ON WRITING STORIES FOR COMPETITION.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 42, 17 October 1891, Page 498

ON WRITING STORIES FOR COMPETITION.

(BY

THE LADY EDITOR.)

First, you must think of some incident about which you can write a story. You may be fortunate enough to know some pretty Maori legend which will work up into an interesting tale ; or you have heard your parents or friends tell of the funny things that happened in the early days of the colony ; or the dangers they ran in the Maori war ; or the accidents that befell them before New Zealand became as civilized as it is now ; or you may have been on an expedition, and had some amusing or exciting adventure; or you can invent something ‘ out of your own head,’ as the little ones say. Do not have too many people in your story. They are apt to get mixed up, and puzzle the reader as to their identity. You should not introduce one character that is not necessary to help you to tell your story clearly. Do not use long words when shoiter ones will answer the purpose. Try and make the people in your story talk and act just like the people you come across every day. You do not often meet some of the story-book people who tear their hair, and weep tons of tears which do not redden their eyes, but make them look even more beautiful than before.

Write naturally and easily, but certainly not slovenly. By this I mean, do not use the same word continually in successive sentences. This is frequently done, as, for instance, I might write : ‘The frequent employment of a certain word frequently spoils a paragraph, when if other words had been employed a ceitain frequent feeling of annoyance would not have spoiled the reading of the paragraph.’ Do you see what 1 mean ’? Again, remember to write distinctly, and to mind your stops. Always begin a sentence with a capital letter. Always, when you want to show that some one is speaking, use inverted commas, and begin a fresh line : ‘ I hope you will all read this,’ said Mr Brown, merrily. • < >f course we shall,’ the childien laughingly answered. Again, write in ink, and on white paper. Lately I read a long MS. on painfully bright green paper, and actually written in pencil. One word more. Fasten your carefully-numbered pages together at the top left hand corner, and always leave a little blank space there, so that when your MS. is read it may not be necessaiy to remove the fastener in order to puzzle out the words which it conceals. Finally, try, all of you, and may you have great success in your literary labours.