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72 TECHNIQUE OF THE PHOTOPLAY Mind you, that isn't saying that you cannot write and sell a story under the title "A Little Child Shall Lead Them." It has been done and perhaps you can do it, too, but remember that you have a. thousand or more other stories on the same lines to beat if you want to make a sale. Newspaper paragraphs help to good plots at times if you pick the right sort, but lately some of the film stories have been used by newspaper correspondents to "make copy." The out of town correspondent in the small places is paid by the daily paper only when he has something used. If news is scarce he may go to the photoplay theater and send out a con- densation of some film story as a news dispatch. It may be printed, other papers may copy it and you may pick up the plot only to be told that the subject has been used before. If you do use clippings take the obscure items. If a Titanic sinks, hundreds of stories will be rushed into the studios dealing with that subject and it is probable that every one will be re- jected. Every big news item is taken by scores and hundreds of authors. When Andrew Carnegie interested himself in An- drew Toth, a mine worker who had served half a lifetime for a crime of which he was innocent, fully five hundred manuscripts were written from the idea. None sold because each studio was afraid that some other film maker would get out a story on the subject first. The same paper that told of Toth might have carried a dozen good tips. Seek your inspiration from the five or ten line local item and let your imagination do the rest. If you can really write stories, all your imagination will need is a gentle push to get it started. Take an item like this, and see what it will suggest: In the Children's Court yesterday James Donovan, nine years of age, was charged with selling papers without a permit. Agent Simms, of the Children's Aid Society, reported that investigation disclosed the fact that the boy had been supporting two younger children while their father was in the hospital. The Society will care for the three until the father is discharged. You can write a dozen stories from that. You do not have to stick to those facts. Start with the idea of the boy who makes the home and then let your fancy do the rest. It is possible to get a suggestion from a copyrighted story that will give you something utterly unlike. If the result is utterly unlike you are justified in using the inspiration, since that is all you do use. Take Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, for example. That would seem to be a pretty hard story to steal, yet the master plot is merely that of dual personality treated by a master of style and