XXIV.
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH IT?
Edwards wrote only one serial story during 1910, and turned his hand to that merely to bring up the financial returns and leave a safe margin for expenses. Nickel novels, a few short stories, a novelette for The Blue Book and the lengthening of two stories for paperbook publication comprised the year’s work. He “soldiered” a little, but when a writer “soldiers” he is not necessarily idle. Edwards’ thoughts were busy, and the burden of his reflections was this: Heaven had endowed him with a small gift of plot and counter-plot, and a little art for getting it into commercial form; but were his meager talents producing for him all that they should? Was the purely commercial aim, although held to with a strong sense of moral responsibility, the correct aim? After a score of years of hard work did he find himself progressing in any but a financial direction? Forgetting the past and facing the future with eyes fixed at a higher angle, how was he to proceed with his “little gift of words?” What should he do with it?
In the bright summer afternoons Edwards would walk out of his Fiction Factory and make a survey of it from various points. He was always so close to his work that he lost the true perspective. He was familiar with the minutiae, the thousand and one little details that went to make up the whole, but how did it look in the “all-together,” stripped of sentiment and beheld in its three dimensions?
Paradoxically, the work appeared too commercial in some of its aspects, and not commercial enough in others. The sordid values were due to the demand which came to Edwards constantly and unsolicited, and which it was his unvarying policy always to meet. “All’s fish that comes to the writer’s net” was a saying of Edwards that had cozzened his judgment. He was giving his best to work whose very nature kept him to a dead level of mediocrity. And within the last few years he had become unpleasantly aware that at least one editor believed him incapable of better things. This was largely Edwards’ fault. Orders for material along the same old lines poured in upon him and he hesitated to break away from them and try out his literary wings.
Years before he had faced a similar question. The same principal of breaking away from something that was reasonably sure and regular for something else not so sure but which glowed with brighter possibilities, was involved. Vaguely he felt the call. He was forty-four, and had left behind him twenty-odd years of hard and conscientious effort. As he was getting on in years so should he be getting on with some of his dreams, before the light failed and the Fiction Factory grew dark and all dreaming and doing were at an end.
One evening in Christmas week, 1910, he mentioned his aspirations to a noted editor with whom he happened to be at dinner. The book that was to bring fame and fortune, the book Edwards had always been going to write but had never been able to find the time, was under discussion. “Write it,” advised the noted one, “but not under your own name.”
Edwards fell silent. What was there in the work he had done which made it impossible to put “John Milton Edwards” on the title page of his most ambitious effort? Were the nickel novels and the popular paperbacks to rise in judgment against him? He could not think so then, and he does not think so now.
“Why don’t you write up your experiences as an author?” inquired the editor a few moments later. “You want to be helpful, eh? Well, there’s your chance. Writers would not be the only ones to welcome such a book, and if you did it fairly well it ought to make a hit.”
This suggestion Edwards adopted. Having the courage of convictions directly opposed to the noted editor’s, the other one he will not accept.
The reflections of 1910 began to bear fruit in 1911. With the beginning of the present year Edwards gave up the five-cent fiction, not because – as already stated in a previous chapter – he considered it debasing to his “art,” but because he needed time for the working out of a few of his dreams.
Presently, as though to confirm him in his determination, two publishing houses of high standing requested novels to be issued with their imprint. He accepted both commissions, and at this writing the work is well advanced. If he fails of material success in either or both these undertakings, by the standards elsewhere quoted and in which he thoroughly believes, the higher success that cannot be separated from faithful effort will yet be his. And it will suffice.
Even in 1910 Edwards had been swayed by his growing convictions. Almost unconsciously he had begun shaping his work along the line of higher achievement. During 1911 he has been hewing to the same line, but more consistently.
Edwards has demonstrated his ability to write moving picture scenarios that will sell. But is the game worth the candle? Is it pleasant for an author to see his cherished Western idea worked out with painted white men for Indians and painted buttes for a background? Of course, there are photoplays enacted on the Southwestern deserts, with real cowboys and red men for “supers,” but somewhere in most of these performances a false note is struck. One who knows the West has little trouble in detecting it.
This, however, is a matter of sentiment, alone. The nebulous ideas most scenario editors seem to have as to rates of payment, and the usually long delay in passing upon a “script,” are important details of quite another sort. And, furthermore, it is unjust to throw a creditable production upon the screen without placing the author’s name under the title. Of right, this advertising belongs to the author and should not be denied him.
In 1910 a moving picture concern secured a concession for taking pictures with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Far East Show, and Edwards was hired to furnish scenarios at $35 each. He furnished a good many, and of one of them Major Lillie (Pawnee Bill) wrote from Butte, Montana, on Sep. 2;
“Friend Edwards:
I saw one of the films run off at a picture house a few days ago and I think they are the greatest Western scenes that I have ever witnesed – that is, they are the truest to life. I had a letter from Mr. C—– yesterday, and he thinks they are fine.
Your friend,
“G.W. Lime,”
For a time Edwards thought his faith in the moving picture makers was about to be justified. But he was mistaken. He received a check for just $25, which probably escaped from the film men in an unguarded moment, and no further check, letter or word has since come from the company. The proprietors of the Show had nothing to do with the picture people, and regretted, though they could not help the loss Edwards had suffered.
