Ten Things You Mustn't

( Originally Published 1944 )

Await a legacy, though no man's heir.

A CERTAIN punctilio is usually observed as between the beginning writer and the editor or publisher he approaches. Why, Heaven only knows. A writer, if he is any good, remains a more' or less permanent phenomenon all his days; while an editor, be he good or bad, seldom remains long at his post. The mortality on editors is terrific. In talking to editors and publishers I have from time to time noted matters which mortally gripe them. Some of these things are fairly important; others not.

ONE: In approaching the editorial sanctum you must always take the editor seriously; a thousand times more seriously than he deserves, because editors and publishers always have inferiority complexes of a deep and grievous sort. Almost all of them are frustrated writers; and, like virtuous (i.e., ugly) women, they hate those who can do what they want to do, and can't.

You must always take the position toward the editor or publisher that of necessity he would naturally know more than you do about writing. Even if the editor has been at his desk only a week; even if he cannot speak English, and doesn't want to, and hates writing, and took the job as editor only because he is utterly unfitted to earn a living in more competitive fields, you must yet take the position that he is an arbiter of prose.

The most explosive thing any writer can do at the outset is merely to hint to the editor that he, the writer, might know something about writing. When you have been writing for a number of years you can in many cases hold the editor's job for him. This is not a controversial thing. In plain words, both editors and publishers have to function after the fact of the writer. Many a magazine and many publishing houses are and have been propped up and held intact and solvent solely through the work of one lead author, without which they would fall in ruins. So, until you are big, until you have established yourself as a lead author, you must eat humble pie from these sciolists and keep your thoughts about them to yourself. Or, better, flatter the wretches.

All editors and publishers, like all people with inferiority complexes, are childishly susceptible to flattery. They will absorb and positively pullulate upon the most noxious and obvious flattery imaginable. To this end keep asking them if your stuff is really good, as though you thought they could improve it.

I tell you this not to deride editors; Heaven knows theirs is a hard lot at best, and many of them mean well. I am explaining editors to you, not reviling them. When you know what these temporary and ephemeral prose-butchers are made of, you will, it is to be presumed, better know how most forthrightly to 'deal with them.

If you wish wholly to play the commercial game and have no respect for your own talents YOU MUST NOT EVER let an editor think you suppose that you know anything about writing. If you want quick and easy commercial success don't ever question an editor's word about anything. He will pretend that he is open to argument always but if you win an argument with him he'll never forgive you.

For quick and easy commercial success your course must not include any objective examination into an editor's fiats. Flatter the lousy bastard, but chuck away in your mental reservoir everything that you had to endure; keep your mouth shut about it for awhile, and when the day comes when your and the editor's positions are reversed when he has to have you because his readers clamor for you then rub his nose until it is even with his face. All editors know you will do that anyway; but they are pathetically susceptible to suggestions from you that you will not. Let the old fool believe that you view him as a benefactor, as an instructor; as an erudite Big Shot who is forming your writing style for you. Don't ever frown upon him; kiss him, repeatedly, and, in a spiritual sense, in extremely localized portions of his anatomy.

TWO: Avoid all forms of special pleading in approaching the editorial sanctum. Do not write long, imploring letters asking that the editor attach his attention to this, that, or the other excellence in your copy. This will insult the editor, since he expects you to take it for granted that he is so clever he can spot excellence in your work even before he reads it; or discern that it is no good without even reading it at all.

Do not fancy up your manuscript. There is a certain conditioning in the editorial mind which will operate against you if you do. Arrived writers send in frowsy-looking manuscript, unless they have it copied by professional typists before submitting it, which they seldom do. But you are not an arrived writer. All editors, when they see flossy manuscript, cry "Amateur!" All editors are contemptuous of amateurs, for some reason forgetting that every writer who ever wrote was once an amateur. Do not do startling things like illustrating the manuscript; or sending it in airmail special-delivery, registered, to be delivered to addressee only, return receipt requested. The editor likes to think of himself as the important guy in the transaction; to do things like this will make you seem important, and the editor will like that not any.

THREE: If you are a wise guy and want to approach the editor socially you can't do anything more likely to forward your career as a writer; but if you are not smooth don't try it, because editors are accustomed to these approaches and only the smoothest of them ever work. If you can get to the town where the editor is and manage to meet him and are yourself unusually presentable, fine. But never even dream of doing it unless you are exceptional when it comes to meeting and greeting. Almost all authors worth anything are clearly antisocial. They grumpily see through the ridiculous social mores of their times and try to improve them. If you are a real author (i.e., antisocial) you had better never meet any editors or publishers and this will be its own reward.

