Shorthand writer

“ Business shorthand writers do not need often to write more than sixty or eighty words a minute, and when they write faster, it is but for a few minutes at a time. Very few writers can sustain 150 words a minute, and the talk of writing 250 words is rank nonsense. Most of the big stories of phenomenal shorthand feats come from the far West. The farther away from New York the source of the story the higher the rate. Not long ago there was a yarn about a man who was ambitious to write 300 words a minute. ”

“ Let me say some words about shorthand writing. In this day of push and drive and hurry, when so many things must be done at once, there is an increasing demand for shorthand writers. In fact, business as now conducted cannot afford to do without [46] this help. It often occurs that a principal in a business house cannot take the time to write long letters. Why should he? It does not pay to have one that is occupied in governing and controlling great interests, or in the receipt of a large salary, tied to a desk writing letters, or reports, or statements of any kind. ”

“ So also with typewriting. Though the unruly instrument at first persisted in spelling “cat” t-a-c, and always put an interrogation point where a period ought to be; still, with patient perseverance, cheered by the inspiring words of our teacher: “I used to do the same thing,” and filled with envy at his display of skill, we took fresh [Pg 12] hope, tried again, and, as we were told we should,—succeeded. The pleasure of the art of shorthand, more than any other, is not confined alone to the artist. You all know the important offices in business life which shorthand fills ”

“ O’Brien has accumulated, you can apprehend the elements of technique and learn, at the same time, what is successful from an editorial point of view. For every short-story writer must be both an artist and a man of business. ”

“ Perhaps the most common error of the young writer is the unconscious padding by the use of remarks, comments, stray bits of information, or morals entirely foreign to the plot. The proper way to tell a short story is to draw a line from the striking introductory sentence straight to the climax, and never, by a hair's breadth, deviate from that line. ”

“ The whole discussion should awaken realization of the fact that the short story is the most difficult form of prose fiction. To the general difficulty of all fiction it adds the difficulty that whatever is done must be done in a few words. The writer of novel or romance has only to interest, and his space is practically unlimited. The short story writer must interest, and he must interest in few words and pages. He must depend solely on his story ”

“ Just because the limits of the form selected prevent his producing the semblance of reality by elaborating his characters, is the short-story writer the more bound to make real the adventure in itself. ”

“ Its very artificiality calls for skilled workmanship; it must be made pleasant and readable by all known devices; its brevity, too, permits and demands a higher finish than is necessary in the novel. And altogether the short story offers a writer who is not exactly a genius a rare chance to show his ability as an artist in words. Hence the question of style is of serious moment.
Style is so much a matter of individuality, and the short story comprises so broad a range of subjects, that it is not easy to lay down general rules concerning the proper style. ”

“ Those who were on the alert for offence, who resented a marginal note as a slight, and bumptiously demanded that their work be printed just as they had written it, were commonly not much more desired by the reader than by the editor."
In conclusion, it may not be amiss to suggest that the short story writer often becomes a novelist. It is true that all who can write short fiction cannot produce a readable book, but a little reflection will show that a large percentage of the novelists served an apprenticeship writing short stories. ”

“ The passion for naming and classifying all classes of literature may easily run to extreme, and yet there are some very great values to be secured by both the reader and the writer in arriving at some understanding of what literary terms mean. To establish distinctions among short fictive forms is by no means to assert that types which differ from the technical short-story are therefore of a lower order of merit. ”

“ The receptive perusal of any newspaper ought to furnish the reader with a fresh stock of literary material. Such matter is particularly valuable to the short story writer because of the present and ever increasing demand for stories of the day, plots, characters, situations, and local color for which may be culled from any newspaper.
But short story writing is an art, and all facts may not be capable of literary treatment. "Even actual occurrences may be improper subjects for fiction. Nature can take liberties with facts that art dare not—a truth that has passed into a proverb.... ”

“ A style in writing, if not formed in express imitation of some certain model, is the pure result of the disposition of the mind, and takes its character from the predominant quality of the writer. Thus a short and compact, and a diffused and flowing expression are the proper consequences of certain corresponding characters of the human genius. One has a vigorous comprehensive conception, and therefore collects his sense into few words. ”

“ If this is made in the ordinary writing there is danger that its slowness will make it more of a word-study than what it is intended to be—a test of ideas. A thorough mastery of shorthand, or the service of some one who has such mastery, will supply this defect. If the plan is well arranged there will be no pause in the most rapid composition, and if the whole discourse can at one effort be thrown into a dress of words there may be full assurance that the same thing can be accomplished still more easily and effectively when the additional stimulus of an audience is supplied. ”

“ On the basis of artistic purpose, the short-story divides itself into three types: the weird tale, stories that emphasize environment and typical personality, stories that emphasize events and character.
Every narrator whenever he sets his pen to paper must deal with place, plot, and people; but the artistic short-story writer, because of the limitation of his form, is forced to a selection of emphasis. He can not at will, as the biographer can, dilate upon the ancestry of his hero if he means to present the personage in action ”

“ The short-story writer should be no less unhampered because he has learned the origin and traced the growth of the ancient fiction-forms and learned to say of his own work, or that of others, “Here is a fictional sketch, here a tale, and here a short-story”—if, indeed, he does not recognize in it a delightful hybrid. ”

