It is just as hard to think up original plots if one
is on the salary list of one of the manufacturers as it is for you who
do your work at home and turn out only one script a month. The
important fact is, that the staff-writer would never have been offered
the position he holds had not the editor recognized his ability to
keep up a fairly steady output of plays with plots and technical
points of more than average merit. He was an original writer _before_
he became a member of the staff, _not because_ he is in the employ of
the producer.
The field is wide and growing, but nowhere is there room for
untrained, incompetent, hit-or-miss dabblers. The man who is in
earnest, who keeps in touch with what is going on in the trade, who
watches the pictures to gain ideas and inspiration, who studies the
life about him to find plot-suggestions and motives, and who, once
started, keeps at it--working, working, working--cannot fail to find
that his reward will justify the effort.
CHAPTER XV
WHAT YOU CANNOT WRITE
The caption of this chapter must be taken as a serious warning that
there are certain things which you cannot write into a script unless
you wish to insure its rejection. These specific warnings are based on
the experiences of amateurs who have had their scripts returned with
the brief and unsatisfactory statement that they were "not available
for present use," or that the "cost of production is too great.
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