WHAT YOU SHOULD WRITE

“With inventiveness and imagination the most commonplace, the everyday-life subject, such as the ills and cares we have to bear, becomes, by a proper exposition of human nature under those conditions, a story both entertaining and instructive.  But entertaining first, instructive second; to try to be instructive is to cease to be entertaining.

“The strength of a story consists in the eloquence, vividness, and sincerity with which a given problem in human life or character is presented.  Human nature is made up of all sorts of traits—­selfishness, cupidity, self-sacrifice, courage, loyalty.  All life is made up ... of a compromise between elements in the struggle for happiness.  These elements make for the story, happiness being the chief factor for which humanity is searching.”

Though written for short-story writers, these words from an article by Mr. Floyd Hamilton Hazard are so true, and so applicable to the writing of photoplays, that we reproduce them here.

Substantially similar ideas were advanced by Mr. Daniel Frohman, the theatrical impresario, in an interview in the New York Sun, and no one will doubt the close relationship which exists between the general principles of plot-structure as applied to the “legitimate” drama and to the photoplay.

We may now see the first big element in all vitally dramatic themes: 

1.  The Human Appeal

“Your script,” wrote a certain editor in returning a young writer’s photoplay, “needs to be introduced to the ‘H.I.’ twins—­Heart Interest and Human Interest.  Those two elements are responsible for the sale of more manuscripts than anything else with which the writer has to do.”

In choosing a theme for your photoplay, then, constantly bear in mind the great truth that, no matter how original, how interesting, or how cleverly constructed your plot may be, it will be sadly lacking unless it contains a goodly percentage of one or both of these desirable qualities.  The frequently-quoted formula of Wilkie Collins, “Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, make ’em wait,” simply sums up the proper procedure when you set out to win the interest and sympathy of the spectators.  “The greatest aid in selling scripts is the injection of the human-interest bits.  Every effective bit of business concisely told helps the sale because it helps the editor,” Mr. Sargent remarks in one of his criticisms.  “Reach your readers’ hearts and brains,” says Arthur S. Hoffmann, editor of Adventure, in The Magazine Maker.  And then, after citing the dictum of Wilkie Collins, he adds:  “Make ’em hate, like, sympathize, think.  Give them human nature, not merely names of characters.”

When all is said, you can hope to reach the minds of the masses only by first reaching their hearts.

2.  Writing for All Classes