1. Watching the Pictures

Unless you are already a successful fiction writer when you first determine to write photoplays it is not going too far to assert that you have never yet really watched a motion picture. You have witnessed many, but only the playwright and the theatrical man may be said to watch plays, whether on the stage or on the screen, with every faculty alert and receptive, ready to pounce on any suggestion, any bit of stage business, any scenic effect, or any situation, that they may legitimately copy or enlarge upon for their respective uses. This keen attitude is partly a matter of inborn dramatic instinct, but it is even more a matter of training and habit—therefore cultivate it.

Not only does the professional photoplaywright remain wide awake when watching real photoplays, but he often finds as much plot-suggestion in other classes of films as there is in the story-pictures, for plot-germs fairly abound in scenics, vocationals, microcinematographics, educationals, and topicals, as these several sorts are called by the craft. A certain successful writer has sold no less than thirty photoplays, all the plots of which sprang from scenics and educationals. One, for example, was built upon an idea picked up in watching a film picturing the making of tapioca in the Philippines.

At the outstart you must admit to yourself that to see every release of every company is impossible, and even if it were possible it would be unnecessary. In the big cities, for example, it is often difficult to locate a theatre that is exhibiting the particular picture you are anxious to see, either on the date of its release or later. Nothing is more common in a moving picture studio than to hear one actor say to another: "Tonight such and such a theatre is showing such and such a picture [one in which they have worked]; let's go over to see it." And if the actor is anxious to study acting through watching the work of himself and others on the screen, how much more should the writer be willing and anxious to study the technique of the photoplay by paying frequent visits to the picture theatres? Try, then, to see as many photoplays as your time and means will permit, for purposes of study. Nor do we recommend seeing only pictures that the critics have praised, for it is possible, at times, to learn as much from a poor picture as from a good one. You must teach yourself, as you watch the screen, what to leave out, as well as what to put in; we may learn much from the mistakes of others.

One point especially worthy of notice is that when you see a good picture on the screen it may be one written by a successful photoplaywright, and as such likely to repay close study to see how the successful construct their stories. Or it may be a picture written in the producing studio from the bare idea purchased from an "outsider." In either case, look out for and carefully study the pictured stories produced by writers who are "putting them over."

If you are taking up photoplay writing as a profession, or even as an avocation, there is only one way to undertake it—be fully equipped to succeed. It is not enough, as we said in an early chapter, to have had previous training as a fiction writer; nor enough to have acquired a knowledge of photoplay form and construction. You must be "up to the minute" in your knowledge of the market for scripts. Therefore be in touch with what writers, editors, and producers are doing. Do everything in your power to avoid writing stories similar to others that have been done within the past year or two, at least. It is not merely a question of plagiarism, important as that is—it is a matter of helping yourself to sell your script by not offering old ideas to the editors. Fully one-half of the good stories that go back to the authors are returned because the companies have already done a similar picture and do not wish to have exhibitors and their patrons declare that "The Cosmopolitan Company must be writing over their old pictures because they can't get new stuff."

2. What to Look for in a Picture

Besides avoiding the similar use of ideas that have been utilized by others, it is most important in watching a picture to be able to see what the one who wrote it did not see—to be able to pick up an idea that he might have employed in working out his story, and from it get the inspiration and plot-foundation for a photoplay of your own. In addition to studying the action to see how certain effects are produced, count the number of scenes and the number of leaders used in the different makes of pictures. It will serve as a guide to what the different makers want. In case you do not care to sit through a second showing of the film, or do not want to risk missing part of the picture by counting the scenes and leaders, make a practice of carrying a few small cards, with a line drawn down the middle of each. As the card is held in the hand, mark with a pencil a short stroke on one side for every change of scene, and on the other side a stroke for each leader, letter, or other insert—this will serve as a convenient record-device.

William S. Hart

William S. Hart, Leaning on the Camera, with part of His Supporting Company and the Cameraman and His Assistant in a Scene from "The Poppy Girl's Husband," an Artcraft Picture

Harry Beaumont

Harry Beaumont Directing Fight Scene Between Tom Moore, Goldwyn Star, and the Villain, in "A Man and His Money"

3. The Note-Book Habit

To have the plot-instinct is a great blessing for the writer. Lacking this, however, the most valuable asset he can possess is the note-book habit. Carry one with you constantly. Jot down everything that may be of help in framing and developing a plot, as well as in creating a dramatic scene for a story. Remember that plots are not lying around fully developed, awaiting only some observant eye to discover them, but they almost always grow out of single ideas—plot-germs—which one may recognize as incidents and situations in everyday life or in unusual circumstances. Do not wait for the fully developed plot to come to you, for the chances are that it will not. Jot down the single idea and in time it may germinate and become a fully developed plot—even though you may have to use hot-house methods and force its growth.

