Kitabı oku: «The Fiction Factory», sayfa 3

V

NICKEL THRILLS AND

DOLLAR SHOCKERS.

The word "sensational" as applied to fiction has been burdened with an opprobrium which does not rightfully belong to it. Ignorance and prejudice and hypocrisy have conspired to defame a very worthy word.

Certain good but misguided people will turn shudderingly from a nickel novel and complacently look for thrills in a "best seller." Often and often the "best seller" is to be had for 95 cents or $1 at the department stores. Not infrequently it spills more blood than the nickel thriller, but the blood is spilled on finer paper, and along with it are idealized pictures of heroine and hero done by the best artists.

As a matter of course the dollar dreadful is better done. The author probably took six months or a year to do it, and if it is well advertised and proves a success he reaps a modest fortune. On the other hand, the nickel novel is written in three days or a week and brings the author $50. Why shouldn't the dollar book show a higher grade of craftmanship? But is it less vicious than the novel that sells for five cents? To draw the matter still finer, is either form of fiction vicious?

If we turn to Webster and seek a definition of "sensational" we find: "Suited or intended to excite temporarily great interest or emotion; melodramatic; emotional."

This does not mean that sensational writing is vicious writing. It is wrong to classify as vicious or degrading the story of swift action and clean ethics, or to compare it with that prurient product of the slums which deals with problems of sex.

The tale that moves breathlessly but logically, that is built incident upon incident to a telling climax with the frankly avowed purpose to entertain, that has no questionable leanings or immoral affiliations – such a tale speeds innocently an idle hour, diverts pleasantly the harrassed mind, freshens our zeal for the duties of life, and occasionally leaves us with higher ideals.

We are all dreamers. We must be dreamers before we are doers. If some of the visions that come to us in secret reverie were flaunted in all their conceit and inconsistency before the world, not one of us but would be the butt of the world's ridicule. And yet, out of these highly tinted imaginings springs the impulse that carries us to higher and nobler things.

A difference in the price of two commodities does not necessarily mark a moral difference in the commodities themselves. The Century Magazine sells for 35 cents, while The Argosy sells for 10 cents. You will be told that The Century is "high class" and with a distinct literary flavor, perhaps that it is more elevating. Even so; yet which of these magazines is doing more to make the world really livable? Ask the newsdealer in your town how many Centuries he sells, and how many Argosies.

Readers are not made for the popular magazines, but the popular magazines are made for the people. Unless there was a distinct and insistent demand for this sort of entertainment, so many all-story magazines, priced at a dime, could not exist.

Nickel thrillers cater largely to a juvenile clientele. Taking them by and large – there are a few exceptions, of course – they are as worthy of readers as the dime magazines; and many a serial in a dime magazine has been republished in cloth and made into a "best seller."⁴

Why is it that, if a lad in his teens robs a jewelry store and is apprehended, almost invariably the newspaper report has a bundle of nickel libraries found in his pocket? Why a nickel library and not a "yellow" newspaper?

The standard of judgment which places a nickel novel in the heart-side pocket of the young degenerate, harks back to a period when "yellow-back" literature was really vicious; it is a judgment by tradition, unsupported by present-day facts. The world moves, and as it moves it grows constantly better. Reputable publishers of cheap fiction have elevated the character of their output until now some of the weekly stories they publish are really admirable; in many instances they are classics.

A few years ago, at a convention of Sunday School teachers at Asbury Park, N. J., a minister boldly praised the "Diamond Dick" stories. He declared that while action rattled through the pages of these tales like bullets from a Gatling, he had found nothing immoral in them, nothing suggestive, nothing to deprave. The lawless received their just reward and virtue emerged triumphant. It was his thought that a few "Diamond Dick" stories might, with benefit, take the place, in Sunday School libraries, of the time-honored book in which the boy goes a-fishing on Sunday and falls into the river.

One of the "Frank Merriwell" stories tells of a sensitive, shrinking lad at an academy who was hazed into a case of pneumonia from which he died. The hero breaks the news of the boy's death to his widowed mother and comforts her in her bereavement. From beginning to end the story is told with a sympathy, and such a thorough understanding of boy-nature, that the hold on the juvenile reader is as strong as the theme is uplifting.

This is not "trash." It is literature sold at a price which carries it everywhere, and the result is untold good.

The fact remains, however, that not every publisher of nickel novels has so high a standard. The paternal eye, in overseeing the fiction of the young, must be discriminating. Blood-and-thunder has had its day; but, if the rising generation is not to be a race of mollycoddles, care must be exercised in stopping short of the other extreme.