“ I've seen a lot of them in my time and I've never seen a reporter who wrote shorthand who was a real star man. Writing shorthand kills your imagination. All you write is what other people tell you and exactly as they said it. Somehow, a shorthand man doesn't get pep into his stuff, take it from me. ”

“ When you begin to detect the points in which the editorial needs and whims differ, you are in a position to become acquainted with the literary market.
If you write stories, it is your business to make a systematic and thorough study of magazines that use short fiction. You must learn to note whether action, complications, character drawing, style, humor, or any one of a dozen other qualities is responsible for the acceptance and publication of every story you read. If you find stories that lack plot altogether, you must discover what feature takes its place. ”

“ Admitting that writers of short-stories usually cast a marked preponderance of emphasis on one of the three elements of narrative, to the subversion of the other two, Professor Perry calls attention to the fact that in the short-story of character, “the characters must be unique, original enough to catch the eye at once.” The writer does not have sufficient time at his disposal to reveal the full human significance of the commonplace. “If his theme is character-development, then that development must be hastened by striking experiences.” ”

“ Again, it is popularly supposed that a writer of fiction regards the short story as either a relaxation from more arduous toil or as a means of adding a few extra pounds to his income. In his acquiescence in this disastrous superstition lies my quarrel with my distinguished preface-writing friend. Now, although I do not say that we are all such high-minded folk that none of us has ever stooped to "pot-boiling," yet I assert that every conscientious artist approaches a short story with the same earnestness as he does a novel. ”

“ But, supposing that a young writer says quite frankly, "I recognise the truth of all you say; I believe in the importance of the Technique of Form, and I want to learn and obey the rules of the best construction. If I try to write a novel, I want it to be a novel in the best sense, and not a string of short stories. If I write a short story, I want to feel sure that it is truly a short story in spirit and inherent purpose, as well as in outward form. ”

“ Every plot requires a certain number of words for its proper elaboration, and neither more nor less will do. Just what the limit for any particular story may be, the writer must decide for himself. "It seems to me that a short story writer should act, metaphorically, like this—he should put his idea for a story into one cup of a pair of balances, then into the other he should deal out his words ”

“ Those fellows jump on to a thing like chained lightning, and they got a way of writing that is just a lot of little twists and curls, but one means a whole sentence—they call it 'shorthand'—and doing that way, they can set down talk as fast as anybody can speak, and there were a dozen of them there with pencils and paper in their fingers. ”

“ But the writer of a letter, if he wish his words to prevail with the reader, should send them out as written by himself, by his own hand, with his own marks, his own punctuation, correct or incorrect, with the evidence upon them that they have come out from his own mind. ”

“ And the typical qualifications of each may apply with almost equal force to the other: vers de société should reveal compression, ingenuity, and originality, and Short-stories should have brevity and brilliancy. In no class of writing are neatness of construction and polish of execution more needed than in the writing of vers de société and of Short-stories. The writer of Short-stories must have the sense of form, which Mr. Lathrop has called "the highest and last attribute of a creative writer." ”

“ On the other hand, when this negligent simplicity of thinking and speaking gives way to the utmost polish and refinement in both, we are then to expect it, for the contrary reason. For the more obvious and natural forms of writing being, now, grown common, are held insipid, and the public taste demands to be gratified by the seasoning of a more studied and artificial expression. It is not enough to please, the writer must find means to strike and surprize. And hence the antithesis, the remote allusion, and every other mode of affected eloquence. ”

“ The short-story is, of course, the recountal of some struggle or complication so artistically told as to leave upon the reader one dominant impression. Perhaps the ‘artistic’ is redundant, for can a story leave such an impression unless it be artistically told? Even geniuses must master their vehicle of expression or remain dumb. To win the sought for reaction to a short-story, painting, play or oratorio, one learns either in the hard, blind school of ‘rejection slips’ or by the intelligent method of skilled critic and master, but learn one must. ”

“ Symbolical or pictorial signs, if sufficiently suggestive and not very numerous, may be effective; but the use of “arbitraries” is objectionable because they are so difficult to remember. In many shorthand books the student is recommended to form additional ones for himself, and so of course make his writing illegible to others. ”

“ He puts style before thought—he thinks that the way he writes is more important than what he writes. The writer of the business letter does well to avoid "cleverness"—to avoid it as a frightful and devastating disease. ”

“ When the short story writer finds a hint for a story he should consider whether he can bring out with his few thousand words all the matters necessary to the fiction's having full effect on a reader, but the less he frets about any abstract unity or singleness of effect the better. ”

“ The best way to avoid this is to translate poetry into prose; to take, for instance, a page of narrative in verse and relate the same story in plain prose; or to peruse a page of didactic poetry, and set down the argument in a plain, unpoetical fashion. This will make you familiar with the art of composition, only to be acquired by practice; and the advantage, at this early stage of your education in the arts of writing and speaking, of putting into proper language the thoughts of others rather than your own is, that you are better able to discover your faults. ”

“ We are told that all writing is a process of elision, but no one seems to go further and say that short-story writing is the process of ‘hitting the high spots’ plus the art of making the intervals between the ‘high spots’ not only interesting but of such a quality that the ‘high spots’ do not seem strained and unnatural. I find that this is mostly done by the turn of a sentence, or by an apparently adventitious aphorism, or a paragraph of general comment. ”

“ We find people to whom writing is so difficult that they prefer to sign their name with a mark, and beside them men who master systems of shorthand and improvise new systems of their own as easily as they learnt the alphabet. ”