vogue a few 
 years ago, there is now no market at all 
 for them. 
 
Method of Narration 25 
 
 Fifthly, don't have a story within a 
 story. All of us have read tales of a 
 railroad wreck, where in the course of 
 a thousand words an injured man is 
 carried to a farm house. Just when 
 you get interested, the man rises up 
 in bed and says: "I will now tell you 
 of my past." And then you find that 
 the real story is about to begin, and 
 that the wreck, and the girl who ban- 
 daged his head, and the quaint old 
 farmer really had nothing to do with 
 the story proper. Common sense should 
 teach that this style is to be avoided. 
 
 Successful stories have been written 
 along the above lines, it is true, but the 
 beginner has no right to handicap him- 
 self by using these methods. 
 
 The best short stories have been 
 written in the third person. These are 
 far more apt to be simple and direct, 
 free from irritating deviations from the 
 central theme, and withal stronger and 
 more interesting. You stand just be- 
 hind the curtain, with your hand on 
 your puppets. You observe from a dis- 
 tance, and there is no obtruding of your 
 
26 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 personality. You tell your story in a 
 perfectly natural, straightforward man- 
 ner, that is bound to be a pleasant con- 
 trast to the affected, slinking way of the 
 first person, of the diaries or letters, or 
 of the narration within narration. 
 
 But even in this method there are pit- 
 falls for the unwary. You are apt to 
 believe yourself a regular magician be- 
 cause you can create people out of noth- 
 ingness, and to imagine you have a per- 
 fect right to put down the innermost 
 thoughts of all your characters. This 
 is a wrong view-point. In reality you 
 are the mind of some one of your char- 
 acters. You can write of his actions, 
 of his likes and dislikes, of his thoughts. 
 But there your power ends. You must 
 not err by putting down the thoughts of 
 all your characters. With the single 
 exception of the one whom you push to 
 the foreground, you must make the 
 minds of your people closed books. You 
 don't know what they feel. You are 
 breathing, thinking, living with just one 
 person. You observe the others as he 
 might. 
 
Method of Narration 27 
 
 These rules hold true, of course, only 
 in the ideal short story; the presenting 
 of a bit of real life, the relating of an in- 
 cident covering only a brief period of 
 time. 
 
 No matter what method of narration 
 you may choose, you must make up 
 your mind at the outset to be simple 
 and direct in telling your story. If you 
 try to put style in your work, it will fall 
 flat. After all, style is more or less of a 
 humbug. If your writing is correct, 
 and straight from the heart, and you 
 put your individuality into it, critics will 
 label your way of telling things "style." 
 
 Not long ago Mr. Frank A. Munsey 
 said some good things in regard to this 
 quality to the students of Yale Univer- 
 sity. 
 
 "The style that means most," he 
 averred, "is that which comes from a 
 man's own soul. Every one who cuts 
 any figure in life has his own individu- 
 ality, and it is this very individuality 
 that gives character to style and lifts it 
 out of the rut of machine-made stuff. 
 No man ever gets very far with the 
 
28 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 public who squares his work to the slant 
 of other writers. 
 
 "The best way to tell your story is 
 to plunge right into it, and let the at- 
 mosphere take care of itself, which it 
 is sure to do in good time. The closer 
 you can write to the way you talk, the 
 closer you will come to interesting the 
 reader and attaining a good literary 
 style." 
 
 Charles Darwin once said to a young 
 writer: 
 
 "Do not despair about your style. I 
 never study style; all that I do is to try 
 to get the subject as clear as I can in 
 my own head, and express it in the 
 commonest language which occurs to 
 me. But I generally have to think a 
 good deal before the simplest arrange- 
 ment of words occurs to me. It is a 
 golden rule always to use, if possible, a 
 short old Saxon word. Such a sentence 
 as 'so purely dependent is the incipient 
 plant on the specific morphological ten- 
 dency' does not sound to my ears like 
 good mother English it wants trans- 
 lating." 
 
Method of Narration 29 
 
 I think there is nothing to add to the 
 foregoing, except that style is largely a 
 quality that comes only after much prac- 
 tice in writing. A beginner apes those 
 who have gone before, and as soon as 
 he learns that in his own individuality 
 lies the only style he can hope to acquire, 
 he is on the high road to success in litera- 
 ture. He must learn to be himself; to 
 make his writing, not affected, but na- 
 tural. When he fully comprehends this 
 fact, and begins to profit by it, he sets 
 about cultivating style. 
 
