JIM TULLY, who is red-headed, and serious-minded, and who, himself, can undoubtedly write better short stories than I can, has, at the request of the Story World, asked me for a brief article, demonstrating in my own way the methods I employ in writing, and how the material is obtained. There is a certain smack of irony in this request, because Jim knows very well how material for a short story, or a long story, or a medium height story, or any other kind of story is clawed out of the surrounding ether with sweatings and groanings and cursings, too, unless one is a Methodist. I can see the sardonic gleam in Jim's eye and hear him say to himself, in a low tone, "Now, let's see what this bozo has got to say for himself."

      However, I shall not be stumped. The correct method of obtaining a short story, is, briefly, as follows: You imagine yourself to be an author, which is not difficult — which is, in fact, easy and universal — and you are seated in a deck chair on a Coney Island Iron Steamboat, riding to Coney Island of a summer afternoon; and upon glancing up casually, you observe a stranger, a tall, serious man about thirty-five, standing near the taffrail. At this point, you pause and look in a good dictionary to see what a taffrail is. The man, you assume, from his gloomy bearing, is about to commit suicide by leaping into the sea, and you know he is suffering from alcoholic melancholia. You determine to interfere and to save a human life. As you arise, you turn in your seat and behold a strikingly handsome woman, about twenty-seven, idling, in a suspicious manner, near the forward binnacle, and you pause again to discover if a binnacle is precisely what you think it is.

      Now, you have your two main characters, and, in the slang of the day, you are "sitting pretty." You rush hastily aft, determined to save this man from a rash deed. You approach him — mind, you are imagining all this — and notice at once, the tremulous quavering of his mouth, and the sure mark of the drinker. You say, cheerily, "Hello, Joe."

      Of course, he doesn't know you, and his name isn't Joe, but you plunge onward, talking cheerfully, pretending that the wild party, at which you and he met, (mythical, of course) certainly turned out to be a whizzer. You tell him that you deeply regretted the impromptu marriage https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/random-pen-sketch-sribbles-set_9105937.htm that took place on the back porch, and actually tried to stop it, until overcome by intoxicated ruffians. Joe asks you what marriage, his memory being a blank, and you are surprised that he cannot recall his own midnight wedding, especially considering the pure and youthful beauty of the girl.

      You have judged the stranger right. He remembers nothing, and asks you in a trembling voice if the lady was "pickled" also. You say she certainly was. Already, his notion of leaping overboard is beginning to dissolve, thrust from his mind by this more serious matter. You then point to the beautiful woman, leaning over the forward rail and say to Joe mournfullly, "There's your bride. And she is so unhappy over the whole thing that she's going to commit suicide."

      Joe immediately rushes forward, and throws his arms about the woman, who, of course, is a stranger to him and is vastly astonished, her confusion being only increased by Joe's beseeching her not to jump.

      At this point, you, as an author, reach what we call the delicate nuances of the tale. The lady is a stranger. Joe is a stranger. You are a stranger. Nobody knows what is going to happen, and this ignorance of future events is termed suspense. The curious and remarkable thing about the situation is — and you have been working steadily toward it that the lady is a despondent Brooklyn telephone girl, who was going to commit suicide that very morning because her mother refused to let her have her hair bobbed. Joe, of course, saves her life. You have saved Joe's life.

      You are now almost at the apex or conclusion of the effort. This conclusion may be arrived at in one of several ways. Help yourself. Bob Davis or Charlie MacLean or Ray Long or George Lorimer or Jimmy Quirk or Karl Harriman will probably write you a short, pointed letter, indicating that while they have known for a long time that your mind was pulling out of the socket, the possibility of keeping it from the public is growing less every day.

      This is the way I have obtained all my yarns, and anyone who is diligent and serious-minded can do the same. Jim says to put in a few bits about my early struggles, but I can recall little of these early struggles, except the great trouble of getting checks in advance of the actual writing from Robert H. Davis, a much unappreciated man. These struggles were unquestionably early, beginning some weeks on Monday, about ten in the morning.

      There is still another way of securing short story material. You sit in a merry party with the guests, until the brightest mind present narrates a vivid thing that happened to him and his girl, Ella Smith, last Saturday afternoon, while they were driving between New Haven and Springfield in a four-passenger car with wire wheels. It interests you immensely. You gloat over it. You sneak home, determined to write the incident, smearing it over with artistic decorations, and in your own characteristic style, giving it the deft touches you have learned from study and observation. You do so with glee, and sell it to a prominent magazine, and two months later, you are sued for theft, and are publicly branded as a low plagiarist of the grossest sort, the story having appeared in 1914, in the "Red Lantern Magazine" under the title, "Archways of Fate."

      I have now exceeded my word quota. If there is anything I have omitted about the art of writing the short story, I will gladly communicate with inquirers who have the thoughtfulness to enclose a two-dollar bill.

(THE END)