If you have a real "story" up your sleeve and know how to word it in passable English, the next thing to learn is the way to prepare a manuscript in professional form for marketing. In the non-fiction writer's workshop only two machines are essential to efficiency and economy. The first of these, and absolutely indispensable, is a typewriter. The sooner you learn to type your manuscripts, the better for your future and your pocketbook.

It is folly to submit contributions in handwriting to a busy editor who has to read through a bushel of manuscripts a day. The more legible the manuscript, the better are your chances to win a fair reading. I will go further, and declare that a manuscript which has all the earmarks of being by a professional is not only more carefully read, but also is likely to be treated with more consideration when a decision is to be made upon its value to the publisher in dollars and cents. Put yourself in the editor's place and you will quickly enough grasp the psychology of this.

The editor knows that no professional submits manuscripts in handwriting, that no professional writes upon both sides of the sheet, and that no professional omits to enclose an addressed stamped envelope in which to return the manuscript to its author if it proves unavailable for the magazine's use. Why brand yourself as a novice even before the manuscript reader has seen your first sentence? Remember you are competing for editorial attention against a whole bushel of other manuscripts. The girl who opens the magazine's mail may be tempted to cast your contribution into the rejection basket on general principles, if you are foolish enough to get away to such a poor start. What an ignominious end to your literary adventure is this—and all because you were careless, or didn't know any better!

The writer who really means business will not neglect in any detail the psychology of making his manuscript invite a thorough reading. It may be bad form to accept a dinner invitation in typewriting, but it is infinitely worse form to fail to typewrite an invitation to editorial eyes to buy your manuscript. Good form also dictates that the first page of your contribution should bear in the upper left hand corner of the sheet your name, upon the first line; the street address, on the second; the town and state, on the third. In the upper right hand corner should be set down an estimate of the number of words contained in the manuscript.

Leave a blank down to the middle of the page. There, in capitals, write the title of the article; then drop down a few lines and type your pen name (if you use one) or whatever version of your signature that you wish to have appear above the article when it comes out in print. Drop down a few more lines before you begin with the text, and indent about an inch for the beginning of each paragraph. Here is a model for your guidance:

There are sound reasons for all this. The first is that, likely enough, your title may not altogether suit the editor, and he will require some of the white space in the upper part of the page for a revised version. Also, he will need some space upon which to pencil his directions to the printers about how to set the type.

Double space your lines. If you leave no room between lines, you make it extremely difficult for the editor to write in any corrections in the text. Moreover, a solid mass of single-spaced typewriting is much harder to read than material that is double-spaced.

Use good white paper, of ordinary letter size, eight by eleven inches, and leave a margin of about an inch on either side of the text and at both top and bottom. Number each page. Don't write your "copy" with a ribbon which is too worn to be bright; and, while you are about it, clean up those letters on the typebars that have a tendency to fill up with ink and dust. You may have noticed, for example, that "a," "e," "o," "s," "m," and "w" are not always clear-cut upon the page.

You are doing all this to make the reading of your contribution as easy a task as possible from the purely physical side. You are simply using a little common sense in the process of addressing yourself to the favorable attention of a force of extremely busy persons who are paid to "wade through" a formidable stack of mail.

If you have an overpowering distaste for doing your own typewriting, you may hire a typist to turn your handwritten "copy" into something easier to read. This procedure, however, may prove to be rather too costly for a beginner's purse. It is the part of wisdom to learn to operate a machine yourself. At first the task may seem rather a tough one, but even after so short a time as a month of practice you are likely to be surprised at the progress you will make. Before long you will be able to write much faster upon a machine than with a pencil or a pen.

The danger then lies in a temptation to haste and carelessness. This is one reason why many fastidious magazine writers always do the first draft of an article in longhand and turn to the typewriter only when they are ready to set down the final version. Temperament and habit should decide the matter. Nearly any one can learn to compose newspaper "copy" at the keyboard, but not so many of us dare attempt to do magazine articles at the same high rate of speed. Particularly does this hold true of the first page of a magazine manuscript. The opening paragraph of such a manuscript is likely to make a much more exacting demand upon the writer's skill than the "lead" of a newspaper "story." All that the newspaper usually demands is that the reporter cram the gist of his facts into the first few sentences. The magazine insists that the first paragraph of a manuscript not only catch attention but also sound the keynote of many words to follow, for the "punch" of the magazine story is more often near the end of the article than the beginning.

Though the technique of newspaper and magazine writing may differ on this matter of the "lead," do not make the mistake of supposing that the magazine introduction need not be just as chock full of interest as the opening of a newspaper "story." You are no longer under any compulsion, when you write for the magazines, to cram the meat of the story into the first sentence, but one thing you must do—you must rouse the reader to sit up and listen. You can well afford to spend any amount of effort upon that opening paragraph. Write your lead a dozen times, a hundred times, if necessary, until you make it rivet the attention.