THE INTRODUCTION 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE INTRODUCTION 
 
 A STORY well begun is half told. 
 Unless you can interest an editor 
 in your first two or three para- 
 graphs, your story may be submitted to 
 every periodical in the country without 
 the slightest chance of acceptance. 
 
 So much depends on the introductory 
 sentences, from the viewpoint of the 
 editor, that fully three-fourths of the 
 stories submitted are never read beyond 
 the first page. If they are lacking in in- 
 terest here, the editor realizes that the 
 writer knows nothing about the funda- 
 mental principles of story-writing, and 
 that what follows is practically certain 
 to violate all its rules. Unless the be- 
 ginning interests him, therefore, he re- 
 jects the manuscript promptly without 
 further reading. 
 
 An editor's method of determining 
 the value of a manuscript is very simple. 
 
34 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 He scans the introductory paragraph, 
 and if he finds that the writer plunges 
 into his story at the very outset he is in- 
 terested enough to skim over the entire 
 first page. If nothing is found that 
 condemns the story, the editor now turns 
 to the last page and studies the con- 
 clusion. If he finds this weak, the story 
 is returned without further reading; but 
 if it ends with a quick, sharp turn, or in 
 a manner that suggests rapid dramatic 
 action somewhere earlier in the story, he 
 dips into the middle and glances over 
 the other pages; not systematically, but 
 in a hop- skip- and- jump manner. Then, 
 if the first promise is fulfilled, he leans 
 back and reads the story clear through. 
 If he does this, the chances are all in 
 favor of an acceptance, though some 
 detail may still warrant a rejection; or, 
 possibly, the tenor of the story may not 
 be in line with his publication. 
 
 From the foregoing it will be seen 
 that if you expect even a careful ex- 
 amination of your story, you must in- 
 terest the editor at once. You cannot 
 do this with a long description. You 
 
The Introduction 35 
 
 cannot do it by labeling your charac- 
 ters, in imitation of a theater pro- 
 gramme. You cannot do it by present- 
 ing familiar and worn-out situations. 
 
 Ninety per cent, of the " unavailable " 
 stories have one of these faults in their 
 introduction. A good majority of those 
 that are accepted begin with conver- 
 sation that arouses interest, or striking 
 sentences that make the reader anxious 
 enough for an explanation to read 
 further. 
 
 Your first sentence should plunge 
 your reader into the action of your story. 
 Leave your descriptions until you have 
 interested him; then what would have 
 bored him at first will prove only a pleas- 
 ing explanation of the situation. In the 
 ideal short story, the descriptions are 
 sifted in so adroitly that there is no lag- 
 ging of movement. 
 
 Don't begin your story by having a 
 beautiful maiden wondering if her lover 
 is true. Don't begin by saying that the 
 heroine, dressed in well-fitting clothes, 
 makes a handsome picture. Don't be- 
 gin by presenting a girl who is review- 
 
36 flow to Write a Short Story 
 
 ing her past life. All these have been 
 done time and time again. Strive for 
 originality if you would write acceptable 
 stories. 
 
 Why not have the girl watching her 
 faithless lover, ten miles away, through 
 a telescope? Why not have the hero- 
 ine dressed in brightest crimson and 
 living in a convent? Why not have the 
 girl wondering if the man she just 
 pushed in the cistern is dead? All these 
 are far-fetched and extravagant, I ad- 
 mit, but they illustrate the point I would 
 make: that you must begin your story 
 in a manner novel and original. 
 
 A goodly number of the light little 
 love stories of to-day need no setting 
 beyond that suggested by the conversa- 
 tion. It is pure idiocy to dilate upon 
 the beauty of the scene, or the charm of 
 the weather, or the innermost feelings 
 of the characters. If you must get these 
 points into your story, do it by sugges- 
 tion. Make the man and woman so 
 thoroughly in love with each other, that 
 neither you nor a master-hand can keep 
 your reader from knowing that the 
 
The introduction 37 
 
 scenery is magnificent, nor that the sun 
 is shining its brightest, nor that every 
 sentence your lovers utter is bubbling 
 with sentiment. If you can't get this 
 happiness into your love story, you have 
 failed. Tear it up and write it all over. 
 
 Did you ever study Hope's "Dolly 
 Dialogues"? If so, you have found 
 that, although there is no direct infor- 
 mation given or scenes described, you 
 are in full possession of all the neces- 
 sary facts, gleaned through the words 
 and actions of the characters. Yet the 
 stories start abruptly and go forward 
 in a natural sequence of events. 
 
 It is the best practice in the world to 
 write a story without the use of any 
 method of presenting ideas except di- 
 rect discourse. 
 