It seems incredible that any writer, knowing, as he must, that the idea, the plot-germ, is what really makes the story, should neglect to note it down the moment it comes to him; and yet there are those who simply trust memory to retain an impression. In the photoplay especially "the idea's the thing" for here you cannot depend on description or on good writing to sell your story.

The rule of jotting down your thought on the instant does not apply merely to ideas that come as inspirations, or thoughts suggested by what you read or see, but it applies especially to the ideas that come to you at the time you give yourself up to concentrated thinking in play-production. A certain writer on the photoplay—we do not recall who—once wrote a paragraph headed "When do you do your thinking?" This critic found that he could think best when riding, say on a street car. Others have discovered that ideas come to them most freely when they are sitting in a theatre. One writer has learned that his best plot-ideas come to him after he lies down for the night. For this reason, a tabouret with pad and pencil always stands at his bedside, and a special self-installed switch for the electric light is within reach of his hand. Now, with his note-book always with him when he is away from home, with note-books and card-indexes close at hand when he is at home, and with the means of instantly putting his thoughts on paper if they come to him after he has gone to bed, he knows that he is in a position to take advantage of every stray idea that may contain a plot germ, or that may aid him in developing a story already in course of construction.

If the beginner would only understand the importance of systematic note-making, he would soon reduce by one-half the labor of unearthing plots for his stories.

4. The Borrowed Plot

All is grist that comes to the mill of the writer who keeps a note-book. Almost everything that he reads, sees, or hears, offers some plot-suggestion, or suggests a better way of working out the plot he has already partly developed. But, in taking plot-ideas from the daily papers and writing stories suggested by the anecdotes and the conversation of friends, proceed with great care, lest you make trouble for yourself or for others. In a later chapter we show how many cases of alleged plagiarism are simply the results of two people taking the same idea from the same newspaper paragraph. The point here made is that if you take an idea from a newspaper item there are three courses open to you—one safe course, and two not safe. The unsafe ways are, to recopy the story bodily, using in your story all the facts set forth in the news item; or else to change it only enough to insure its being "the same, yet not the same." If you adopt either of these two foolish and dangerous methods, you are extremely likely to find that you have either been forestalled by someone who wrote a story on the subject before you did, or that your story, following closely the original facts, has given offense to someone who was concerned in the actual case. If you live in a small community, the risk of thus offending is, of course, correspondingly greater.

The one safe way is to use the plot-germ, and only the plot-germ, taken from the item in the paper. If you can take the central idea and remodel it so that the very reporter who wrote the original item would not recognize it, you may legitimately claim to have produced an original story. That is, moreover, what you should do, leaving aside all questions of your script's being accepted, and the possibility of its being refused because of its similarity to one previously purchased from some other writer.

The main incidents of a prominent court trial may supply you with an idea for a strong, original story, but you should not think of following the facts of the case just as they occurred in real life. To copy a story from a newspaper item and to get a story from the same source are two entirely different things. Press clippings, as an author once remarked, "are not first aid to the feeble minded. They are merely sign-posts that point the way to the initiated." And another has said: "It is the art of seeing and appreciating just a line or two in some newspaper item and working it up that makes newspaper study pay."

The really practised writer realizes that the best plot-suggestions are to be found in the shorter news items—the five-to-ten-line fillers—and not in the big sensations of the day. But then, the practised writer can find ideas anywhere.

One thing of which the beginner should beware is the practise of writing stories from plots suggested by friends. As a rule, the young writer, not yet having learned to think for himself, is quick to accept these friendly suggestions. He is told the outline of an unusually good story and straightway turns it into a photoplay. It is accepted, but a short while after it has been released someone recognizes in it a short-story that has appeared in a popular magazine. It is not difficult to imagine the result—before very long the film manufacturing company is compelled, whether by a sense of justice or by law, to make settlement with the magazine company holding the copyright on the original story, and the beginner finds that he is decidedly persona non grata with at least one manufacturer. Should the matter become generally known, he is likely to find himself barred by other companies also, as every editor has an inborn dread of the plagiarist, even though he may have been innocent of any thought of wrong doing.

