When Writing Articles

There are two main difficulties in writing an article; one is to get a good beginning, the other is to get a good ending. If you know your subject well (and it is useless to write on a subject you do not know well), it is wonderful how the middle portion takes care of itself in comparison with the care that has to be bestowed on the entrance and exit.

I have seen amateurs write and write and re-write their opening paragraphs (with intervals of perplexed pen-nibbling in between), crossing out a sentence as soon as they put it down, interpolating fresh ideas that ran off at a tangent, suddenly jumping back a hundred years or so in their anxiety to start at the very beginning of the subject—and finally tearing up their by-now-unreadable MS., and commencing all over again.

Here are two methods by which you may more easily get under way—and the great thing is to get under way, and write something, then you at least have a concrete MS. to pull to pieces and re-arrange and hammer into shape. It is the blank paper, or the page you have crossed out and then torn up in despair, that is so irritatingly non-productive!

Settle your Chronological Starting-point—and Stick to it

Decide, before you write a line, the exact point in the life-story of your subject at which you will start. Remember that it is impossible to say everything about it, or give the whole of its history; therefore settle quickly what can safely be left out concerning its antecedents and early childhood without detriment to the subject as a whole.

Once you have made up your mind as to the precise chronological starting point, stick to it (half the initial trouble of getting into your subject will be over if you do); and do not in the course of a few paragraphs hark back to some previous happening or era, because you have suddenly remembered something that might be made to bear on the subject.

The way anxious writers will endeavour to tell every mortal thing that can be told regarding the most distant prehistoric family connections of their subject, is on a par with a certain type of chairman at a meeting, who will persist in dilating on the sayings and doings of his great-grandfather instead of dealing with the topic in hand.

If I ask the untrained amateur to write me an article on "The Use of Pigeons in War," the chances are all in favour of his starting with the Ark, and talking for several paragraphs round the Dove with the olive branch. By a natural and easy transition, he would presently be quoting, "Oh for the wings of a dove!" Pliny's doves would have an innings, the London pigeons of St. Paul's have honourable mention, the ornithological significance of the botanical term Aquilegia might be touched upon, with other equally irrelevant or far-fetched allusions to the Columbæ as a whole; and all this before any really serviceable information is forthcoming under the heading specified.

This is no exaggerated picture; it is the type of article frequently submitted, and is due to a writer's lack of an instinct for selection, and his determination to leave nothing unsaid. In the end, he of course leaves a great deal unsaid, because the inevitable limitations of an article make it impossible to give so much past history and still find room to say what should be said about the present-day aspect. The space is gone before the writer has barely got there!

And because of this tendency to expend too much ink at the beginning on details that are too far removed from the central point of interest to be worth recording, I will give another hint that may occasionally prove useful.

When in Doubt—Begin in the Middle

When in doubt where to start, begin in the middle; i.e. attack the subject where the interest seems to focus; or launch out without any preliminary whatever, into the very heart of the matter. It is quite possible it may prove to be the beginning!

The desirability of shaping an article according to the definite rules of form was dealt with on page 136. A careful planning of the form beforehand will help the writer to keep his article properly balanced, and to avoid over-weighting it unduly with unimportant data at the outset.

When you have Finished—Leave off

With regard to the wind-up of an article, here again the writer has much in common with the speaker, and happy is he who knows instinctively just when to leave off. So few do!

Failing an instinctive perception of the right ending, or the desirable climax, the writer can deliberately plan one and then work up to it. And it is well to plan it fairly early, in order to make the whole of the article gravitate toward this finale.

It is the Final Impression that Counts

In writing, as in so many other things, it is the final impression that counts. The reader's attitude of mind, when he comes to the end of the last page, is a powerful factor in settling your success as a writer. If you end lamely, with non-effective sentences, or with pointless indecision—if, in short, the reader does not feel he has got somewhere or achieved something by reading the article, he will not be remarkably keen on anything else you may write.

The beginner seldom pauses to inquire: What is my object in writing this article? If I were to put the question to a number of would-be authors, and they replied truthfully, they would say, "To see myself in print," or, "To make money"; yet I cannot reiterate too often that what we write must have more in the way of backbone than this. The reason that thousands of MSS. are returned to the senders every year is because those senders had no other object in view, apart from money-making or getting into print.

Decide therefore on a more useful object—useful, that is, from the reader's point of view. The reader does not care one iota whether you are going to make money, or whether you now see yourself in print for the first time. The point he is concerned with is what he himself gets out of his reading—whether he has been amused and entertained, or has gained information, or a new light on an old subject, or a spiritual uplift, or useful facts, or some fresh interest, or a soothing narcotic for an anxious brain.

And you must have some such object in mind, when you plan the shortest article, no less than when you scheme out a novel.

In writing the article on "The Use of Pigeons in War" your object might be the giving of information that would be fresh to the public (and we never need trouble to tell them that which they know already); information calculated to increase their knowledge of the ways in which we waged the great war for the world's freedom, and also to give them a new interest in these wonderful birds. Bearing all this in mind, it will be seen at once that the preamble about the Ark would be quite unnecessary, since it would convey no new information whatever.

Mere recapitulation of ancient well-known facts is never desirable, outside a text-book.