 There are times, of course, when a 
 description of the setting of your story 
 is absolutely necessary. Suppose you 
 wished to say that a man who had been 
 away for years from a girl he loved was 
 approaching her house, a great stone 
 structure high on a hill. You might fol- 
 low the beginner's example, thus: 
 
38 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 "The house of Dorothy Owens was 
 a magnificent stone mansion, beautiful 
 inside and out. It stood on a high hill. 
 But, in spite of its beauty, Dorothy was 
 not happy. Years before she had had 
 a lover, who, could she but have known 
 it, was even now approaching the house, 
 mounted on a mettlesome steed." 
 
 Your ear tells you that this is trite 
 and dull. There is no reason to go on 
 reading; no promise of anything better. 
 Would it not be more interesting if be- 
 gun a little differently? For instance : 
 
 "The horse stopped suddenly, and the 
 man lifted his head with a jerk. For 
 the last mile he had been sitting in the 
 saddle, not caring whom he met, not 
 seeing. Now he looked ahead at the 
 road that led straight up the hill to a 
 house that stood on the summit. For 
 a moment he stared at it, debating with 
 himself. Then he smiled and dug his 
 spurs into the horse." 
 
 The one objection to this latter method 
 is the necessity of saying, more or less 
 bluntly: "But I must now explain 
 that years before this man and woman 
 
The Introduction 39 
 
 had been lovers." Now, above all else, 
 a short story should possess unity. With 
 this quality of paramount importance, 
 any retrospection is apt to mar the ar- 
 tistic handling. But even this objec- 
 tion may be overcome by the use of sug- 
 gestive conversation that gives the reader 
 enough of a clue to enable him to under- 
 stand the situation. 
 
 Remember, then, that readers are a 
 busy people, who would have their sto- 
 ries served in condensed pellets if they 
 could, and that to win their approbation 
 you must begin well along in your tale, 
 where enough complications are to be 
 found to catch the interest. In writing, 
 as nowhere else, can be seen the truth 
 of the trite old proverb, "Well begun is 
 half done." 
 
IV 
 THE STORY PROPER 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE STORY PROPER 
 
 THE ideal short story is the rela- 
 tion of an isolated incident. In 
 a novel you may introduce your 
 heroine in one chapter and your hero in 
 another, and then shift scenes and sea- 
 sons with bewildering rapidity to the 
 very end. There is a runaway, perhaps, 
 in which the man saves the girl's life. 
 There is a forest in which the lovers get 
 lost together. There is an automobile 
 wreck that drives them to a farmer's 
 house for supper. But each of these 
 leads up to the climax the inevitable 
 marriage of the two. 
 
 Now, any one of these counter-inci- 
 dents would make a short story, but 
 all of them together lack the fundamen- 
 tal requisite of brief fiction unity. The 
 ideal short story begins in one place and 
 ends in that place. It begins with a 
 certain number of characters and ends 
 
44 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 with that number. It is an incident by 
 itself, isolated from the other happen- 
 ings of everyday life. 
 
 It may be any length, provided it is 
 not too ungainly to crowd between the 
 covers of a magazine, or too tiny to de- 
 mand a place at all. Generally speak- 
 ing, a short story should run between 
 1,000 and 6,000 words. 
 
 Length, of course, is largely a matter 
 of demand rather than of choice. You 
 can't tell some stories in less than 5,000 
 words without condensing them so 
 sharply as to destroy utterly their charm, 
 and you can't stretch others above 1,500 
 words without padding them unduly. 
 As in all other things, the ones that do 
 not come close to either extreme are 
 most apt to prove acceptable. 
 
 Whatever the length, the ideal short 
 story is one complete chapter. Above 
 all else, it is a unit; and any plot that 
 necessitates chapter divisions is faulty 
 and had better be discarded. 
 
 Many of the stories that are sliced up 
 in this fashion by beginners, however, 
 really possess unity. The divisions are 
 
The Story Proper 45 
 
 false, and are the result of the writer's 
 idea that they make his story more pre- 
 sentable. The scene may be the same 
 and no interruption to the action have 
 taken place. 
 
 Young writers have a habit of using 
 a series of stars or dashes to indicate the 
 lapse of time in their stories. There 
 is no reason for this, other than that 
 the plot is wrongly constructed or that 
 the writers err flatly. The craze for 
 chapter divisions is a senseless one, and 
 comes from a study of the novel. 
 
