Here is a paragraph by Mr. Eugene V. Brewster, in _Motion Picture
Magazine_, of which he is editor: "It is extremely difficult to think
out a plot that has not been done before. You may not have seen it
before, you may have invented the whole thing out of your brain, but
the probabilities are that the manufacturers have done the same thing,
with slight variations, time and time again, and that the same idea
has been submitted to them dozens of times. You may think you have
worked out something entirely new, but you should remember that the
regular writers employed by the manufacturers have been reading and
thinking for years in an effort to devise something new, and that they
have been trained to do this very thing."
True, it _is_ difficult to think out a plot that has not been done
before; but this very fact, instead of discouraging the writer, should
offer him the greater incentive to discover original ideas for his
stories. That the manufacturers are once in a while forced to make
over their old plays should convince the photoplaywright that they are
more than willing to buy new ones if they are the kind they are
looking for, and that he should study the market to see what the
manufacturers want, and then write the kind they _are_ looking for.
Lastly, we would say most emphatically that the staff-writers employed
by the different companies have absolutely no advantage over the
trained and intelligent free-lance author in the production of
original plays.
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