Submitting Your Story
Because literature is an art and you have a leaning toward it, do not therefore consider yourself a genius and so exempt from work. There is no royal road to success, and no one ever yet won a high place in the world of letters who did not earn it by the sweat of his brow. In these days literature is just as much a trade as boilermaking: it has its tools and its rules; and if one likes his occupation, he will naturally make better stories—or boilers. That is all there is to genius—the matter of aptitude for a certain thing; and even that can be to a great degree cultivated. If a man, with absolutely no knowledge of the tools and methods of the craft, attempt to make a boiler, he will create a deal of noise but no boilers, though he may be well pleased with his own efforts; and so it is with writing.
So even if your literary efforts are praised by friends and published by local editors, don’t get the idea into your head that the world at large is sighing for the products of your pen: it is far more likely that your friends’ encouragement is prompted rather by regard for you than by any real merit in your work, and that the editor’s chief desire is to get cheap copy. You will learn later that the truest estimate of your work comes from those who know you the least, and that usually criticism is valuable in inverse proportion to the regard which the critic has for you. If, however, you feel that, whatever the real worth of your present work, there is that within you which demands utterance, you will modestly accept this early adulation as prophetic of the true fame to come, and will go about your writing in all humility and seriousness, with that careful, plodding application which alone succeeds.
When finally putting your ideas into concrete form do not depend too much on the “moment of inspiration.” It is not my intention to ridicule this most valuable incentive to artistic work. I believe in it thoroughly when it is genuine, and I would advise you to take all advantage of it. Dash off your story as swiftly as you will—the swifter the better, for if it runs easily from your pen it stands a better chance of being spontaneous. But we are not all of us gifted with the ability to work in this manner, nor will all themes permit of such treatment. A short story that you can rush through at a sitting should be viewed with skepticism: either it is a perfect work of genius, and you have a Heaven-sent call to write; or, and more probably, it is too trite and trivial to justify the expenditure of serious labor upon it, and your “inspiration” was merely a flush of vanity. “As for trusting to the ‘inspired moment,’ or waiting for it, or deploring its delay, he (the young author) should take heed how he permits any such folly or superstition to clutch him in its vitiating grasp. ‘Inspiration’ either means, with a writer, good mental and physical health, or it has no meaning whatever…. Late hours and stimulants are especially fatal to the young writer when both are employed in the sense of literary co-adjutors.”
This dependence on genius and inspiration is one of the reasons why the world is so full of unliterary writers, and why so many of real talent fail of success. It is very easy, in the flush of composition, to consider yourself gifted above your fellows, and to go on writing reams of bosh that even you would despise, if you could view it with an unprejudiced eye; and it is equally easy to persuade yourself that anything that comes from your pen must be incapable of improvement, and that if your writings sell, you have reached the goal. But either delusion is fatal. In short, “inspiration” and all its attendant follies are but the conventional accompaniments of literary toil, which may be affected by the dilettante for the furthering of his pretense at art, but which have no place in the thoughts or plans of the serious worker.
Do not be afraid of the manual labor of authorship—the writing and rewriting, the testing and correcting, the persistent and thorough “licking into shape” which gives the final polish to your work. Never send an editor a penciled, smutched, and disorderly MS., with a note saying, “I just dashed this off last night and send it right on.” Such work is foredoomed to failure. But when your story is finished lay it away without even reading it over and let it get “cold;” leave it for a week, or two weeks, or even longer if possible—don’t even think of it; then bring it forth and read it over carefully and critically, take your blue pencil, harden your heart, and rework it ruthlessly. In the first draft you are bound to slight certain places or to make certain errors, which you would correct in the course of a careful revision. There will be some half-formed thought which will need elaboration, or some word which was not quite the right one, but which you let pass lest you lose your train of thought; and there is almost sure to be some wordiness which will need cutting away.
Finally, just before sending your story out for editorial consideration, go over it once more with the utmost care and painstakingly test every paragraph, every sentence, every word, to see first if it is necessary, and second if it is right. If at any point you find yourself questioning what you have written, do not call your work complete until you have revised it, not only to your own satisfaction, but so that you honestly feel that the reader, too, will be satisfied. If you cannot at the time arrive at a satisfactory expression of your thought, put the story aside for the time being and try again later when you can come to it afresh. It is this unwearied labor which in the end spells success.
This is an excerpt from the book Short Story Writing by Charles Raymond Barrett (1898). The work has been edited.
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