 Perhaps the most common error of 
 the young writer is the unconscious pad- 
 ding by the use of remarks, comments, 
 stray bits of information, or morals en- 
 tirely foreign to the plot. Thejgroper 
 way to tell a short story is to draw a line 
 "from the striking introductory sentence 
 'straight to the climax, and never, by a 
 hair's breadth, deviate from that line. 
 Remarks and comments are for the edi- 
 torial, information for the essay and 
 scientific article, and morals for the re- 
 ligious article. A salable short story is 
 nothing more nor less than a good plot 
 
46 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 draped enough to soften the naked 
 crudities without hiding the general 
 beauty of form. 
 
 No two stories are alike in structure. 
 For this reason, it is impossible to give 
 specific advice as to the telling. But if 
 you have something with a laugh, a tear, 
 or a thrill, and go about presenting it in 
 a straightforward, natural manner, with- 
 out hurrying or lagging overmuch, you 
 are pretty sure to produce a story that 
 will sell. 
 
 It seems to be the fate of most writers 
 to have a tendency either to take up a 
 great deal too much time in telling their 
 story, or to do it admirably nearly to the 
 end and then seemingly to tire and hurry 
 through to the climax. You will find, 
 most likely, that in writing a story you 
 have a habit of completing it in 1,000 
 words, or even less, or else taking five or 
 six times that many. In either case, you 
 can easily discover your weakness and 
 strive to correct it. 
 
 After you have acquired a little ease 
 in your composition, you will find that 
 there are a dozen ways of telling the same 
 
The Story Proper 47 
 
 story, and that your way is apt to be the 
 one that comes to you most easily. 
 
 Now, it may be worth while, finan- 
 cially, to try an experiment. After you 
 have your plot well in mind, pick up 
 some magazine and study the structure 
 of its predominating stories. Then 
 adapt your style to that of the magazine, 
 and write your story with the idea that 
 it must follow precisely the model you 
 have chosen. It seems to me that in 
 this way you have a story exactly fitted 
 to a certain line of publications rather 
 than one adapted, almost, to anything 
 published. 
 
 You will find, however, that on at 
 least one point all editors are agreed; 
 that is, that conversation is always pref- 
 erable to description. It is a good plan 
 to go through a completed story and 
 substitute the former for the latter wher- 
 ever possible. I think I can offer no 
 more forcible advice than that of the 
 writer who said: "It is not necessary 
 to say that a woman is a snarling, 
 grumpy person. Bring in the old lady 
 and let her snarl." 
 
48 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 But no matter how you tell your story, 
 it must follow the general rule of leading 
 up to a climax. In its broadest sense, 
 this may be illustrated by recalling a 
 good detective or mystery story. It is 
 this very thing that makes the poorly 
 educated read stories; the very thing 
 that makes some people turn to the last 
 chapter in a book before reading the 
 others; the very thing that makes a child 
 urge you to go on and on in telling a 
 story merely the desire to see how it all 
 comes out, to know why this character 
 did that and that one this, all through 
 the narrative. It is really inborn curi- 
 osity, and if a story did not hold out the 
 promise of a denouement or climax very 
 few would read it. 
 
 In writing your story, therefore, you 
 must keep this always in mind. Little 
 suggestions whet the reader's appetite 
 and make him eager to go on. These, 
 however, should not be broad. " Little 
 did she think that ere the setting of an- 
 other sun a great calamity would be 
 upon them." This method lacks deli- 
 cacy and is certain to create disgust. 
 
The Story Proper 49 
 
 Strike out along new lines, that your 
 reader may never guess how the story is 
 to end, and then lead him on, step by 
 step, till the climax comes, sharp and 
 clear, like the snap of a whip. 
 
V 
 CONCLUSION AND CLIMAX 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 CONCLUSION AND CLIMAX 
 
 WHEN your story is ended, stop. 
 Don't ramble on and tell how 
 the man built a magnificent 
 home and how the two turtle doves lived 
 there for years and years. Lead your 
 reader up to the engagement and drop 
 the curtain abruptly on the scene of bliss. 
 The chances are that later a flurry in 
 stocks swallowed up all the man's wealth 
 and that the white hands of the girl 
 turned brown and chapped over the 
 wash board. But if you stop at the 
 proper place, your reader will never 
 think of the possibility of such things. 
 
 If you tack on a remark after your 
 story is ended, it will ruin it all. Ama- 
 teurs have a habit of closing a love story 
 something like this: 
 
 "She looked up at him, with the love 
 
54 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 light in her eyes, and said, ever so softly, 
 'Yes.' Then he put his arms around 
 her, and drew her close, and pressed kiss 
 after kiss on her eager lips. And finally, 
 just at twilight, the two walked back to 
 the village, busily planning a little cot- 
 tage for the future." 
 
