XIVThe Contemporary Fiction Company
“EXCELLENTLY well met,†said Professor Maturin, as we nearly collided on a down-town sidewalk,—“excellently well met. Come with me to the Contemporary Fiction Company.â€
“And what may that be?†I inquired.
“I do not yet quite know,†he replied, “but with your kindly aid I hope soon to learn.â€
The visible part of the Contemporary Fiction Company proved to be a private corridor in an office building, surrounded by half a dozen rooms occupied by young men and women and typewriters. Its master-mind was evidently the youthful but most business-like president, who included me in his welcome to Professor Maturin, and described his company as a semi-mutual corporation engaged in the production of fiction for the trade.
“Our staple,†said the president, “is short stories, and in the present state of the market we can scarcely keep even with our orders. Last week we delivered one dozen each of aviation, automobile, rural and suburban, settlement and sociology,power-boat and yachting, and two dozen heart-interest stories. To-day we ship a dozen near-Mexico army and navies, a rush order. We are now at work on a gross of adventure stories for a syndicate. The magazines are delighted to find that we may be depended upon to supply precisely what they want just when they want it, and save them the infinite annoyance of dealing with individual authors; and they also find that our rates for quantity save them a good deal of money. Therefore we are working up to our capacity of about seventy stories a week, and, incidentally, accumulating a tidy little surplus. Our system is very simple. I and the secretary-treasurer control the company, and draw up the specifications for all work. The sketching, filling in, and finishing are done by heads of departments, who hold smaller blocks of stock, and by junior assistants, whose salaries are a share of the profits—a plan that insures their best interest and efficiency. But I fear that I bore you—†he hesitated.
Being assured of our very great interest, the president led us to a long table beside which stood several drawers from filing-cases on a kind of rolling truck. “I have been working here on the specifications for the adventure stories I spokeof,†he continued, taking up a sheaf of printed blanks. “Here are some beginnings from the Action file. This newspaper clipping headed ‘Fireman rescues four’ is not uncommon, but you can see the story grow when you combine it with this one—‘Little girl gets pass to feed fire horses.’ This next clipping is sufficient in itself—‘Freighter sails to Africa to barter beads for wild animals.’ These others—‘Palace ablaze,’ ‘Island sinks,’ and ‘Whole town destroyed’—are also promising. Here is an item from the Anecdote file—‘A young fellow in a supper restaurant stares rudely at a lady, and flicks his cigarette-ash in the face of her remonstrating escort. The latter picks up the offender, shakes him like a bottle, and returns him gently to his chair. The escort happens to be Sandow.’ In dull seasons we make up action outlines from lives of filibusters and explorers, from opera librettos and plays, and, finally, from nursery rhymes. You are perhaps surprised at the last, but they contain a great deal of fundamental human interest.
“Having selected a number of such Action-starts, as we call them, we turn to Situation. Here are some items from that file—‘Saw Flying Dutchman,’ ‘Racing against ship fire,’ ‘Chinese crew burns joss-sticks to comet.’ Cut out thecomet, and all of these items go with the African barter ship. ‘Religious sect awaits the end of the world’—that may combine with ‘Island sinks’ or ‘Whole town destroyed.’ These others furnish Situation-starts—‘Smuggling by aeroplane,’ ‘Foreign officers caught spying on forts,’ ‘Colonial returns displeased with home,’ ‘Has custom house search her social rival,’ ‘Fashionable women see prize-fight.’ That last gives a welcome variation from the conventional Monte Carlo gambling-hall opening. Many stories, of course, we begin with ‘Character-starts.’ Some of these come from clippings, like the following—‘Man who feeds nuts to squirrels,’ ‘Dead laborer was wealthy sociologist,’ ‘Former waiter becomes hotel manager.’ Members of the staff, also, turn in suggestions, like the following—‘The man with the wardrobe trunk,’ ‘Doubles in appearance but not in character,’ ‘Hero and centre of story who never appears.’ Gradually we are making up a canon of contemporary characters like the famous stock characters of the Roman or the Restoration comedy. Butlers and sailors, engineers and explorers, are staple. Bosses and spies are a bit stale, and we are going slow on commercial travellers and advertising managers. But we are featuring the army-woman, and we expect agood response to our new ticket-chopper series. Live new characters are always in demand.
“The last general specification is ‘Setting and Scene,’ like—‘Oil fire fogs the river,’ and so forth. We consider scene so important that we have in every office Stevenson’s words, ‘Culminating moments, epoch-making scenes, that strike the mind’s eye, put the last mark of truth upon a story.’â€
After again hesitating and being again assured of our extreme interest, the president continued: “Theme, character, action, incident, situation, and scene being thus stated on the specification blanks, we write in hints for Treatment. Thus we keep the characters as simple as possible, trying for individual examples of conventional types, for definite persons that develop sharply, in small groups, with strong contrasts. The presentation we elaborate as much as possible—how the characters affect one another and display themselves in deeds and words. We cut out analysis and comment, but expand on appearance, manner, dress, and speech. Similarly, in action we make the pulsation of interest primary: emphasizing expectation, uncertainty, surprise, and quick solutions. With these various suggestions the specifications go the rounds of the heads of departments, each of whom makes further additions representinghis special field. When the blanks come back we finally approve or amend them, and assign the stories for writing. Each junior assistant writes about one story a day, directly on the typewriter. When each story is written to the specified length, the writer adds a title, and the piece goes the round of the heads of departments once more, for approval or amendment. All details of character, or action, or setting that are questioned are either omitted, or verified from sources in the office, or referred to people outside who know. A slight seasoning of humor is also written in wherever the characters would express or display it. We are, however, very conservative about humor, since it is impossible to know how readers will take it. Irony and satire are so generally misunderstood that we exclude them altogether.
“Finally, our style man supervises all dialogue and diction. He is learned in every form of literary speech from Platonic symposia and mediaeval disputation, down to mid-Victorian table talk and contemporary slang. He sees that all conversation is clear and consistent. In style he suffers nothing that is not expressive of the matter or instantly intelligible to the average reader, and yet, under his criticism, the style of our output is on a very high level. He hates adjectives, andhas an eye even for syllables and letters, being severe with explosives and gutturals and cordial to liquids and labials. He has a collection of fine lines of verse to be memorized by any assistant whose diction grows commonplace. It was he who devised our system of naming characters from places, in order to avoid the possibility of annoying actual people, although he does sometimes invent names to suit characters—like Mrs. Grandy, or Miss Miniver, or Monsieur Galantin. It was he, also, who devised our system of signing each story with a name appropriate to its variety, so that these signatures become trade names. Many of our best titles, too, are his. He named ‘Mary-Go-Round’ and ‘Helping Harrington,’ ‘Yellow Jacket’ and ‘The Golden Goose,’ ‘The Rule of Three’ and ‘One Hundred and One,’ and our ‘Half-portion’ and ‘Tales of To-day’ series. He becomes an officer of the company shortly, investing some of his large outside earnings from naming apartment houses, sleeping-cars, and manufactured articles like the ‘Fair-price products.’â€
“But what will be the effect upon literature?†I wondered, when we were again upon the street.
“It will have no effect upon literature,†said Professor Maturin.