This is particularly true of women. All Old Bags fancy that their "charm" will impress a male. Nothing could be more ridiculous. A woman without sex appeal simply doesn't exist, to all intents and purposes, to the male of the species unless he is related to her. A woman who is along in years, or unpretty, always frigs up a lot of technical junk to take the place of sex appeal like virtue, or politics, or something equally nauseating. If strange men go on the make for you at sight you're the goods; if they do not all the hokey-pokey you build up in your own mind about your worthy charms impressing people is stark nonsense. You think it works because those around you are polite. They are polite to you in your presence, but when you start to leave they think: "You're not going, thank God?"

Unless, if female, you're oomphy as all get-out (and you won't be, if you are a writer, because writing is another one of the gimmicks you think up to supplant beauty) don't go anywhere near a male editor; and if you are oomphy as all get-out don't even enter the same State with a female editor. All female editors are such because they failed in life as women and there is nothing in this world they hate the sight of more than a pretty woman.

FOUR: Early in your writing career you will think of that nifty about getting a letter of introduction from an arrived writer. Sometimes it works; not often. There are two kinds of such letters, and editors can spot both kinds at sight.

Most established writers are constantly plagued for letters to editors and publishers. They hate to write such letters unless they have themselves offered to write them-but usually they will write them anyway, in order to get away from a nuisance. If you are a really pretty girl and do right by the author he can, and probably will, write for you a letter to an editor who is beholden to him that will get you published forthwith. If you only think you are pretty, if you are the giggly kind full of "charm" instead of sex appeal, the author, to get rid of you, will undoubtedly write you a letter to a publisher or editor but it won't work: the editor will recognize it for the sort of letter it is.

Every male because men are kindly at base-tries his damnedest to keep from untoothsome females the fact that he loathes the sight of them; because for any real male no woman not desirable is a woman at all, but a God-damned androgyne that has somehow to be dealt with. The more you pull the charminstead-of-sex-desirability the more you will seem to be getting somewhere, but the farther back you will slip. All men collaborate with each other in this respect. If you are not desirable and are stuck with having to be virtuous or an intellectual instead you might as well concentrate on being a terrific intellectual. Do it without the help of men authors. Don't go near them, for letters or for anything else. To them you smell, and some of it will come off in the letters they write for you.

If you are a male author, or if you are a female author with something really on the ball (and stay away from the arrived author if you are the latter), you may get a letter from an "in" author that will do you heaps of good. But you can't get it by asking for it. You can't get it by wangling for it ever so subtly. You can get it if the writer reads your stuff, is enthusiastic about it, and himself volunteers to do something for you. In that event he can and will write a letter for you that will look to you less convincing than one written speciously but it will do the job. Any established writer, and any experienced editor, knows the difference between these two types of letters; you won't be able to tell the difference, at first, so don't ask for them.

FIVE: Don't enclose silly references with a manuscript. In some cases references are of value a bank reference, for instance, saying, simply: "Mr. Twirp's credit standing is good; he is well-thought-of in the community and we take pleasure in recommending him." (No beginning author could possibly get such a letter from a bank anyway.) Thousands of tyro authors enclose letters from their ministers, wardens, mayors, or what not with their manuscripts. Editors and publishers take this simply as an indication that the author is an idiot. He is.

SIX: Absolutely never trace a manuscript unless the period of time elapsed would obviously indicate loss: for instance, many beginning authors send a tracer after a short story a week or two after it has gone out. Such a tracer shouldn't be sent under a couple of months; on books even a longer time could safely elapse. Editors and publishers often hold for further consideration manuscripts which they consider border-line cases that is, they felt some interest in the script but cannot make up their minds. When a tracer comes in on such a script they make up their minds quickly they send the script back.

SEVEN: Do not ever tell an editor or a publisher that you were on the staff of your high school or college paper; or that you once wrote for the local newspaper (unless the local newspaper had a circulation of about a million, and you wrote under a by-line).

EIGHT: Never supply alternative endings. Many young story-writers notice, at the end of a tale, that it could have ended several other ways; so they suggest these other endings. The editor will always feel that you should have made up your mind yourself which was the best ending, and supplied it.

NINE: In submitting a book manuscript of a novel, don't tell the editor that the characters are real people. That will scare him instantly; he'll think at once of libel suits.

TEN: Don't go over your agent's head when a manuscript is under consideration. If the agent is no good, fire him. After you have fired the agent then tell the editor that you are handling yourself, or that you have another agent. If you go over the agent's head the editor is on the spot because if he then dickers direct with you he can get into plenty of trouble, with the agent; and he would rather lose you than the agent's good will.