5. Keeping Well Informed

The best means of avoiding unconscious plagiarism and the use of old material is to keep informed as fully as you possibly can of what is released week by week. You cannot be too well posted on what is going on in the photoplay business-world. Your selling-average will be higher as a result. The editor knows what is old and what is new, and so must you, though doubtless not so perfectly. Every editor's office is stocked with books, reference works, magazines, trade publications, and files of newspaper clippings. These all contain something of practical value in working up the bare ideas bought from contributors or in writing his own story—for editors as well as producers often write photoplays.

You can hardly go too far in making a study of the various motion-picture trade journals, because, quite apart from the material furnished by the different studio publicity departments—which material, for a certain week, may be practically the same in all the publicity mediums—each periodical may be depended upon to have at frequent intervals if not in every issue some good special article that will either help to instruct the writer or furnish a "tip" as to the immediate needs of a certain company. While we make special mention of The Moving Picture World because of the fact that it has had Mr. Sargent's department as a regular feature for over eight years, we also recommend the student to keep regularly in touch with what is published in the Motion Picture News (New York), the New York Dramatic Mirror, Motography (Chicago), and—for the sake of their critical reviews—any other trade periodicals he may be able to procure. Apart from the trade journals, you can always be sure of finding well-written special articles or regular departments of interest to photoplaywrights in such monthly and semi-monthly magazines as Photoplay (Chicago), Motion Picture Magazine and Motion Picture Classic (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Picture-play Magazine (New York), and Moving Picture Stories (New York). Many popular magazines also print excellent photoplay material frequently and such craft-periodicals as The Writer's Monthly (Springfield, Mass.) are always especially helpful to authors. All such tools of the writer's trade you should get as regularly as you can—and use them.

So long as you get your plot-ideas honestly, where you get them is altogether your own matter. But get them you must, for, as A. Van Buren Powell has said: "Everyone will grant that in photoplay writing 'The Idea's the thing.' The script of the beginner, carrying a brand-new idea, will find acceptance where the most technical technique in the world, disguising a revamped story, will fail to coax the coy check from its lair."

So, let your ideas be original. Get your inspiration, your plot-germ, from any source, but be sure that, before you claim the story for your own, you have so changed and reconstructed the original that it is absolutely yours.

Here is a paragraph by Mr. Eugene V. Brewster, in Motion Picture Magazine, of which he is editor: "It is extremely difficult to think out a plot that has not been done before. You may not have seen it before, you may have invented the whole thing out of your brain, but the probabilities are that the manufacturers have done the same thing, with slight variations, time and time again, and that the same idea has been submitted to them dozens of times. You may think you have worked out something entirely new, but you should remember that the regular writers employed by the manufacturers have been reading and thinking for years in an effort to devise something new, and that they have been trained to do this very thing."

True, it is difficult to think out a plot that has not been done before; but this very fact, instead of discouraging the writer, should offer him the greater incentive to discover original ideas for his stories. That the manufacturers are once in a while forced to make over their old plays should convince the photoplaywright that they are more than willing to buy new ones if they are the kind they are looking for, and that he should study the market to see what the manufacturers want, and then write the kind they are looking for.

Lastly, we would say most emphatically that the staff-writers employed by the different companies have absolutely no advantage over the trained and intelligent free-lance author in the production of original plays. It is just as hard to think up original plots if one is on the salary list of one of the manufacturers as it is for you who do your work at home and turn out only one script a month. The important fact is, that the staff-writer would never have been offered the position he holds had not the editor recognized his ability to keep up a fairly steady output of plays with plots and technical points of more than average merit. He was an original writer before he became a member of the staff, not because he is in the employ of the producer.

The field is wide and growing, but nowhere is there room for untrained, incompetent, hit-or-miss dabblers. The man who is in earnest, who keeps in touch with what is going on in the trade, who watches the pictures to gain ideas and inspiration, who studies the life about him to find plot-suggestions and motives, and who, once started, keeps at it—working, working, working—cannot fail to find that his reward will justify the effort.