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CHAPTER XXI NEW PLOTS AND OLD TWO things are important in plotting. One is to know what to write. The other is to know what to avoid. Of the two the lat- ter is the more important. A'arious authorities place the number of fundamental plots at from seven to twenty-nine. Nearly the latter number are released in the United States, alone, each day. Naturally it follows that the stories must have considerable sameness. L'nfor- tunately too many of them have entirely too much sameness. This is because many of these stories are written by staff men or by directors who are under contract to write all the plays they produce. Naturally they take less pains at times than the free lance who must offer good material to find acceptance. It is for this reason that the Editor turns to the outside writer for real novelty and it is this which gives the free lance his opportunity. Also it is the free lance's only excuse. If he cannot do better than the staff man in the matter of novelty he cannot expect to compete with him on technical grounds, so he loses at all points. 2. Notwithstanding this need for sending out only the best, Editors estimate that from one-half of one per cent to not more than two per cent of the outside submissions are generally acceptable or of a grade warranting their submission to any studio. This is because the market is constantly flooded with the scripts of incompetents who seek only the "easy money" that is so alluringly suggested in the advertisements of fake schools and agencies. It is, however, also due to the failure of the more advanced writer to keep in touch with production. 3. Had Adam in the Garden of Eden been possessed of a type- writer his position as an author would have been ideal. He could have written anything with the positive assurance that it was new. Even a story titled "And a Little Child Shall Lead Them," strange as it now may seem, would have been novel and editors over in the Land of Nod would have "eaten up" his output and would have asked for more. But that was many thousand years ago. In the interval a thousand stories have been written with that precise title and thou- sand upon thousands more have been written that the title would fit. 4. This is because each author feels himself to be in much the same position that .\dam was. He has written nothing; therefore there is nothing that he may not write. He writes them all. Probably there never was an author who has not, at some time, written of the little child that brought two loving hearts together or served to keep them from drifting apart. There are certain stories that it would seem the author must write in order to rid his mental system of the dross. By all means write them, but do not be so foolish as to try to sell them. 5. To list all forbidden plots would be to list practically all ideas. 68