 Now, properly this story ends with 
 the word "Yes." What follows is anti- 
 climax, and is the kind of writing that 
 has given rise to the phrase, "sickly sen- 
 timentality." 
 
 In the story suggested by the fore- 
 going conclusions, all the ideas are cen- 
 tered on the winning of the girl's hand. 
 Earlier in the tale, perhaps, there has 
 been another lover, and complications 
 and desperate moves. Everything has 
 led up to the proposal and acceptance. 
 All through, the reader has seen what 
 is coming, and has hoped and feared 
 with the hero. The conclusion of all 
 this has been the single word, "Yes." 
 This, then, is the climax. 
 
 Let us look for a moment at what 
 this climax accomplishes. First, it ends 
 definitely the element of suspense. Sec- 
 
Conclusion and Climax 55 
 
 ondly, it decides the destinies of the 
 characters. Thirdly, it is the severing 
 of all connection with the plot. Fourthly, 
 it is a logical explanation of the cause 
 of all the previous action. Fifthly, it is 
 really the point of the whole story. It 
 may be said, therefore, to fulfill all the 
 requirements. 
 
 A climax should never drag. It 
 should come clear and sharp, like the 
 snap of a whip. You should then be 
 able to finish your story before the sound 
 has died out, before the impression it 
 leaves has been counterbalanced by 
 tedious and dull explanations. 
 
 The climax in what is known as the 
 " surprise story " is invariably false. 
 Though it may amuse, it does so through 
 the ingenuity of the writer rather than 
 through a logical appeal to the sensi- 
 bilities. It is clever, but not artistic, to 
 write that a man followed you home 
 one night, and slunk in the shadows 
 when you stopped, and that he ran 
 toward you suddenly, at your doorstep, 
 and you saw only your Newfoundland 
 dog; or that after smoking the drugged 
 
56 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 cigar, and allowing the pocketbook to 
 slip to the floor as you became uncon- 
 scious, you suddenly awoke and found 
 it was all a dream; or that in the middle 
 of the night, by some intuitive process, 
 you felt certain that some assailant near 
 at hand was about to murder you in cold 
 blood, and that you lay there quivering 
 until you fell asleep and woke the next 
 morning to laugh over your active im- 
 agination. The climax in all these 
 stories is false, and will not pass muster 
 with a critical editor. 
 
 The single good point about this class 
 is that its stories seldom deal with real 
 tragedy. In spite of all the hue and cry 
 for realistic fiction, it is the stories with 
 happy endings that sell. True, the best 
 magazines give space to tragic stories, 
 but they do it, not because tragedy ap- 
 peals to them, but because the telling is 
 too artistic to risk rejection; in other 
 words, the manner overbalances the 
 matter. But these stories are written 
 by experienced authors, whose positions 
 are secure. The beginner should shun 
 the sad ending. 
 
Conclusion and Climax 57 
 
 The true story should also be avoided. 
 Here, again, it is the conclusion that 
 causes a good share of the trouble. In 
 real life, it is next to impossible to find 
 a narrative that ends as you and the 
 editor would wish. To make it artistic 
 at all, you must put in a generous sea- 
 soning of the untrue and transform the 
 climax altogether. 
 
 The conclusion of any story is worthy 
 of the very best efforts of a writer. It 
 is really the story itself, for it embraces 
 the climax, or culmination of the plot. 
 Nine times out of ten, your whole story 
 may be discovered by reading your last 
 paragraph or two. It takes but a glance 
 at this point to indicate its nature. 
 
 If you will keep always in mind the 
 fact that the editor studies your con- 
 clusions to see whether the story proper 
 is worth an examination, it is probable 
 that you will see to it that this part has 
 merit. It is the conclusion, remember, 
 that leaves the taste in the reader's 
 mouth, and makes him decide whether 
 or not the story is worth while. If you 
 end tritely, he will characterize your 
 
58 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 whole composition as trite; if you round 
 off your story artistically, he will be apt 
 to consider all that has gone before as 
 artistic. 
 