The life of today sets a pattern for the fiction of to-day. The masses demand rapid-fire action and good red brawn in their reading matter. Their awakened moral sense makes possible the muck-raker; and when they weary of the day's evil and the day's toil, it is their habit to divert themselves with pleasant and exciting reading. And it must be CLEAN.

VI

MAKING GOOD

BY HARD WORK.

With the beginning of the year 1894 Edwards was learning the knack of the nickel novel and its ten-cent brother, and making good with his New York publishers. During 1893 the work he turned in was of fair quality, but he was not satisfied with that and labored to improve. Each succeeding story came nearer and nearer the high mark. Believing that whatever is worth doing is worth doing well, he was constantly asking himself, "How can I make my next story better than the one I have just finished?" The publishers helped him. Every manuscript submitted was read personally by Mr. Perkins, and brought a letter dissecting the story and stating which incidents were liked, and why, and which incidents were not liked, and why. Edwards feels that he can never be sufficiently grateful to Mr. Perkins for this coaching in the gentle art of stalking a reader's elusive interest.

Had Edwards remained a paymaster in the employ of the contracting firm, he would have received $1,200 for his services in 1893. He severed his connection with his paymaster's salary in June, and at the end of the year his Fiction Factory showed these results:

In other words, Edwards had taken out of his Fiction Factory $625 more than his salary as paymaster would have amounted to for the year. He felt vastly relieved, and his wife laughingly fell back on her woman's prerogative of saying "I told you so." This was a good beginning, and Edwards felt sure that he would be able to do even better during 1894. He was coming along splendidly with the Ten-Cent Library work. On Jan. 30 Mr. Perkins paid this tribute to his growing powers:

"I have just finished reading your story, 'Dalton's Double,' which I find to be as good as anything you have given us. I must compliment you upon the varied incident which you cram into these stories, of a nature that is well suited to them."

It was Edwards' custom to forward a Ten-Cent Library story every two weeks, and there were months in which he wrote three stories, taking ten days for each one. As these stories were 40,000 words in length, three in thirty days were equivalent to 120,000 words.

During 1893 he wrote his stories twice: first a rough draft and then the printer's copy. In 1894 he began making his first copies clean enough for the compositor. Had he not done this he could never have accomplished such a large amount of work.

On April 10, when everything was going swimmingly and he was taking in $300 a month for the library work, he was brought up short in his career of prosperity. Mr. Perkins wrote him to finish the story upon which he was engaged and then to stop the library work until further orders. It had been decided to use "re-prints" in the series. This could very easily be done as the Library had been published for years and some of the earlier stories could be brought out again without injuring the sale. The letter, which was a profound disappointment to Edwards, closed as follows:

"I regret the necessity of curtailing your work, for I am entirely satisfied with it, and if we did not find it necessary to adopt the measure referred to above, with a view to decreasing expenses during the summer months and dull season, I should have wished to have you continue right along. I have no doubt that you will be able to find a place for your material in the meantime."

This fell upon Edwards like a bolt from a clear sky. He began to regret his "paymaster crutch" and to imagine dire things. He had been giving his time almost exclusively to Harte & Perkins, and had lost touch with publications for which he had been writing previous to 1893. Where, he asked himself, was he to place his material in the meantime?

There is little sentiment in business. Harte & Perkins, whenever they find a line of work is not paying, will cut it off at an hour's notice, by telegraph if necessary. The man receiving the telegram, of course, can only make the best of it. This is a point which Edwards has always disliked about the work for publishers of this class of fiction: the writer, no matter how prosperous he may be at any given time, is always in a state of glorious uncertainty.

But Edwards fell on his feet. It so happened that he had sent to Harte & Perkins, some time before, copies of Saturday Night containing two of his stories. He had done this in the attempt to prove to them that he could write for The Weekly Guest, their story paper. This little incident shows how important it is for a writer to get as many anchors to windward as possible.

Eight days after being cut off from the library work, Edwards received a letter from Mr. Harte. Mr. Perkins had left New York on business, but had turned over the printed work in Saturday Night for Mr. Harte's inspection before leaving. Mr. Harte wrote, in part:

"I like your work in Saturday Night, and think we shall be able to give you a commission for a Weekly Guest story, provided you can lend yourself successfully to our suggestions as to style, etc., and give us permission to publish under any of the pen names we use in the office.

We want a story of the Stella Edwards type. We send you to-day one or two samples of the class of work desired, so that you may be able to see just what it is. If you can do the work, we shall be pleased to send you a title and plot, with synopsis. You can then write us two installments for a trial, and, if satisfactory, I have no doubt we could arrange to give you a quantity of work in this line.