Keep an Eye on Topicality

Topicality has often much to do with the acceptance of an article; but the beginner seldom takes this point into consideration. The finest article one could write would be turned down if the subject were out of date—and twenty-four hours make all the difference. We move at such express speed, and events hurry past at such a rapid rate, that the article an editor would jump at to-day may be useless to him to-morrow; the book that would be marketable this season may be unsaleable next.

Of course this does not apply to every MS., but it does to a good many, and particularly in regard to articles for periodicals. If you think your subject will have special interest for the public at the moment—send it at once, and if it is the burning question of the day, send it to a newspaper rather than to a magazine, remembering that magazines have to go to press some weeks before the date of publication. If a magazine editor receives your MS. January 1st, the very earliest he could get it into his magazine would probably be April, and the chances are he would have everything planned and set up until May. In the Girls' Own Paper and Woman's Magazine, for instance, the final sheet of the September number has to be passed for press the first week in June.

Bearing these facts in mind, you will realise that it is useless to send an article on a Christmassy subject to an editor in November. His Christmas number was probably put together in August, and by November it is travelling by train or steamer, bullock-wagon or native carrier, to distant parts of the world.

Articles that are not Wanted

And I must mention another fault common with beginners. It is useless to offer articles that are nothing more than a réchauffé of encyclopædic facts. Any schoolboy can string together text-book information, and compile facts from other people's works.

If your article is on an old-established theory, or some well-known theme, you must contribute some new personal experience, if it is to be of any worth. Readers will not pay for books or articles that contain nothing but what they could write themselves, given the time and the works of reference.

Then, again, it is useless to choose a subject merely because it appeals to you personally; if there is no likelihood of its appealing to the majority of the readers, it is valueless to an editor.

Study the Readers' Preference no less than your Own

The business of writing is like every other business in that self-effacement may contribute much to success. The good business man does not spend his time talking about his own tastes and achievements and preferences; he keeps an eye on what interests his customers and talks about that.

The good writer does not write merely to air his own likes and dislikes and grievances, or to impress people with his own attainments and good fortune; he keeps his eye on what interests his readers (who are his customers) and follows this up in some degree in his writings.

This need not mean any relinquishing of personal ideals, or pandering to cheap tastes. The readers' ideals may be as high—or even higher—than yours; their tastes may be quite as refined—but they are not necessarily the same as yours. Therefore, study what will interest them to read rather than what it will interest you that they should read. Think it out, and you will find there may be a world of difference between the two.

Send Suitable Articles to Likely Magazines

Writers are often told to study the type of articles appearing in the magazine in which they are anxious to see their own work published. This is very sound advice. The unsuitabilities that are offered at times are past counting. A man wrote recently to the editor of a prominent Missionary Monthly: "I notice you have no chess columns in your paper. I could supply one regularly, and I assure you it would help your circulation considerably." For the Woman's Magazine I have been offered murder stories of the most lurid and revolting character; articles on "Seal-hunting in the Arctic as a Sport," "Curiosities in Kite-Flying," "The Making of Modern Motor Roads," and others equally outside the range of women's activities even in these days of wide-flung doors.

Editors do not want Repeat-Subjects as a Rule

Avoid offering articles on subjects that have already been dealt with in a periodical. Unless you have unique and valuable information to add to that already given, space cannot be spared to repeat matter. Moreover, the public does not want to pay twice for the same thing—and that is what it would amount to.

It is no recommendation to write to an editor, "I see you have an article on 'Glow-worms as a Hat-Trimming' in your last issue; I am therefore sending you another article on the same subject." Unless you have some new and really informing data to contribute, the probability is that you would only be covering the same ground as the previous writer.

Neither are you likely to get your MS. accepted if you write, "I have read the article on 'Glow-worms' in your last issue, and disagree with many of the statements made therein. Far from glow-worms being things of elusive beauty and suggestive of fairyland, as your contributor calls them. I regard them as noxious pests. I have written my views in detail, and hope you will be able to publish the article in your next issue to counteract the wrong impression that the other one conveyed."

Now, an editor to a large extent identifies himself with the views expressed in the pages of the paper he edits. And had he not approved of the statements made, he would not have been inclined to print them in an ordinary non-controversial paper. Is it likely, then, that he would want another contribution calmly informing his readers that the previous article was entirely wrong and unreliable?

On The Subject of "How to——"

Most editors are overdone with the usual "How to—" articles. The public has by now been told "How to" do everything under the sun, I am inclined to think; but if you feel it laid upon your soul to impart still further instruction—try to find a fresh form of title.

Do not choose too big a subject. "Heaven," "Human Nature," "Eternity," and kindred themes are beyond the powers of any mortal—much less the beginner.

Get right away from hackneyed phrases and allusions. So many MSS. are peppered throughout with such expressions as "all sorts and conditions"; "common or garden"; "let us return to our muttons"; "tell it not in Gath"; "but we must not anticipate."

If you feel drawn to write an essay on "Friendship," it is not necessary to start with David and Jonathan; they have already been mentioned—more than once, in fact—in this connection. Neither is it desirable, when writing about Jerusalem to quote, "a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid."

Variety is always pleasing, and editors do like to come upon something, occasionally, that they have not read more than a dozen times before.