Every one, of course, is familiar with the “western story.” Thanks to “The Virginian” it has been popularized by the magazines and vulgarized by the movies; we object, not to the “western story,” but to its formula. If anybody has anything fresh and original to contribute to it we will thank God and reward him according to his deserts and our ability. Open air adventure, American, but in any part of the world is, as I have said, the prevailing note, and we want to strike that note with a complete novel of from 30,000 to 50,000 words in every number. In general, and excluding the type of stories I have already referred to as those that we don’t want, we will accept any short or continued story that is a really good one; this covers the mystery story. Now a story, in order to deserve the name, must involve a conflict or duel, either of human beings, or--proceeding of course from human beings--ideas or emotions. Without the conflict there is no drama, and without the drama there is no story. And out of the conflict and complication should come a denouement which satisfies the reader’s sense of justice or his sense of the appropriateness of things in general. Such a denouement may incur the reproach of being a “happy ending,” but the author should rid himself of that bugaboo and not be afraid of utilizing it, if _necessary_. It’s only a cant phrase and does not mean a thing to the masses who read him and make his reputation for him. Personally, I believe that most unhappy endings are deliberately planned and thrown in as a sop to the Cerberus of “realism.” A real story ought to have an initial impulse that carries it along, without faltering, from beginning to end, that is to say, _movement_. A great many stories sag at some point, or collapse in the middle or go to pieces at the end. Such catastrophes can be averted. It sometimes seems to me that very, very few authors realize how much honest, sincere characterization helps a story--how much, indeed, it may help to make a genuine story out of a very slender plot. The human element is what gives a story such vitality as it has and time and effort devoted to it is well spent, and usually profitably spent. This leads me to say that the human touch is the thing we look for in every manuscript that comes in to _People’s_ editorial office; somewhere in each story we hope to find an unexpected display, by one or more of the characters, of courage, or generosity, or renunciation, or self-sacrifice, or some other human trait that brings to the reader a conviction that, after all, human nature is better than experience has taught him to believe. This is the sort of thing that people never weary of. Common-place characters, common-place experiences, common-place emotions take on dramatic color by these unlooked-for demonstrations.