I feel, after reading the samples you submitted, that you will be able to meet our requirements in this class of story. The two stories we send you are the work of a masculine pen, and though not so easy to lose one's identity in literary work, this class of story does not seem to present the ordinary difficulties; at least, that is the testimony of our authors who have tried it."

Edwards was booked to attempt a gushing love story, to follow a copy and make it appear as though a woman had done the writing! Quite a jump this, from a rapid-fire Ten-Cent Library story for young men to a bit of sentimental fiction for young women. However, he went at it, and he went at it with a determination to make good. It was either that or go paymastering again.

On April 24 he received title, synopsis and plot of "Bessie, the Beautiful Blind Girl," and began charging himself with superheated sentiment preparatory to beginning his work. The popular young lady authoress, "Stella Edwards," whose portrait in a decollete gown had been so often flaunted in the eyes of "her" public, was a myth. The "stuff" supposedly written by the charming "Stella Edwards" was ground out by men who were versatile enough to befool women readers, with a feminine style. Edwards, it transpired, was able to do this successfully for a time, but ultimately he failed to round off the rough corners of a style too decidedly masculine for "Miss Edwards." But this is anticipating.

On May 3 he had sent the two trial installments, and from New York came the word:

"We like the two opening installments of 'Bessie, the Beautiful Blind Girl.' The style is good, the action brisk and sensational and of a curiosity-arousing character.

It is our belief that you are capable of presenting a desirable variation from the former Stella Edwards' stories, by introducing romantic incidents of a novel and more exalted character.

In most of the other Stella Edwards' yarns there was little plot and the action was rarely varied. The action comprised the pursuit and capture, the recapture and loss of the heroine, she being constantly whirled, like a shuttle-cock, from the hero to the villain, then to the female villain, then back again to the hero for a few tantalizing moments, and so on to the end.

You can readily improve upon this by introducing scenes a little more fresh, and far more interesting.

It is about time for Stella to improve, and we believe you are just the man to make her do better work.

Go on with the story and force our readers to exclaim, 'Well, that's the best story Stella has written!'"

While Edwards was deep in the sorrows of "Bessie, the Beautiful Blind Girl," he received from his publishers on May 10 orders which hurled him headlong into another "Stella Edwards" yarn.

"Owing to a change in our publishing schedule of Guest stories, it will be necessary to anticipate the issue of 'Bessie, the Beautiful Blind Girl' by another story of the same type, sixteen installments, same as the one you are now working on. The title of this new story will be 'The Bicycle Belle,' and will deal with the bicycle as the matter of central interest in the first installment or two. I send you a synopsis of the story prepared by one of our editors. This will simply give you an idea of one way of developing the theme. It does not, however, suit our plans, and we will ask you to invent something quite different."

Always and ever Harte & Perkins kept their fingers on the pulse of their reading public. The safety bicycle was the fashion, in those days, and Harte & Perkins were usually first to exploit a fashion or a fad in their story columns. Whenever they had a story with a particularly popular and striking theme, it was their habit to flood the country with sample copies of The Weekly Guest, breaking off a generous installment of the serial in such a breathless place that the reader was forced to buy succeeding issues of the Guest in order to get the rest of the story. So that is what the change in their publishing schedule meant. They wanted to boom the circulation of the Guest with a bicycle story.

Edwards shelved Bessie the beautiful at the 7th installment and threw himself into the tears, fears and chivalry of "The Bicycle Belle." This was on May 12. Three days later, on May 15, he forwarded two installments of the bicycle story for Harte & Perkins' inspection. On May 16, before these installments had reached the publishers, Edwards was requested as follows:

"As we shall not be able to begin, in the Guest, your story, 'Bessie, the Beautiful Blind Girl,' until after January the first, next, it will be well to change the scene to a winter setting. This can be very easily done in the two installments that we have on hand, if you will make a note of it and keep it up for the balance of the story. In the first installment we will show the girl leaping into the river with a few cakes of ice floating about, and in the scene where she is expelled from the house there will be plenty of snow. It will make a more effective picture and be more seasonable for the story."

More trouble! Harte & Perkins had two installments, and did not seem to know that Edwards had five more installments on hand, pending the completion of the bicycle yarn. But he was ready to turn summer into winter, or day into night, in order to make good. On May 18 he received a report on the two installments of the bicycle story.

"The two installments of 'The Bicycle Belle' have been read and approved by our editor, who says that the story opens very well, with plenty of animated action, briefly yet graphically pictured. You seem to have caught our idea exactly, and we would be pleased to have you go ahead with the story, finishing it before you again take up 'Bessie, the Beautiful Blind Girl.'"

On June 3 Edwards sent installments three to sixteen of the bicycle story, which was the complete manuscript. Ten days later he was informed:

"'The Bicycle Belle' is crowded with dramatic action and is just what we want. In the next it would be well to have a little more of the female element just to demonstrate that 'Stella Edwards' is up-to-date."

