Because literature is an art and you have a leaning toward it, do not therefore consider yourself a genius and so exempt from work. There is no royal road to success, and no one ever yet won a high place in the world of letters who did not earn it by the sweat of his brow. In these days literature is just as much a trade as boilermaking: it has its tools and its rules; and if one likes his occupation, he will naturally make better stories—or boilers. That is all there is to genius—the matter of aptitude for a certain thing; and even that can be to a great degree cultivated. If a man, with absolutely no knowledge of the tools and methods of the craft, attempt to make a boiler, he will create a deal of noise but no boilers, though he may be well pleased with his own efforts; and so it is with writing.

So even if your literary efforts are praised by friends and published by local editors, don't get the idea into your head that the world at large is sighing for the products of your pen: it is far more likely that your friends' encouragement is prompted rather by regard for you than by any real merit in your work, and that the editor's chief desire is to get cheap copy. You will learn later that the truest estimate of your work comes from those who know you the least, and that usually criticism is valuable in inverse proportion to the regard which the critic has for you. If, however, you feel that, whatever the real worth of your present work, there is that within you which demands utterance, you will modestly accept this early adulation as prophetic of the true fame to come, and will go about your writing in all humility and seriousness, with that careful, plodding application which alone succeeds.

Since as a story writer you purpose handling life in all its varied phases, it is necessary that you should acquire an intimate knowledge of it. This you may do in several ways, as already indicated in Chapter V., but do it you must, and seriously. You must have in your possession and ready for instant use a large and varied assortment of facts, incidents, odd characters, impressions, and all the other miscellaneous details that go to the making of a good story. However you may gain this material it is best not to depend too much on your memory to retain it and to produce it promptly at the proper time. The human memory is apt to be treacherous and unreliable. It will very likely fail to retain the important details of a usable actual occurrence, as well as the bright idea in connection with it which flashed across your mind when first you found it. The only safe way is for you to keep a scrap book and a note book, or perhaps a combination of the two, in which you may preserve crude material, bright ideas, and all sorts of odds and ends which you think may be of use to you at some future day. Much that you carefully preserve will never be of service to you, but you cannot afford to risk losing possible good matter through failure to make note of it. "I would counsel the young writer to keep a note book, and to make, as regards the use of it, nulla dies sine linea his revered motto. It is a great deal better that he should have his notes too copious than too meagre. By filling page after page with jottings of thoughts, fancies, impressions, even doubts and surmises of the vaguest kind—of a kind which he himself can only understand at the time and perhaps may afterward fail to recollect when re-reading them—he will never, in the long run, account himself a loser."[46]

When finally putting your ideas into concrete form do not depend too much on the "moment of inspiration." It is not my intention to ridicule this most valuable incentive to artistic work. I believe in it thoroughly when it is genuine, and I would advise you to take all advantage of it. Dash off your story as swiftly as you will—the swifter the better, for if it runs easily from your pen it stands a better chance of being spontaneous. But we are not all of us gifted with the ability to work in this manner, nor will all themes permit of such treatment. A short story that you can rush through at a sitting should be viewed with skepticism: either it is a perfect work of genius, and you have a Heaven-sent call to write; or, and more probably, it is too trite and trivial to justify the expenditure of serious labor upon it, and your "inspiration" was merely a flush of vanity. "As for trusting to the 'inspired moment,' or waiting for it, or deploring its delay, he (the young author) should take heed how he permits any such folly or superstition to clutch him in its vitiating grasp. 'Inspiration' either means, with a writer, good mental and physical health, or it has no meaning whatever.... Late hours and stimulants are especially fatal to the young writer when both are employed in the sense of literary co-adjutors."[47]

"There is, I believe, no greater fallacy than trusting to inspiration, except that of believing that a certain mood is necessary for writing. Ninety-nine hundredths of the best literary work is done by men who write to live, who know that they must write, and who do write, whether the weather is fine or rainy, whether they like their breakfast or not, whether they are hot or cold, whether they are in love, happily or unhappily, with women or themselves. Of course, a man who has lived by his pen for years, finds out by experience the hours for working which suit him best; but a beginner should be methodical. He should go to his desk as any other workman goes to his work, after breakfast; rest and eat in the middle of the day, and work again in the afternoon. He should never begin by writing at night, unless he is obliged to do so. He will, of course, often sit at the table for an hour or more without writing a word, but if he will only think conscientiously of what he meant to do, he will find the way to do it. The evening is the time to read, and the night is the time to sleep."[48]

This dependence on genius and inspiration is one of the reasons why the world is so full of unliterary writers, and why so many of real talent fail of success. It is very easy, in the flush of composition, to consider yourself gifted above your fellows, and to go on writing reams of bosh that even you would despise, if you could view it with an unprejudiced eye; and it is equally easy to persuade yourself that anything that comes from your pen must be incapable of improvement, and that if your writings sell, you have reached the goal. But either delusion is fatal. In short, "inspiration" and all its attendant follies are but the conventional accompaniments of literary toil, which may be affected by the dilettante for the furthering of his pretense at art, but which have no place in the thoughts or plans of the serious worker.

