TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THINGS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 5, 30 January 1892, Page 113

TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THINGS.

TO YOUNG AUTHORS WHO ARE UNCONSCIOUSLY INJURING THEIR PROSPECTS OF LITERARY SUCCESS.

W-5

By

Edward W. Bok.

LM< >ST daily tbeie comes to me some manuscript with a little note which says : ‘ Some critical friends to whom I have submitted this manuscript pronounce it excellent ’; or, ‘My family and all my friends have complimented this very highly.’ Or, again, some

one will say, ‘ A literary (or editorial) friend, whose critical judgment is acknowledged by the public, has read and enthusiastically praised this.’ After a while, the manuscript comes back to the author, and she rises in wrath,not to those ‘ critical friends,’ her ‘ family and friends,' or the * literary friend,’ but to the editor. The judgment of the former is undisputed ; it is the editor who is at fault, and cannot appreciate a good thing when he sees it. "VOW, my friends—and I am talking to hundreds with sore little spots in their hearts towards me—let me give yon a few words of plain, every-day common sense. When you send a manuscript to an editor, don't tell him these things. They have no more intluence with him than has water on a duck's back. This sounds a little hard, doesn’t it ? But, nevertheless, it is true—very true. Use a little common sense and figure it out for yourself. No matter how good a literary judgment your family or your friends may nave, what do they know of a certain editor’s policy? What do they know of the magazine’s needs? They may know something of literary standards ; they may be able to pass upon your style, the accuracy of your expression, the interest of your article. All these things they may know, and know perhaps better than does the editor—although from some of their recommendations I am inclined to doubt it. But that your article is just the one for which the editor to whom you send it is looking they do not know. Neither do they know but that the editor has accepted an article on the same subject as yours a week before, and yours is therefore useless to him. < >r, that he may have under order an article on the same topic. These things your friends do not know ; the editor does. Be charitable, and give him credit for knowing a little. If he didn’t know what he wanted he couldn’t hold his position. Editors are not engaged to ornament publishing offices. ANOTHER thing : your own family and friends are the poorest critics in the world to you. Their love for you makes them blind, renders them partial, and their opinion prejudiced. You may be sensitive, and they, well knowing that fact, would not tell you that your article was bad even if they felt it to l>e a glaring fact. The ‘ literary friend ’ is no better, be he critic, publisher, editor or what not—unless you submit your manuscript to him for publication in some magazine with which he is connected. Then if your manuscript is so good as you tell me he says it is, why did he not keep it for himself ? The editor is proverbially generous, but his generosity does not extend to that point where he allows a good manuscript to pass him to some other editor. That isn’t human nature, anil, strange as it may seem to many, editors are human. IT may seem to you the strangest thing in the world to have your manuscript receive the praise of friends and family, and then receive the rejection of the editor. It seems strange to you because you look at it from one side : if you could look at it as does the editor, perhaps you wouldn’t think it so very strange. The wonder would be more how your manuscript ever reached a reading, if you could see the mass of material which daily and hourly pours into an editorial office. An editor is more often the friend of the author than he is his enemy. I know some writers may find this very difficult to believe. But it is so, nevertheless. A young author cannot realize this at first. He finds it out as he goes along, knows more of editors and under stands their methods better. Ido not write all this in defence of the editor ; rather, to make his position a little clearer, if possible, to those who are just stepping into the literary arena. To misconstrue the position of the editor, or blindly question his judgment, never helps an author. And, as I close, let me say these few words :

INSTEAD of going to your family or your friends for an opinion on your manuscript, be your own critic. Every man or woman in the world knows when he or she does a good thing, and where there is one who does not, that one was never cut out to be an author. Use your own critical faculties. Be unsparing of yourself. Then, send your article out into the world, to the editor of that periodical for which you think it is best suited. But don't pin to it yonr father’s endorsement, your mother’s praise, your sister’s opinion, your friend's recommendation. Save that ink for your next manuscript. Don’t waste your time telling editors what they ought to do, or what someone else thinks they should do. What your friends think of your manuscript, and what the edito. thinks of it, are two entirely different things, and, take my word for it, my friend, it never pays to confuse the two