ALMOST every person who is a known contributor to the press receives, more or less often, letters like the following: “I am not earning enough to pay my expenses, and, to make the two ends meet, would like to write for the press. Can you give me some hints?” The number of persons, who, when at their wits’ ends, in despair of eking out a living in any other way, look to journalism as a last resource, is legion. The passionate appeals which are made personally or by letter to the managing-editor of a leading journal, beseeching him to buy articles, nine-tenths of which are utterly worthless, and ninety-nine hundredths of which could not be got into the paper, were they ever so interesting, make his place anything but a bed of roses. Even in the old-fashioned newspaper-establishments, where four or five steep, dark, and dingy stair-cases must be climbed to reach the editorial den, some would-be contributor, male or female, may be seen panting up the steps almost hourly; but, in the modern offices, in which the steam-elevator has placed all the floors on a level, the swarms of writers that beset the manager, coaxing, imploring, almost insisting, that their MSS. shall be used, render his situation absolutely appalling. To ninety-nine out of every hundred of these persons he must return an inexorable No. No would-be contributor, however, dreams that he is doomed to be one of the ninety-nine; and because 257 it is useless, therefore, to begin with Punch’s advice to those about to marry, “Don’t!” we offer the following suggestions:
First, consider well whether you have the peculiar qualifications required in a newspaper-writer. Writing for the press has grown to be an art by itself; it is one whose rules and principles, like those of music, sculpture, and painting, must be mastered by intense, patient, and persistent study by those who aspire to success. To write a really good editorial or contribution is like scaling an Alp, which, in its clearness of atmosphere, seems so near, and yet is so far and so hard of ascent.
It is a great mistake to suppose that, because the greater includes the less, the talents which qualify a man to write a first-rate book will make him a good article-writer. Many an author of reputation, who has reasoned thus, has started off brilliantly in the career of journalism; but, after a little smart writing and display of bookish ability, has “fallen flat and shamed his worshipers,” because he could not seize and condense the spirit and moral of passing history. As Carlyle complains of the needle-women of England, that there are seamstresses few or none, but botchers in abundance, capable only of “a distracted puckering and botching, — not sewing, only a fallacious hope of it, a fond imagination of the mind”; so in literary labor, especially journalism, it is but too true that there are many botchers, and few skilled workmen, — very little good article-writing, and a deal of “distracted puckering and botching.” It is true there is no mystery in the craft when we have once learned it, as there is none in walking on a tight-rope, turning a double back-summersault, or vaulting through a hoop 258 upon a running horse. The difficulty is, — to learn. It may seem a very easy thing to trim a bonnet; but hundreds of expert workmen, who can do things far more difficult and complicated, fail utterly when they try to trim a bonnet. A man may be a brilliant review or magazine writer, and yet not show a particle of skill or tact in conducting a daily or weekly newspaper. It is one thing to elaborate an article at leisure, “with malice prepense and aforethought,” in one’s study, hedged in by books on every side, with other “appliances and means to boot”; and quite another to cope with the hydrostatic pressure, the prompt selection of salient points, and the rapid, glancing treatment of them, demanded by a daily journal.
Which, indeed, are the most popular papers of the day? Is it the journals that are filled mainly with long and ponderous disquisitions that smell of the lamp; articles crammed with statistics, and useful knowledge of the “penny-magazine” stamp, which it is more painful to read than it was to write them? No; they are, almost without exception, those whose merit lies in condensation; which, with full reports of news, and a limited number of elaborate discussions, give the apices rerum, the cream and quintessence of things; whose pithy paragraphs, squeezed into the smallest possible space, may be taken in by the eye while the reader is occupied in discussing a cup of coffee, or devoured like a sandwich between two mouthfuls of bread and butter. These are the papers which are sought for with avidity, and devoured with keen relish; which are passed from hand to hand, and read till they are worn out; and to serve up the spicy repast they furnish, is a Sisyphan task, which requires 9 ceaseless industry and a peculiar combination of talents which not one educated man in a thousand possesses.
It is the lack of these talents and the neglect of these principles which explain the failure of many newspapers and newspaper-writers. The rock on which they split is ignorance or forgetfulness of the very end of a newspaper. The first thought which should be uppermost in the mind of every writer for the press is that this “map of busy life” is a thing not to be read or studied, but to be glanced over. The contents must be such as at once to catch the attention. Take care, then, at the beginning, not to frighten the reader by a long article. Big guns make a loud noise, but rifle-balls often do the greatest execution. A tremendous thought may be packed into a small compass, made as solid as a cannon-ball, and cut down everything before it. “A brief ejaculation,” says South, “may be a big and a mighty prayer”; and a ten-line paragraph, — a single thought, pungently presented, — may change a man’s convictions in politics or religion, or be a seed-corn to fructify through his whole life. An ideal newspaper article is not an exhaustive essay, but a brief monogram, for which one positive and central idea is sufficient. As Virgil says of farms: “Admire long articles; cultivate short ones.”
