Thomas Lansing Masson

“ Generally, however, a successful writer if he seems to write fast, has matured his work mentally beforehand.
There is no better test of writing than reading it aloud. If you shrink from doing this, it is a very good sign that it is not worth printing.
It is also excellent practice to read your manuscript aloud to yourself, as if you were addressing an imaginary audience. By listening thus to the sound of your own voice, you can often tell where the weak spots are. One of the most successful writers I know follows this rule, never allowing a manuscript to go out without this test. ”

“ But aside from all this, and assuming the requisite talent, the technical success of a manuscript, assuming a right title, depends upon two words, namely, spontaneity and revision.
Now it is a singular thing in writing, and I am sure this will be agreed upon by the majority of best writers, that spontaneity is achieved in its greatest measure only through previous preparation. Spontaneity comes only as a result of overflow. By overflow, I mean that a writer, by fixing his mind on his theme, gets so surcharged with it that he has to get rid of it, that is, write it out. ”

“ During the last thirty years I have had under observation hundreds of lads and lassies who have attempted to break into the literary game, and I can almost always tell whether they are going to succeed or not in one interview. But in case anyone wants to know, I hasten to say in my own defense that I am much too busy to read long amateur manuscripts from strangers or to sit on any set of eggs furnished by budding geniuses. All I can do is to point the road to success and to show why failure is more or less inevitable. ”

“ It is absolutely necessary for a writer to have talent -- or call it a "gift." Admitting this, however, nothing is more important than the technique, and, judged from the enormous number of carelessly written manuscripts I get from amateurs, it would seem as if this were a universal American fault -- carelessness in construction. ”

“ Here is a case where the writer seized upon the idea drawn for him by the artist.
Since the war there has been an amazing increase in the number of writers, this being due to prosperity, which in turn has induced more general leisure. The result is that thousands of young men and women all over the country are turning their faces toward the writing game. And what they all want to know is how to break in. ”

“ If it took Ellis Parker Butler years to adjust himself, to acquire his technique, and he a native, it is obvious how much harder it is for an outsider.
It is the psychic gift to become a part of one's racial atmosphere, united with the power to express it, that makes the writer. ”

“ If, for example, I show them a method of writing, and give them ideas, and they go to work and produce the thing according to my suggestion, it is never their own. And when they come back with it, and I explain to them why it will not do, they invariably resent criticism. They generally remark that they have seen so many worse things than that in print. ”

“ Almost all big writers have astonishing memories. They carry not only the entire structure of a story, but also the very order of words and sentences in their minds, and can do this while they are reasserting their words. ”

“ The human mind, however, can be disciplined to an incredible extent. And I actually know writers who can go through this whole process mentally, and complete their work, before it is written. First they get their theme; they have trained their imaginations so that they can flood themselves with it ”

“ The immediate result of this is always a dangerous moment, especially in the amateur, because, being so carried away, he is much too likely to think, after an immediate reading, that he has done a great thing. ”

“ For example, Sinclair Lewis' latest novel, Elmer Gantry, follows this rule, the letter g following alphabetically the letter e in Elmer, the f between not counting, it merely being a general principle of word sound that you get better results if you use the succession of words in the alphabet. ”