Part 3

You will remember that last month, in discussing the possible plots to be discovered in newspapers, we found a germ in the “Letters From Readers” column. It was an epistle signed “Lonesome,” and was from a young man who wanted to know why the big city did not provide some sort of welfare club or association where a stranger could meet and become acquainted with other persons?

That word “Lonesome” aroused our curiosity. It would likewise interest an audience. Imagine Charles Ray in the character. We see him fresh from the country, in his little hall-room, life, hustle and bustle all around him. But to Charlie they mean nothing; he has none in the length and breadth of the city to call “Friend.”

When you have introduced such a character you have the audience with you. But you must go further. The audience wants to see Charlie struggle against his environment, or, out of his despair they wish to see him perform some rash act that will force a struggle on him.

Comedy or drama can be developed from such a theme--by the injection of struggle. The chances are you will bring to light that most artistic and desirable of blends--comedy-drama. Suppose that our “Lonesome” youngster, suddenly grown rash, forms a decision. “I’m going to walk out that door,” he says, “and speak to the first person I meet. I don’t care whether it’s John D. Rockefeller or a street sweeper, I’m going to tell him I’m lonesome and want someone to talk to who will speak about something beside the weather.”

There’s the start of your struggle. Why, it’s a funny struggle alone to see Charlie walking the room, trying to screw up his determination to go through with the rashly made resolution. Finally he strides forth bravely.

Whom does he meet?

There’s where your genius as a story teller comes in. What sort of a character would O. Henry have him meet? Start a Harold McGrath story off with this theme. The story will be running away with you--if your imagination is in working order.

The simplest form of struggle is that of the eternal triangle--two men for a girl, or the conflict of two women for one man. The struggle that develops out of your “Lonesome” story may eventuate in that sort before it gets very far. But you can see that you have started on more original ground, that if you follow these paths you will not have simply an “eternal triangle” story.

That has been our reason for withholding mention of “struggle” to this point. There are those who would tell you of this basic essential before any other point had been discussed. The result is that so many amateurs set out to write stories by seeking for a struggle. They look over the list of various sorts of struggles, two men for a girl, two girls for a man, man against poverty, man against temptations, and so on. And when the alleged story is completed it is merely a framework, without life or soul. Stilted characters struggle through time-worn situations.

“Struggle” may be classified and indexed. But “plot germs” cannot; the plot germs that _you_ can discover are limited only by your own experience, your own reading, your own imagination. And if you set out to write your story by searching for the _germ_ that is unusual, interesting, the chances are in your favor in securing originality--something different. Because _your own life_, your own viewpoint is something different. It is yours as long as you keep it yours, it is going to become trite only when you grow lazy and follow the lines of pictures and stories you remember because that is the easy way.

Starting with a germ that is _different_ the “struggle” you provide is going to be different, because it is going to be the sort of struggle that could happen only to your _different_ characters.

There’s the basis of originality--your own life, your own heart, your own mind.

* * * * *

_ABOUT THE WRITING OF PHOTOPLAYS_

_No, dear reader, the article you have just read is not part of a “course in photoplay writing.” We don’t like the phrase, we don’t like anything that claims to be a course in photoplay writing._

_If we were to call these articles a “course” there would be the inference that we thought any person who read them could learn how to write photoplays. And we would be taking money under false pretenses. That isn’t our business; it’s our antipathy._

_No, unless you have within you the material that would make you a scenario writer eventually, whether you read this series of articles or struggled along the Rocky Road of Experience, you would never become a screen author._

A CLOSING THOUGHT

The Chicago Photoplaywright College, through its agents, requests our advertising rates.

To which we hasten to reply:

During 1920 our schedule for advertising is as follows: For schools claiming to teach photoplaywriting, $794,687.23 per agate line; for promoters selling movie stock, $1,545,897.13 per dot of an “i”; for the slimy beasts who take the savings of girls to make them movie stars, a page absolutely free of charge and clear of war tax, couched in our choicest adjectives, boiled in billingsgate,--all this every time we get the goods on them.

You’re welcome, Chicago Photoplaywright College! Any further information desired will be gladly furnished on request. Apply to our Service Department, with the accent on the “hiss.”

_“Brilliancy”--and Stars_

_It happened at the luncheon table at the Astor Hotel, New York._

_Trade paper critics and other film folk were gathered around the festive board, prior to viewing the latest picture with Mildred Harris Chaplin starred._

_The fair Mildred naturally was present._

_For a moment, strange to say, film talk had stopped, and politics and the coming Presidential election was the topic of conversation._

_Said Jimmie Young urbanely and smiling addressing Mildred:_

“_Are you going to vote?_”

_“Vote?” gushed the fair one vacantly, a tiny frown indicating deep--er----mental effort. “Vote? What on?”_

_And the orchestra softly played “Asleep in the Deep.”_

End of Project Gutenberg's Film Truth; September, 1920, by Anonymous