Such inspiration as you may need to keep your work fresh and artistic will come to you from the zeal and interest with which you approach your task. If you go to it half-heartedly, lazy in body and mind, and ready at the first opportunity to put it all off till the morrow, you will accomplish little, then or ever; but if, on the contrary, you will square yourself to your writing as to a physical labor, and will concentrate all the powers and energies of your mind upon the work in hand, the very force of your will and your desire will create within you an enthusiasm which will be of far more practical value to you than any cheap inspiration drawn from some Parnassian spring. You can, in fact, by this very business-like method of working, create on demand a species of inspiration, or mental vigor, which will enable you, not exactly to dash off a masterpiece with no real effort on your part, but to achieve by actual labor those things which you desire to do. There is much, too, in going to your work regularly, even as a carpenter to his bench; for the mental processes that produce good short stories are capable of cultivation and control; and, like all functions of the brain, they approach the nearest to perfection when they fall into something of a routine of habit. Indeed, they may be so far regulated that at the usual hour for their exercise they will be not only active but urgent, so that you will go to your work with an appetite as hearty as that with which you welcome the dinner hour.

Do not be afraid of the manual labor of authorship—the writing and rewriting, the testing and correcting, the persistent and thorough "licking into shape" which gives the final polish to your work. Never send an editor a penciled, smutched, and disorderly MS., with a note saying, "I just dashed this off last night and send it right on." Such work is foredoomed to failure. But when your story is finished lay it away without even reading it over and let it get "cold;" leave it for a week, or two weeks, or even longer if possible—don't even think of it; then bring it forth and read it over carefully and critically, take your blue pencil, harden your heart, and rework it ruthlessly. In the first draft you are bound to slight certain places or to make certain errors, which you would correct in the course of a careful revision. There will be some half-formed thought which will need elaboration, or some word which was not quite the right one, but which you let pass lest you lose your train of thought; and there is almost sure to be some wordiness which will need cutting away.

"For, if the practice of composition be useful, the laborious work of correcting is no less so: it is indeed absolutely necessary to our reaping any benefit from the habit of composition. What we have written should be laid by for some little time, till the ardor of composition be past, till the fondness for the expressions we have used be worn off, and the expressions themselves be forgotten; and then reviewing our work with a cool and critical eye, as if it were the performance of another, we shall discern many imperfections which at first escaped us. Then is the right season for pruning redundances; for weighing the arrangement of sentences; for attending to the junctures and connecting particles; and bringing style into a regular, correct, and supported form. This 'Limae Labor' must be submitted to by all who communicate their thoughts with proper advantage to others; and some practice in it will soon sharpen their eye to the most necessary objects of attention, and render it a much more easy and practicable work than might at first be imagined."[49]

It is this last careful, minute testing and polishing which will determine whether or no you are serious in your endeavor to break into literature, for here the real labor of authorship begins. All that went before was simply child's play compared to this grubbing, plodding, tinkering, and patching, and pottering; so if you have no stomach for this, you had better learn a trade. "Whatever you do, take pains with it. Try at least to write good English: learn to criticise and correct your work: put your best into every sentence. If you are too lazy and careless to do that, better go into a trade or politics: it is easier to become a Congressman or millionaire than a real author, and we have too many bad story-tellers as it is."[50] If you will pursue this labor of revision courageously you will speedily find an improvement in the quality of your finished work. You will also find that your manuscripts need less after attention, for the lessons learned in these careful re-workings will be unconsciously applied during composition.

"From the alphabetic slovenliness which will not form its letters legibly nor put in its commas, to the lack of self-acquaintance which results in total disability to judge one's own products, it is too constantly in evidence that those who aspire to feed other minds are themselves in need of discipline.... It is within bounds to say that not one accepted manuscript out of ten is fit to go to the printer as it stands."[51] Do not be so lazy or so careless as to slight the little things, the mere mechanical details, which go to make a perfect story and a presentable manuscript. "There are several distinct classes of errors to look for: faults of grammar, such as the mixing of figures of speech. Faults of agreement of verbs and participles in number when collective nouns are referred to. Faults of rhetoric, such as the mixing of moods and tenses, and the taste, such as the use of words with a disagreeable or misleading atmosphere about them, though their strict meaning makes their use correct enough. Faults of repetition of the same word in differing senses in the same sentence or paragraph. Faults of tediousness of phrasing or explanation. Faults of lack of clearness in expressing the exact meaning. Faults of sentimental use of language, that is, falling into fine phrases which have no distinct meaning—the most discordant fault of all. Faults of digression in the structure of the story."[52]

Faults in grammar and rhetoric are too easily corrected to be allowed to stand in the way of your success, and I have already showed you how you may perfect yourself in these essentials. For they are essentials, and so much more important than many young writers think, that I believe I am perfectly safe in saying that no one who makes glaring rhetorical or grammatical errors has ever written a successful short story. In spelling, too, there is absolutely no excuse for errors; you surely know if you are weak in this respect, and the use of even a small dictionary will enable you to avoid mistakes. Every magazine has its own rules for punctuation and paragraphing, in accordance with which an accepted MS. is edited before it is given to the compositor; but that is no good reason why you should neglect to prepare your MS. properly. The general rules are few and easily understood, and they enable you to give your work definite form and arrangement, and make it much more easy to read. An editor who finds a MS. lacking in these lesser essentials will be apt to throw it aside with but a superficial perusal, naturally judging that it will also lack the higher attributes.

Finally, just before sending your story out for editorial consideration, go over it once more with the utmost care and painstakingly test every paragraph, every sentence, every word, to see first if it is necessary, and second if it is right. If at any point you find yourself questioning what you have written, do not call your work complete until you have revised it, not only to your own satisfaction, but so that you honestly feel that the reader, too, will be satisfied. If you cannot at the time arrive at a satisfactory expression of your thought, put the story aside for the time being and try again later when you can come to it afresh. It is this unwearied labor which in the end spells success.