HOW TO WRITE A WORSTSELLER.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1144, 3 June 1911, Page 9

HOW TO WRITE A WORSTSELLER.

ilKcep in mind a belief that ablebodied males in America read books, and do. Pretend that women have no effect on our prevailing taste. ' Havo no hero at all. ■Make your villain a son of tho Cincinnati ; your adventuress a Daughter of the Revolution; and your too trusting heroine a Colonial Dame. ' «; Admit-,that man is a gambling animal ;'rimT Suggest that woman is a loving one. 'Introduce neither the most dissolute nobleman in Europe, nor the richest man in America, nor the most beautiful woman in the South. Ignore Europe and foreign travel generally; Work in flesh and blood instead of ink and pasteboard. Put into speech the actual woman. Introduce no characters from a typi-' cal villiage in New England, in the West, or even from Greenwich Village; no Wall Street atmosphere; no Long Island aniseseed; and no troubles of a climbing wife. .Neglect cabbage patches, men from home, and even the lights of Broadway. lie ironic. Avoid tho axe and tho diagram and tho plain lie and use tho rapier. Let your ironic rapier flash at home, not abroad. Prick the bubbles and the fools in your own bailiwick, not thoso overseas. Discover genius, anarchs of art, or even mere worth, while they live. Refuse the advice and example of your canny friends who proclaim only dead or European idols. Point out tho error, in taste and speech daily made by school teachers, settlement workers, and all thoso whom you must be sure to refer to as minders of other people's business. Cast a doubt on this being the finest country the world will ever see. Question whether we have realised tho ideal government, in public and private honesty, in tho police force. Refer to "the wooden walls of England" when discovering the basis of our intelligence. Point all your irony so subtly that not even the upstairs maid will understand and praise you with "Ain't he the sarcastic thing!" All of tho foregoing might, it is true, be condemned thus: Do your own thinking; Tell the truth; Write English. —Percival Pollard in the "Papyrus."