Читать книгу The Selected Works of Arnold Bennett: Essays, Personal Development Books & Articles - Arnold Bennett - Страница 60

The aspirant should study good models. I am acquainted with none which will be more useful to him than the ‘stories of Mr. H. G. Wells (The Plattner Story, &c., The Stolen Bacillus, &c:, Tales of Space and Time), and of Mr. R. Murray Gilchrist (A Peakland Faggot, &c., Nicholas and Mary, Natives of Milton). The latter excels in the very short story, of two thousand words or less. But it will be useless for the aspirant to imitate either these authors, or any other first-class authors, in anything except their technique. I recommend them for their technique, which is unsurpassed. In the invention of subject the aspirant must, after he has carefully studied the market, be guided solely by his own idiosyncrasy.

There is a heavy and constant demand for very short stories—“storyettes” as they are termed in the strange argot of the literary bourse. I know that some large buyers experience a difficulty in satisfactorily filling their orders. The reason is that the writer who has achieved any sort of position does not care to expend an “idea” on a two-thousand-word story at so much per thousand words, when at a trifling increase of trouble he can manufacture it into a four-thousand-word story at the same rate per thousand. Very short stories do not “pay” the writer who is able to dispose of his work easily. Hence the “storyette” is the peculiar field of the beginner. The principal buyers of this article are the newspaper syndicates: Messrs. Tillotson & Sons, Limited, Bolton, Lancashire; The National Press Agency, Limited, London; and The Northern Newspaper Syndicate, Kendal. Some halfpenny evening papers, one or two magazines, and very many weekly papers publish a “storyette” in every issue. M. A. P. and T.P.’s Weekly both publish short stories of a rather superior class. The remuneration for fifteen hundred or two thousand words varies from one to four guineas. Lloyds Newspaper, for instance, pays four guineas, T.P.’s Weekly three guineas, and a certain evening sheet one guinea. The chief syndicates are not niggards.