To achieve this, make sure that you have something to say, and say it only when you are in the vein, — in your best mood. Are you a clergyman? Don’t write on “blue Monday,” when you feel like a mouse in an exhausted receiver. Why rush before fifty thousand readers when you feel so stupid that you can’t prepare a sermon for five hundred hearers? Waste no time on introduction. Don’t begin by laying out your subject 260 like a Dutch flower-garden, or telling your motives for writing. Nobody cares how you came to think of your theme, or why you write upon it. Sink rhetoric, and throw Blair and Campbell to the winds. Copy Milton, who does not stop to invoke his Muse till he has first assumed his theme, “of man’s first disobedience and the fall.” Plunge at once into the very middle of your subject, and “pluck out the heart of its mystery.” The first end is to excite attention. The keynote should be struck, if possible, in the very first sentence. A dull beginning often damns an article; a spicy one, that whets the appetite by a prime, juicy slice right out of the middle of the coming joint, often commends an article to both editor and reader. Be brief and crisp, giving results only, not processes, — suggesting argument rather than stating it. Don’t serve up with the pearl the oyster and the shell.
Put your points clearly and sharply; don’t cover them up with verbiage, but let them stick out. Macaulay well says that a bold, dashing, scene-painting manner is that which always succeeds best in periodical writing. Let your sentences be electrically charged. Let every word leap with life, and blot out every one which does not help to clench the meaning. Condense, — condense, — condense. Ignore all inferences, and regard explanatory sentences as a nuisance. Some writers always explain a thing to death. Throw subordinate thoughts to the dogs. Thin your fruit that the tree may not be exhausted, and that some of it may come to perfection. Above all, stop when you are done. Don’t let the ghost of your thought wander about after the death of the body. Aim to be suggestive, not exhaustive, and leave the reader to draw 261 many inferences for himself. Take for granted, after all your condensation, that your article is twice too long. Leave off the beginning and the conclusion, and make the middle as short as possible. Cutting it down may require nerve, but it is the compactness which makes it do execution. Lastly, lay aside your paper, if possible, for a week, and then retouch it; strengthen its weak points, and polish its rough ones. Too many article-writers grudge the toil which is necessary to perfect their contributions. They quote Taine, who condemns transitions, elegances of style, “the whole literary wardrobe,” to the old-clothes shop. “The age demands ideas, not arrangement of ideas; the pigeon-holes are manufactured; fill them.” True, in a certain sense; but ideas, like soldiers, owe their force largely to their arrangement. Thoughts become different thoughts when expressed in different language. Other newspaper-writers believe in fast writing, which is generally apt to be hard reading. The thought, they say, should be struck off in the passion of the moment; the sword-blade must go red-hot to the anvil, and be forged in a few seconds, not by piecemeal, if you would have it of heavenly temper. Granted; but, after the forging, long and weary polishing and grinding must follow before your sword-blade will cut. What would you think of a cutler who should say, “I turn out knives with great facility, but I cannot stop to give them an edge?” Cassius Etruscus boasted that he could write two hundred pages before dinner, and as many after. He was burned, as he deserved to be, on a pile of his own productions.
We have said nothing of the mechanical parts of an article. That it should be written legibly, on one side 262 of small-sized sheets, with careful punctuation and spelling, and plenty of paragraphs, is generally known. We might add other useful hints; but enough. Follow the direction we have given, and, if you have a soul that fires with great thoughts, and fears not to utter them freely, you may wield with the pen a power that no sceptre can rival. But, if you have no enthusiasm or inspiration, and can’t put fire into your writings, you would better put your writings into the fire. If you don’t do so, and your article goes to “Balaam’s box,” don’t fly into a passion and call the editor a fool, or assert that he is prejudiced. Mothers are always partial to their deformed children, and authors think most highly of their rickety literary bantlings. Don’t waste a moment’s time in vindicating your productions against editors or critics, but expend your energies in writing something which shall be its own vindication.
Finally, do you feel, on reading these hints, as did Rasselas when he had listened to the detail of the qualifications necessary to a poet, and exclaimed: “Who, then, can be a poet?” We confess it is the picture of an ideal article-writer that we have drawn; but, though the conception that haunts our brain is one which we have been utterly unable to realize, — though our ideal, after many weary years’ pursuit, still flies before us like the horizon, and mocks us with its unattainable charm, — we still have the satisfaction of knowing that our readers yawn less frequently than if we had adopted a lower and more easily-reached standard.