![\"WritingfortheMagazinesEsenwein\"](\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/WritingfortheMagazinesEsenwein.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n“Magazine writing, it must constantly be reiterated, is both an art and a craft,” or so he wrote in his more recent book. “This volume is offered in a friendly spirit to all writers who need help in either the one or the other phase of authorship.”<\/p>\n
I note that the previous owner of this copy looked at that advice with a jaundiced eye, because written by hand beneath the title is now the suggested subtitle, “or, How to be a Hack.” (See image at right.) Of course, perhaps being thought a hack was something devoutly to be wished 92 years ago!<\/p>\n
Here are some rules Dr. J. Berg Esenwein would have you remember:<\/p>\n
Don’t think of yourself as a poet, and don’t dress the part.<\/p>\n
Don’t classify yourself as a member of any special school or group.<\/p>\n
Don’t call your quarters a garret or a studio.<\/p>\n
Don’t frequent exclusively the company of writers.<\/p>\n
Don’t think of any class of work that you feel moved to do as either beneath you or above you.<\/p>\n
Don’t complain of lack of appreciation. (In the long run no really good published work can escape appreciation.)<\/p>\n
Don’t think you are entitled to any special rights, privileges, and immunities as a literary person, or have any more reason to consider your possible lack of fame as a grievance against the world than has any shipping-clerk or traveling salesman.<\/p>\n
Don’t speak of poetic license or believe that there is any such thing.<\/p>\n
Don’t have your book published at your expense by any house that makes a practice of publishing at the author’s expense.<\/p>\n
Don’t write what everybody else is writing.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I find that next-to-last rule particularly amusing, since even today we’re still having to remind beginning writers of the fact that money flows toward<\/i> the writer!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I previously shared the wisdom of Dr. J. Berg Esenwein in excerpts from his 1908 manual, Writing the Short-Story: A Practical Handbook on the Rise, Structure, Writing and Sale of the Modern Short-Story. (To revisit that advice, click on the tag below to see all eight installments.) But Esenwein clearly had more that he wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27,13],"class_list":["post-12936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-old-books","tag-old-magazines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12938,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12936\/revisions\/12938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}