“Editors and public tired long ago of the poor boy whose industry at last brought him the hand of his employer’s daughter; the pale-faced, sweet-eyed young thing whose heroism in stamping out a fire enabled her to pay off the mortgage; the recovery of the missing will; the cruel step-mother; answering a prayer which has been overheard; the strange case of mistaken identity; honesty rewarded; a noble revenge; a child’s influence; and so on to a long-drawn-out end."[26]

[Footnote 26:  J. Berg Esenwein, Writing the Short-Story.]

In avoiding trite subjects the surest teachers are common sense, a wide reading, the constant study of the photoplays seen on the screen, a friendly critic, and the printed rejection slip. And do not forget this most important point:  It is not so much the time-worn theme that makes a story hackneyed as it is the threadbare development of the theme.  A new “twist,” a fresh surprise, coming as the climax to an old situation, may redeem its hackneyed character.  But when you can combine a fresh theme with a new treatment you have reached the apex of originality.  Time spent in working on unhackneyed lines will save you many later heartaches.

8.  Inconsistent Situations

A word or two concerning inconsistencies in film stories.  While the inconsistencies and absurdities occasionally seen on the screen are often traceable to the director alone, the writer must do his share toward eliminating what is incorrect or out of place.  Take for instance the Red Cross in war-pictures.  The introduction of the Red Cross into American Civil War pictures was something that one of the present writers had commented upon and criticized two or three years before Mr. Herbert Hoagland, of Pathe Freres American company, wrote his helpful little book on the technique of the photoplay[27], but, since Mr. Hoagland puts it so comprehensively in that work, what he says is quoted here: 

“In a Civil War story the scenario called for a field hospital with the Red Cross flag flying from a staff.  Well, the Red Cross wasn’t organized until the closing year of the war, and then it was done in Switzerland.  The Southerners and the Yankees never saw this emblem of mercy during the whole four years of strife."

[Footnote 27:  Herbert Case Hoagland, How to Write a Photoplay.]

Following the foregoing paragraph in his book, Mr. Hoagland speaks of another script in which an officer in Confederate uniform is informed by a courier—­in Confederate uniform—­that war had been declared between the North and the South.  “But,” the Pathe censor of scripts remarks, “there was no gray uniform of the Confederacy before the C.S.A. was formed!”