“The formula upon which the plot is built is of venerable antiquity,” says Frederick Taber Cooper, in The Bookman, in reviewing a certain novel.  Then, although he commends the purpose of the story, he concludes:  “But the book is not really an important one, because there have been scores of books equally well written which have already said much the same thing.  The author has not had any new twist to give to the old theme—­and, worst of all, we know from wearisome past experience just how the plot will work out, just how inevitable it is that Kenneth will achieve fame, and his father will be reconciled, and Jean, convinced of her injustice, will tearfully plead for forgiveness.”  Don’t lay yourself open to such a criticism.

3.  What Is Originality?

“Popularly, we call that man original who stands on his own feet, uses the thoughts of others only to stimulate and supplement his own, and who does his best to color borrowed thought with the hue of his own personality.  Such a man, if he be not a creator, is at least a thinker, and a thinker need never be a literary thief.  The entrance of any thought that will set the mind to working should be welcome indeed."[34]

[Footnote 34:  J. Berg Esenwein, Writing the Short-Story.]

Speaking of the way in which a writer may take an old plot and work it over, Frank E. Woods, the former “Spectator” of the Dramatic Mirror, says: 

“That is precisely what every author does in nine cases out of ten.  He utilizes and adapts the ideas he has gained from various sources.  It is when he follows another author’s sequence or association of ideas or arrangement of incidents so closely as to make his work appear to be an obvious copy or colorable imitation, that he is guilty.”

4.  The New Twist Illustrated

As an example of the way in which an old theme may be given a new twist, let us compare the plot of Browning’s “Pippa Passes”—­which, by the way, was wonderfully well produced in motion-picture form by the Biograph Company in 1909—­and James Oppenheim’s photoplay, “Annie Crawls Upstairs,” produced by the Edison Company.

In each, the theme is the spiritual redemption of several different characters through the influence of the heroine, who in each case accomplishes this worthy end quite unconsciously.  Pippa, the mill-girl, spends her holiday wandering through the town and over the countryside, singing her innocent and happy-hearted songs.  It is the effect of those songs upon those who hear them that gives the poem-story its dramatic moments and makes up the plot.  In Mr. Oppenheim’s story, the heroine, Annie, is a tiny, crippled child who, wandering out of the tenement kitchen where her half-drunken father is quarreling with his wife, crawls painfully up one flight of stairs after another, innocently walking into each flat in turn, and in each doing some good by her mere presence.  On one floor a