The writer succeeds in proportion as he makes his reader eager for
another story by him. Editors have ways to judge this reaction. Forget
the editor, and what you think he wants. Write directly to the man or
woman who is going to buy the magazine and read your story.
HARFORD POWELL, JR.
_Collier’s, The National Weekly._
416 West 13th Street,
New York City.
AINSLEE’S MAGAZINE
_Ainslee’s_ publishes yearly a total of approximately a hundred and
twenty short stories (from 5,000 to 8,000 words in length), twelve
novelettes (from 20,000 to 30,000) and, in monthly installments, about
four serials (from 50,000 to 70,000). And, to cull this relatively
small amount of fiction, innumerable manuscripts are painstakingly
gone over. At a rough estimate, erring on the side of too few rather
than too many, ten thousand manuscripts are submitted yearly from
various sources for consideration by _Ainslee’s Magazine_. Of these,
eight thousand, I should say, are absolutely unsuited to publication
anywhere, while the remaining number are perhaps creditable enough,
but have been sent by their authors or the authors’ agents to the
wrong magazine--which brings me to the registering of a simple, but
curiously disregarded, bit of advice to those whose goal is writing
for magazine publication. _Study the magazine to which you contemplate
submitting material._ After all, each issue of a magazine, whatsoever
its character, represents the nearest approach to their ideal for the
publication, which the editors have been able, at the time to achieve,
and should therefore constitute a fairly good working pattern for
those whose stuff is to be “aimed at” that magazine. A rejection slip
from a given publication is just as apt to mean that the story, albeit
distinctive, does not fit the special needs of the magazine as to
indicate total unfittedness for publication anywhere.
_Ainslee’s Magazine_ aims to be a high-class, clean, distinctive
fiction magazine. It has no room for, nor time for, the frankly
salacious, or “sexy.” It is looking always for the proverbial good
story, well told. That story may move around any clean, healthy,
up-to-date theme, but it should have in it, preferably, woman and love
interest. The people of the story should be human, not wooden. They
should talk like you and I talk, not like Maria Edgeworth’s people
“conversed.” And the tale itself must be colorful. If a story is to
have any holding quality whatever, it must transfer its readers to
the scene of the action. And to do this, the thing must have in it
real atmosphere. Plot basis, then, along with good characterization,
atmosphere, and love and woman interest are essentials for the typical
_Ainslee’s_ story.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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