(7) Avoid scenes of squalor or poverty, except as an occasional foil to the atmosphere of wealth and splendour which should for the most part prevail.
(8) Rouse the reader’s curiosity and leave it unsatisfied at the end of every instalment, except, of course, the last.
There is plenty of scope, even within these prescribed conditions, for the exercise of the inventive and constructive faculties, and of the imagination. I can find no reason why the sensational serial should not be deemed a legitimate form of literary art, and I would advise the cultured aspirant not to pour out his scorn upon it. As a training in plot construction and in narrative, the composition of sensational serials is decidedly valuable.1
Sensational serials sell at moderate prices. The syndicates will rise to thirty shillings per thousand when they are “well suited”; but a more ordinary rate of pay is a pound per thousand, and this, having regard to the fact that sensational stuff, after it is planned out, can be written very quickly, is not an inadequate return to an unknown author. It is quite possible for a sixty-thousand - word serial to be written in a month, and I have heard several serialists boast that they compose on the average five or six thousand words a day. A serialist with a reputation will naturally command higher wages than a serialist without a reputation, and his prices sometimes ascend to six pounds a thousand—seldom higher.
The aspirant should note that some of the largest newspaper firms keep a regular expert in serials, whose duty it is to discuss plots with the authors of plots, and to supply ideas, suggest improvements, and generally act as literary uncle to the author. This system is, in my opinion, of doubtful advantage to the newspapers, and it puts the author, who never knows when his work is done, indubitably at a disadvantage.
Domestic and Other Serials.
Not much needs to be said about domestic serials. The same general rules of composition apply to them as to sensational serials, though in a milder form. They must interest from instalment to instalment, but they must not excite. A large class of people positively resent being thrilled by a work of fiction, and the domestic serial is meant to appeal to this class. The theme must relate to love, and it must be treated sentimentally. The demand for purely domestic serials by unknown authors is not a brisk one.
Boys’ serials form a separate minor branch of the craft They may be divided into two classes—stories of school life and stories of adventure in foreign lands. They always ignore the subject of love. The principal boys’ papers are The Boys' Own Paper and The Captain. Prices are not brilliant and since the market is a limited one, it has a tendency to become the monopoly of a few writers. Similar remarks apply to serials for girls, except that the editors of periodicals for girls will not have really adventurous serials, despite the notorious fact that girls enjoy boys’ books more than boys enjoy them. The one mistake of policy in that admirably conducted periodical, The Girls' Own Paper, has been that it never ran a serial by the late G. A. Henty.
There remains one other class of serial—the novel of the famous author which is published serially, not because it is specially suitable for a serial, but because it is not entirely unsuitable, and because the author’s name will insure for it a favourable reception. When the aspirant has arrived at the state of being famous, he may compose without trammelling himself by instalments, regular partial climaxes, or fixed quantities of words. If his fame is sufficiently dazzling, and his work is fairly optimistic and cheerful, he will find that editors are prepared to waive in his favour even the sternest rules of serialisation.
Novelettes.
The novelette is the least glorious form of imaginative literature. It is issued in paper covers, usually at a penny, and may be said to be neither a serial nor a book. I have practised nearly every form of literary composition, but not the novelette, and my remarks on it are therefore not based on personal experience. I have, however, obtained information from professional novelettists.
The length of the novelette varies from 13,500 to 40,000 words; the average is 25,000 words. There are two varieties—the love tale and the religious love tale. The aspirant who wishes to make the experiment of writing a novelette should spend sixpence in a few samples. The principal publishers of them are Messrs. Harmsworth, Homer, Brett, Henderson, Shurey, and the Aldine Press of London, Buxton of Manchester (“The Halfpenny Novelette’'), Hey-wood of Manchester, and Leng of Dundee (“Aunt Kate’s Penny Novels”). The aspirant will perceive that these amiable inventions appeal to an extremely low but extremely virtuous order of intelligence, and that they consist of what the superior person would call sheer drivel. But what is one woman’s drivel is another woman’s George Eliot. All literary excellence is comparative.
The rate of remuneration for novelettes is not princely. It varies from two guineas to thirteen guineas for 25,000 words; that is, from one shilling and eight pence to about eleven shillings per thousand. The religious novelette commands the smallest price. As one novelettist epigrammatically put it to me: “The smaller the pay, the more of the Gospel.”
These figures may startle the inexperienced. It must be admitted, however, that the amount of brains necessary to the manufacture of a novelette does not greatly surpass the amount of money paid for it. Those who are capable of more skilful work should attempt it, but there must be a number of women, perhaps clever women, who have a slight literary faculty and just enough brains to spare from other work to concoct a dozen or so novelettes per annum; such women may care to attempt the enterprise, and to accept the trifling reward.
I am assured that there is a large and steady demand for novelettes, and that a practised novelettist with a good connection may rely on continuous employment. Three thousand words of a novelette can be comfortably written in a working day of five hours, and the maximum income of the profession seems to be about three hundred a year.
1. The beginner should study the works of Dumas the elder and of Eugene Sue. Also More New Arabian Nights, by R. L. Stevenson; Armadale, by Wilkie Collins; Cold Steel, by Mr. M. P. Shiel; Dracula, by Mr. Bram Stoker; Monsieur Lecoq, by Emile Gaboriau; and The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter, by E. A. Poe. The most popular newspaper serialists of the day are Mr. Richard Marsh, Mrs. C. N. Williamson, Mr. W. Le Queux, and Miss Esther Miller.
Chapter VI
The Novel
The Sustained Effort.
It is much easier to begin a novel than to finish it This statement applies to many enterprises, but to none with more force than to a long art-work such as a novel or a play. In the first place, a novel or a play should raise an interesting issue, and settle that issue in a convincing and satisfactory manner. And obviously the former part of the task presents fewer difficulties than the latter. Herein lies the reason why the last act of an average play is nearly always the worst, and why more people read the first chapter of a novel than read the last. In the second place, the sustained effort necessary for the composition of a novel or a play is really very considerable. Even the twenty thousand words of a four-act play cannot be decently achieved by an intelligence that has not been self-trained to stedfastness. And the eighty thousand words’ of a novel imply extraordinary dogged perseverance in an exhausting emotional endeavour. Instead of losing power as he proceeds, the novelist must be continually drawing on his reserves for additional power. He must “work himself up” at the start, and not once can he allow himself to descend from the lofty plane of emotional excitement on which alone creative work is properly accomplished. He cannot see all his work at once as the painter sees his canvas. Imagine the technical difficulties of a painter whose canvas was always being rolled off one stick on to another stick and who was compelled to do his picture inch by inch,