None the less pleasant was this news, contained in a letter dated June 18:

"We have placed to your credit, upon our books, the sum of three hundred dollars in payment for 'The Bicycle Belle,' which will be the figure for all this class of stories from your pen which are accepted for The Weekly Guest."

Up to that time this was the most money Edwards had ever received for a serial story, and very naturally he felt elated. Under date of June 20 he wrote Harte & Perkins and told them that he was planning a trip East as soon as he had finished with "Bessie, the Beautiful Blind Girl." He received a cordial invitation from the publishers to come on as soon as possible as they had something which they particularly wanted him to do for them.

The story of the blind girl was forwarded on June 30. A flaw was discovered in it and several installments were returned for correction – not a serious flaw, indeed, but one which necessitated a little revision. The revision made, the story passed at once to acceptance.

In July Edwards was in New York and called personally upon Harte & Perkins. He found them pleasant and capable gentlemen – all that his fancy had pictured them through months of correspondence. Inasmuch as it was Edwards' first visit to the metropolis, he studied the city with a view to using it in some of his fiction.

The special work which Mr. Harte wanted Edwards to do for the firm was a story of which he gave the salient features. It was to be written in the best Archibald Clavering Gunter style.

As Edwards had imitated successfully the mythical "Stella Edwards," he was now confronted with the more trying task of imitating the style of a popular living author. He read Gunter from "Barnes of New York" down; and then, when completely saturated with him, turned off two installments of "The Brave and Fair" and sent them on. He was visiting in Michigan, at the time, and a letter under date of August 20, reached him while he was still in that state.

"I have just finished reading the two installments of 'The Brave and Fair.' I think you have made a very good opening indeed. It reads smoothly and seems to me to be very much in Gunter's light narrative style, which is what we are after. It remains to be seen whether you can get as close to Gunter in what might be called his tragedy vein as opposed to the comedy vein, which you have successfully worked up in these two installments."

"The Brave and Fair," going forward to the publishers piece by piece, seemed to arouse their enthusiasm. "We have read up to installment eight. It is fine! Full of heroic action! Bristling with exciting scenes!" When the completed manuscript was in the publishers' hands, on October 20, there came another complimentary letter.

"'The Brave and Fair' bristled with exciting action to the close.

The best incidents in it are those descriptive of Chub Jones' heroic self-sacrifice. In our opinion, this stands out as the gem of the story, because it makes the reader's heart bound with admiration for the little hero."

Hundreds of thousands of sample copies of The Weekly Guest, with first chapters of this story, were scattered all over the land. Later, the book was issued in paper covers. Harte & Perkins paid the author $500 for the story, then ordered another of the same type for which he was given $450.

These stories were written under a nom de plume which Harte & Perkins had copyrighted. The nom de plume was their property and could not be appropriated by any other publisher. Edwards wrote three of the yarns, and a friend of his wrote others.

All the year Edwards had been patted on the back. On Dec. 14 came a blow between the eyes. He had been commissioned to write another "Stella Edwards" rhapsody, but was overconfident and did not take time to surround himself with the proper "Stella Edwards" atmosphere. Two installments went forward, and this letter came back:

"I have just finished reading 'Two Hearts Against the World.' I regret to say that the story will not do, and it would be as well for you not to attempt to remodel it. In other words, the way you are handling the subject is not satisfactory to us and is not a question of minor detail. We shall be obliged to give this work into other hands to do. The story, as far as it goes, is wildly improbable and has a lack of cohesion in the incident. I think you wrote it hurriedly, and without mature thought. These stories have to seem probable even if they deal with unusual events."

There was bitterness in that, not so much because Edwards had lost $300 but because he had failed to make good. His pride suffered more than his pocket. Later, however, he wrote some more "Stella Edwards" stories for Harte & Perkins and they were highly praised; but that type of fiction was not his forte.

The year 1894 closed with Harte & Perkins giving Edwards a chance at a new five-cent weekly they were starting. It was merely a shift from The Weekly Guest back to the libraries again.

His work for Harte & Perkins, during the year, showed as follows:

The work tabulated above approximates 850,000 words, and takes no account of work sold to other publishers. By industry alone Edwards had secured a fair income.

W. Bert Foster, a friend of Edwards', who for twenty-five years has kept a story-mill of his own busily grinding with splendid success, has this to say about a slip he once made in his early years:

"When I was a young writer I sold a story to a juvenile paper. It was published. And not until the boys began to write in about it did either the editor or I discover that I had my hero dying of thirst on a raft in Lake Michigan!"