VI 
 THE PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT 
 
 WHEN you have expended your 
 best energies on your story, 
 and by careful revision have 
 brought it to the highest degree of ex- 
 cellence of which you are capable, it is 
 ready to be dressed up in a fetching 
 manner for the editorial eye. You 
 must now recopy it in such a way that 
 no mark of your workmanship in re- 
 casting and reconstructing will show. 
 Fine clothes do not make an acceptance, 
 any more than they make a gentleman, 
 but they command respect in both cases. 
 First of all, your manuscript should 
 be neatly and correctly typewritten. I 
 don't care how legibly you may write, 
 you can't compare with the printed let- 
 ters of the machine. Moreover, you 
 are stringing a thousand- word story over 
 great pads of paper, when you might 
 print it on four thin sheets. An editor's 
 
62 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 time is economized as much as possible, 
 and he will run through three type- 
 written stories sooner than plod through 
 one penscript. He knows, furthermore, 
 that the careful, experienced writer will 
 send him type copy, and that the chances 
 are ten to one that the script is full of 
 blunders and errors common to the be- 
 ginner, who has never studied the sub- 
 ject of writing. Penscripts are signs of 
 inexperience. Editors appreciate this 
 fact, and the sooner young writers do, 
 the better will be their chances of suc- 
 cess in literature. 
 
 In typewriting a manuscript, it should 
 be doubly spaced. This is done for two 
 reasons. First, it is much easier on the 
 eyes if the lines are not close together. 
 Munsey is said to get three thousand 
 manuscripts each month. Of course, 
 these are handled by a great many read- 
 ers for the company, but at the same 
 time one man has to read a large number 
 of them. The strain on the eyes will be 
 readily apparent, and the thoughtful- 
 ness of the writer who seeks to make 
 easier the task by double spacing his 
 
The Preparation of Manuscript 63 
 
 work will be appreciated. Again, if a 
 manuscript can be made acceptable by 
 changing it somewhat, the space between 
 the lines gives plenty of room for cor- 
 rection. Nothing that will serve to 
 lessen the work of an editor should be 
 left undone. 
 
 Now that the story is typewritten, the 
 name and address should be added in 
 the upper, left-hand corner. It is much 
 better to do this with the machine than 
 with a pen, as most people write their 
 names so hurriedly that it is almost im- 
 possible to decipher them. It seems to 
 me that there is no reason for a signature 
 on the manuscript, though some disa- 
 gree on this point. At all events, it is 
 imperative that the name and address, 
 in some form, be on the first page. 
 
 The number of words should now be 
 estimated and placed in the upper right- 
 hand corner. This estimate need not 
 be exact; indeed it is foolish to say the 
 manuscript contains 3,449 words, or any 
 other precise number. It should, how- 
 ever, be fairly accurate. Count the 
 number of words in the average line, 
 
64 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 the number of lines on a page, and the 
 number of pages. No allowance should 
 be made for short lines. In this way, 
 it is easy to get the approximate length 
 of the story. The editor will appre- 
 ciate this courtesy, as it enables him to 
 tell at a glance the amount of space the 
 story would occupy in his magazine. 
 
 The top of the first page of your man- 
 uscript will now appear something like 
 this: 
 
 J. D. Banner, 3>5 words. 
 
 Blank City, N. Y. 
 THE REVOLT OF UNCLE JOHN. 
 
 By 
 JAMES DARKEN BANNER 
 
 Just beneath the title of the story 
 should be placed the name of the au- 
 thor as he wishes it to appear in print. 
 If he is writing under a nom-de- plume, 
 an affectation countenanced neither by 
 good sense nor good business ability, it 
 should be placed here. 
 
 A soiled manuscript tells its own story 
 of previous rejections, and invites others. 
 
The Preparation of Manuscript 65 
 
 "You are not taking an unfair advan- 
 tage of an editor," says Albert Bigelow 
 Paine, " when you renovate your much- 
 traveled manuscript, or recopy it on 
 clean paper. You are taking an unfair 
 advantage of your manuscript when you 
 do not do it, and you are insulting the 
 editor, who does not care where your 
 story or article or poem has been, so long 
 as it is presented to him invitingly." 
 
 The paper on which the story is cop- 
 ied should be of good texture, light in 
 weight, but not transparent. A size 
 about 8J by n, folded twice, has a 
 great many advantages. Never fasten 
 the sheets of your manuscript together 
 in any way. They should be loose, to 
 be shuffled as the editor finds need. 
 Two sizes of envelopes should be pur- 
 chased, one to fit within the other with- 
 out folding. A stamped, self addressed 
 envelope should accompany every manu- , 
 script. 
 
 If the name and address of the writer 
 are on the first page, no explanatory 
 note is necessary. As a matter of cour- 
 tesy, however, a very brief one may be 
 
66 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 sent. It should be somewhat along the 
 following lines: 
 
 Editor, Blank Magazine, 
 
 New York City. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 The enclosed manuscript is submitted with 
 the hope that it may be found available for 
 publication in The Blank Magazine, at your 
 usual rates. 
 
