The demand for magazine stories is good, and of course it remains quite unaffected by the vicissitudes of trade, the rumours of war, and the preoccupation of politics. Last autumn I obtained some statistics from the editors of well-known magazines as to the number of short stories which they consumed in the course of a year. The figures were:—
| Strand Magazine | . . . | 62 |
| Pall Mall Magazine | . . . | 63 |
| Pearson's Magazine | . . . | 67 |
| Harpers Magazine | . . . | 88 |
The fiction-manager of Messrs. Tillotson’s syndicate informed me that he bought annually about two hundred short stories of various lengths.
The remuneration offered by the principal magazines varies from good to generous. Periodicals such as Pearson’s, Strand, and Windsor will pay as much as fifteen guineas to an unknown writer for a five-thousand-word story. - Cormhill pays a guinea a page, which is slightly less. The Pall Mall Magazine does not care to pay more than two pounds a thousand. The threepenny magazines can be induced to give thirty shillings a thousand. The aspirant should walk warily into the webs of magazines which have outlived their reputations or have never acquired a reputation. I know of one magazine with an ancient name whose fixed price for short stories is half a guinea—not per thousand words, but per story.
Chapter V
Sensational and Other Serials
The Serial Generally.
The serial story is becoming more and more a recognised feature of weekly and daily journalism. Even the weekly edition of The Times has its serial. Almost all the first class London weeklies, almost all the second class and inferior weeklies, almost all halfpenny dailies, London and provincial, and practically all provincial weekly papers, run serials. The magazines also run serials; but, in the matter of serials, the aspirant may ignore the magazines, and the more famous London weeklies too, as being beyond his reach. The lower class weeklies, however, and the London and provincial halfpenny dailies, and the provincial weeklies, should come within the purview of the ambitious aspirant. Quite recently I had cognisance of a case in which a beginner disposed of his first attempt at a serial to a London daily.
The majority of all serials, save those appearing in magazines and a few famous weeklies, pass through the hands of the three syndicates whose names I have given in the previous chapter. A director of one of these syndicates, a merchant who probably buys and sells more fiction than any other man in England, once told me that he divided serials into three classes—sensational, detective, and domestic; the second class is of course really a branch of the first; and he said that his favourite lengths were, for sensational serials twelve weekly instalments, for detective serials ten instalments, and for domestic serials fifteen instalments. The average length of an instalment is five thousand words.
Manufacturing a Sensational Serial.
Now we have here a forcible illustration of the general truth which I emphasised in Chapter III.—that length is a primary consideration. The conditions of newspaper production make it imperative that certain features of an issue should occupy a certain space, no more and no less. And experience has proved that readers tire more quickly of an acute, thrilling interest than of a mild interest Accordingly the number of divisions and of words in a serial has become fixed. The writer of a serial, therefore, if he wishes to succeed, must start out with the idea of a number of instalments, or compartments, of a given size. Since the syndicates are the chief buyers, he will do well to aim at the syndicates, who cater principally for provincial dailies and weeklies. Assuming that he proposes to undertake a sensational serial, he must always keep uppermost in his mind a plan-like arrangement of twelve compartments of five thousand words each. The central theme of his plot must be amplified in such a manner as to fill these compartments. The aim of a serial story is not merely to divert the reader line by line and chapter by chapter, but to induce him to buy the next number of the paper. Hence the good sensational serial has a "curtain,” that is to say, an exciting, unsolved situation, at the end of every instalment The good serial is a chain of episodes leading up to one grand climax—the determination of a destiny, the explanation of a mystery, or the detection of a crime; and it is also a series of groups of episodes, each closing with a partial climax.
The aspirant must never lose sight of this mechanical substructure, which is essential. A poor plot may prove saleable if it is handled in conformity with the rules; the best plot in the world will be fatally vitiated if the rules are transgressed.
Most serials, even the serials of “old hands,” are manufactured in the wrong way. The writers begin their plots at the beginning instead of at the end. They invent the mystery first and the explanation second. I am convinced that this is wrong. Sensational serials are a comparatively easy branch of fiction (for which reason I treat them next after short stories), provided they are handled with common-sense. The device of the serial is to present to the reader a problem. The problem consists of a number of various circumstances, some of which contain the means of solving the problem and some of which do not. The latter circumstances are made prominent in the opening of the story, and the former are made prominent towards the close. Now it is surely obvious that the difficulties of contriving the plot will be simplified, and the effectiveness of the plot increased, if the writer has begun by deciding what the end of the tale is. It must be more difficult to invent a crime or other event which will exactly fit a previously-fixed set of episodes, than to begin with a crime or other event and then surround it with suitable episodes; just as it is easier to fit a stick accurately into a hole in the ground by making the hole with the stick, than by making the hole with your finger and then cutting the stick to match the hole.
Consequently, when the popular author, asked by the ecstatic interviewer how he writes his wonderful stories, states, as he sometimes does, that he first gets his heroine into the most dreadful dilemma he can conceive and then proceeds to get her out again, he shows that he is a clumsy workman who has not properly mastered his craft.
Some Points.
In working out the details of the plot of a sensational serial, the beginner should attend to the following points:—
(1) There must be no preliminaries. The story itself must start at once, in the first few lines, and by the end of the first instalment not only must it be in full career, but all explanations must have been disposed of.
(2) It is unwise to have too many interests or too many characters. A main plot and a sub-plot will be sufficient The more completely the main interest is centralised in one or two characters the better.
(3) On the other hand frequent and vividly contrasted changes of scene are advisable.
(4) The sensational serial makes no pretence of realism. Therefore avoid all truthful subtlety of characterisation and dialogue. Draw the characters broadly. Make the heroines beautiful, the heroes brave, the villains villainous, and the conversations terse and theatrical.
(5) Incident must be evenly and generously