When the moving picture writers are assured of better prices for their scenarios, of having them passed upon more promptly and of getting their names on the films with their pictures, the business will have been shaken down to a more commendable basis. Possibly the film manufacturers borrow their ideas of equitable treatment for the writer from some of the publishing houses.
The “hack” writer, in many editorial offices, is looked down upon with something like contempt by the august personage who condescends to buy his “stuff” and to pay him good money for it. Perhaps the “hack” is at fault and has placed himself in an unfavorable light. Writers are many and competition is keen. Among these humble ones there are those who have suffered rebuff after rebuff until the spirit is broken and pride is killed, and they go cringing to an editor and supplicate him for an assignment. Or they write him: “For God’s sake do not turn down this story! It is the bread-line for me, if you do.”
Did you ever walk through the ante-room of a big publishing house on the day checks are signed and given out? Men with pinched faces and ragged clothes sit in the mahogany chairs. They have missed the high mark in their calling. They had high ambitions once – but ambitions are always high when hope is young. They are writing now, not because they love their work but because it is the only work they know, and they must keep at it or starve (perhaps and starve).
A taxicab flings madly up to the door in front, and a stylishly clad gentleman floats in at the hall door and across the ante-room to the girl at the desk. They exchange pleasant greetings and the girl punches a button that communicates with the private office of the powers that be.
“Mr. Oswald Hamilton Brezee to see Mr. Skinner.”
Delighted mumblings by Mr. Skinner come faintly to the ears of the lowly ones. The girl turns away from the ‘phone.
“Go right in, Mr. Brezee.” she says. “Mr. Skinner will see you at once.”
Mr. Brezee’s “stuff” has caught on. Dozens of magazines are clamoring for it. Mr. Brezee vanishes and presently reappears, tucking away his check with the careless manner of one to whom checks are more or less of a bore. He passes into the hall, and in a moment the “taxi” is heard bearing him away.
The lowly ones twist in their chairs and bitterness floods their hearts. Like the author ot “Childe Harold,” Brezee awoke one morning to find himself famous. These others, with the dingy Windsor ties and the long hair and pinched faces never awake to anything but a doubt as to where the morning meal is to come from.
After hours of waiting in the ante-room, checks are finally produced and passed around to the lowly ones and they fade away into the haunts that know them best. Next pay-day they will be back again, if they are alive and have been given anything to do in the meantime.
Is this game worth the candle? What shall these men do with their “little gift” but keep it grinding, merciless though the grind may be? They cannot all be Oswald Hamilton Brezees.
Before a young man throws himself into the ranks of this vast army of writers, let him ponder the situation well. If, under the iron heel of adversity, he is sure he can still love his work for the work’s sake and be true to himself, there is one chance in ten that he will make a fair living, and one chance in a hundred that he may become one of the generals.
The Factory returns for 1910 and for part of 1911 are given below. Edwards believes that, in its last analysis, 1911 will offer figures close to the ten-thousand dollar mark – but it is a guess hedged around with many contingencies.
1910:
54 nickel novels @ $60 each, $ 3240.00
Short story for Munsey's, 75.00
Short story for The Blue Book, 40.00
Novelette for The Blue Book 200.00
Moving picture, Essanay Co, 25.00
Short story for Gunter's 40.00
Short story for Columbian 15.00
Paper-book rights, 200.00
Serial story for Scrap Book, 400.00
Moving picture, 25.00
______
Total $ 4260.00
Part of 1911:
5 paper-book rights, $ 500.00
Serial for All-Story 400.00
Novelette for Adventure, 250.00
Serial for The Argosy, 250.00
Novelette for The Blue Book, 200.00
Short stories for The Blue Book, 150.00
Short story for Harper's Weekly, 75.00
Serial for "Top-Notch," 150.00
______
Total $ 1975.00George Ade asked an actress, who was one of the original cast of “The County Chairman,” to whom he had just been introduced, “Which would you rather be – a literary man or a burglar?” It is related that the actress, who was probably as excited as Ade, answered, “What’s the difference?” And this is supposed to be a humorous anecdote!
§
The man who tells stories, sometimes fiction and sometmes stories, about the Harper publications, evolves the following realistic story about “The Masquerader,” originally published in The Bazaar. Well, it seems that one morning, the editor sat her down and found the following letter, which is truly pathetic and possibly pathetically true: “You may, and I hope you have, some little remembrance of my name. But this will be the very oddest letter you have ever received. I am reading that most clever and wonderfully well-written novel, “The Masquerader.” I have very serious heart trouble and may live years and may die any minute. I should deeply regret going without knowing the general end of that story. May I know it? Will be as close as the grave itself if I may. I really feel that I may not live to know the unravelling of that net. If I may know for reason good and sufficient to yourself and by no means necessary to explain, may I please have the numbers as they come to you, and in advance of general delivery?” The editor sent on the balance of the story, but it was never revealed whether it made the person well again or not. Edwards imagines that the whirl of action in books would not be good for the heart – or, for the matter of that, the soul.