 Never display your lack of common 
 sense by any of the petty little tricks 
 common to the writers who believe their 
 manuscripts are not read. If an editor 
 finds the sheets of your story lightly 
 gummed together, he will not take the 
 trouble to separate them. Neither will 
 he sort out pages not properly numbered. 
 He cannot afford to waste time on writers 
 who stoop to such detestable actions. 
 He knows they will never be able to 
 please him with their work. 
 
 Your manuscript will be read if it is 
 worth while and properly prepared. If 
 your first page is dull, your second may 
 never be read. But if you have good 
 material, served up in such a way that 
 the reading is more of a pleasure than 
 a task, your manuscript will be con- 
 
The Preparation of Manuscript 67 
 
 sidered on its merits, whether it is signed 
 by Rudyard Kipling or by John Brown. 
 I have had the pleasure of reading 
 manuscripts by such writers as Jack 
 London, Albert Bigelow Paine, Charles 
 Battell Loomis, and a great many of 
 the best authors of the day; and I say 
 unhesitatingly that their copy, without 
 exception, was the neatest and most 
 correct that ever came under my eye. 
 These men have won their positions in 
 current literature by pure merit, and 
 their example in the preparation of copy 
 is worth following. 
 
VII 
 THE PLACING OF THE STORY 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE PLACING OF THE STORY 
 
 I RANK the ability to sell a story 
 nearly as high as the ability to 
 write one. Unless you can dis- 
 pose of your manuscript, after you have 
 spent hours over it, your work counts for 
 nothing. I have seen a great many 
 young writers, some of pronounced abil- 
 ity, who have given up the literary pro- 
 fession because they were unable to sell 
 their work. For this reason, I say that 
 the selling is well nigh as important as 
 the writing. 
 
 To place a story to good advantage, 
 you must know the market through and 
 through. It is not enough to know that 
 the leading ten-cent magazines use love 
 stories. You must know wherein those 
 found in McClure's differ from those in 
 Munsey's, in Everybody's, in The Cos- 
 mopolitan, in every other magazine that 
 
72 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 has a personality. You must know the 
 shades of difference that separate The 
 Youth's Companion and St. Nicholas; 
 Harper's, and The Smart Set; The Wom- 
 an's Home Companion and The Ladies' 
 Home Journal. When you begin to de- 
 tect the points in which the editorial 
 needs and whims differ, you are in a po- 
 sition to become acquainted with the 
 literary market. 
 
 If you write stories, it is your business 
 to make a systematic and thorough 
 study of magazines that use short fiction. 
 You must learn to note whether action, 
 complications, character drawing, style, 
 humor, or any one of a dozen other 
 qualities is responsible for the accept- 
 ance and publication of every story you 
 read. If you find stories that lack plot 
 altogether, you must discover what fea- 
 ture takes its place. It is only in this 
 way that you can become fully ac- 
 quainted with the magazines. 
 
 Too many young writers consider the 
 ease with which a story may be written, 
 rather than its adaptability for any mag- 
 azine. A great number of students in 
 
The Placing of the Story 73 
 
 high schools and colleges write fiction 
 which is praised by classmates and 
 teachers, and which may really be good 
 from an artistic standpoint, but which 
 is entirely out of line with the needs of 
 any magazine. I have seen stories that 
 were offered to such publications as 
 The Youth's Companion and St. Nicho- 
 las, in which the boys played pranks 
 that would shock the good mothers 
 and fathers of proper children. These 
 stories were about boys, however, and 
 for this reason their writers imagined 
 them fitted for the publications to which 
 they were sent. They had absolutely 
 no chance of acceptance, and a study 
 of the magazines would have shown the 
 folly of submitting such manuscripts. 
 
 Not only must you know the market 
 but you must know your own work. 
 You must be able to distinguish between 
 a story adapted to Harper's and The 
 Century, and one that is fit only for the 
 newspapers and syndicates. You must 
 judge your own work honestly and with- 
 out prejudice. 
 
 A story fresh from your brain will 
 
74 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 sound better than one that has been laid 
 aside for a day or two. You will be 
 able to pass upon its merits more im- 
 partially if you put it away until your 
 enthusiasm cools. You will also find 
 that it is good practice to read your 
 stories aloud to some other person before 
 you submit them to any magazine. The 
 defects and crude portions will become 
 discernible in a way they never would 
 otherwise, particularly if your hearer is 
 capable of criticising. 
 
