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310 A COURSE OF STUDY porting to be an entire letter. See when the opening or cloiing para- graph would be better than one from the body of the sheet. 30. And all this time it is to be supposed you are working on your own plots. Work them into rough photoplay form. Write ajd rewrite them unless you find that the story grows worse with eadi revision. Writers may be roughly assembled into two classes: those who work best on the first draft and those who do better on revise. Do not mistake laziness for an inability to revise, but on the other hand do not work too long on a story if you find you do not im-- prove it. Lay it aside and take it up again weeks, or even months, later. 31. Now you are ready to do more original work and less copying. You have learned not only the form, but the application of form to idea from your work on the plays of others. Now apply form to your own ideas with the intention of selling your product. In their proper chapters the various processes of plot formation and devel- opment are described in detail. Work along those jines unless you chance upon a method that suits you better. 32. Do not trust too much to the criticism of your friends. They mean well, but they may not know, and the possession of college degrees is no evidence of ability to criticise photoplays. One of the poorest scripts that ever came under the observation of this writer was the work of a professor of English literature in one of the largest colleges of the country. His knowledge of literature was profound, his English w^as classical in its purity, but he did not know photo- play. The minister, the teacher, the newspaper man, and the law- yer may each be learned in his profession and yet his opinion of your manuscript may be infinitely less worth while than the judgment of the grammar school boy who is an ardent "fan." 33. If you have made proper advance you are now able to visualize your action, to turn the printed word into motion, but you have this one drawback. You know the story you have written, and you cannot be certain that you have put all of the story into the plot of action. You may read it a dozen times and each- time supply some missing point from your memory of the story and think it is in the script. You know that John does this because of some other action.. You do not realize that the explanatory action is missing. Get some- one to go over it for you. Encourage them to ask questions and do not grow angry if they do. 34. Write as much as you can, but do not try to market all you write. Send out only the best, retaining the rest to work over. If you cannot .better a story by editing and revising, lay. it aside until you have done at least two others and the incidents of the first are less clear in your mind. Now read your synopsis and mentally plot it afresh, waiting the new action without reference to the old. Now compare the two. You are apt to find some improvement. If you keep at it long enough you will get the story right in time. 35. As vou studv and learn from vour failures vou will come to