 A good critic is of inestimable value. 
 I would rather have an unbiased, hon- 
 est opinion of my story, from some one 
 who was capable of judging it, than all 
 the praise in the world. As a matter 
 of fact, the friends who laud your work 
 usually do not appreciate either the de- 
 fects or the merits. An unprejudiced 
 criticism of your story will benefit you 
 more than anything else in this matter 
 of choosing a market. 
 
 The question of timeliness is one that 
 should be studied. A story that fits the 
 season has a much better chance of ac- 
 ceptance than one which may be used 
 
The Placing of the Story 75 
 
 at any time and is of equal literary value. 
 Readers expect a Christmas story in the 
 December magazine, an Independence 
 Day story in the July number, and sea- 
 sonable fiction at all times. A great 
 many writers overlook this fact alto- 
 gether. Christmas stories are usually 
 weak in plot; they have been done with 
 a regularity that has exhausted all ideas. 
 A fairly original Yule-tide story, offered 
 during the summer months, or a good 
 Fourth of July tale, submitted during the 
 first quarter of the year, stands a very 
 good chance of acceptance. If you will 
 remember that stories should be sub- 
 mitted from three to six months before 
 the issue of the magazine in which they 
 should appear, you will be stealing a 
 march on less experienced and less ob- 
 serving writers. 
 
 In considering the type of character 
 of stories, a second side of the question 
 of timeliness also plays a part. Like 
 clothes, stories follow the fashions. Yes- 
 terday dialect stories were the style; the 
 day before romantic fiction; the day 
 before that, bald realism. To-day the 
 
76 How to Write a Short Story 
 
 stories that border on history claim 
 recognition. To-morrow the style may 
 change. By keeping a close watch on 
 what is in vogue, you can more easily 
 please the editor. 
 
 Some one has said that there is a place 
 for every story, good, bad or indifferent, 
 that is written. To a great extent, this 
 statement is true. At the top stand the 
 best magazines; at the bottom, the little 
 pamphlet publications that do not pay 
 for contributions. Between these ex- 
 tremes lie hundreds of magazines, papers, 
 syndicates, etc., that purchase stories. 
 Just below the best magazines are the 
 literary weeklies. The religious papers 
 and magazines brighten their pages with 
 fiction. The juvenile publications pay 
 excellent prices. The household and 
 domestic journals run serials and short 
 stories. Even the class publications 
 give space to fiction. Hundreds of news- 
 papers throughout the country offer good 
 markets. The several syndicates pur- 
 chase liberally and pay well. For no 
 class of work is the market as wide as for 
 the short story. 
 
The Placing of the Story 77 
 
 You will meet rebuffs in placing your 
 work, lots of them. You will grow dis- 
 couraged, no doubt, before you dispose 
 of your manuscript. But if you have 
 not the bull-dog tenacity to stick to it, 
 to meet each returning manuscript with 
 a smile, and to go on hoping and be- 
 lieving in yourself, you have no business 
 in the literary profession. Nor should 
 rejections discourage you. "The story, 
 or the article, or the poem," says Albert 
 Bigelow Paine, "may come back again 
 and again. The author may rewrite it 
 over and over; but if he perseveres, and 
 the offering is genuine, it will find its 
 place and welcome at last. I have had 
 stories and poems returned to me as 
 many as fifteen times, only to place 
 them at last in a better market than I 
 had hoped for in the beginning. The 
 author who gives up after one rejection, 
 or two, or ten, is unworthy of the name." 
 
 THE END 
 
A Journal of Information for Writers 
 
 IT PUBLISHES: 
 Contributions of prominent authors 
 Articles on story writing 
 Articles on versification 
 Articles on marketing manuscripts 
 Hints on preparing manuscripts 
 Notes from editors stating needs 
 Notices of all new publications 
 Notices of all suspended publications 
 Notices of all timely editorial needs 
 Lists of magazines that want manuscripts 
 Complete monthly report on literary market 
 Answers to literary queries, departments, etc. 
 
 Also conducts a literary bureau under 
 direct supervision of Leslie W. Quirk, in 
 which is offered expert criticism of manu- 
 scripts, advice as to strengthening, cor- 
 recting, revising, mastery of technique, 
 etc., together with a list of magazines, 
 syndicate, or newspaper markets for 
 which each is best adapted. Estab- 
 lished 1895. 
 
 Sample copy of The Editor, containing 
 more information for writers than any 
 school offers, and full particulars of 
 literary bureau, will be mailed to any 
 address for ten cents. 
 
 Editor Publishing Co. 
 
 150 Nassau Street New York City 
 
02079 
 
 JV&78455 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY