Page:How to write a Short Story.djvu/24

 Again, writers are told to observe the unrecorded incidents of a busy world, the everyday events of their own lives. This method, too, is responsible for many good plots.

In spite of a process for manufacturing plots, however, there are many writers who sit at their desks, gazing blankly at the white paper and praying for inspiration, which in most cases includes something to write and the thoughts to clothe that something. If writers would only concede that in many instances inspiration is only another name for inclination, there would be less praying of this nature.

Very naturally the voluminous writer, i. e., the much inspired writer, soon runs short of plots. Here the amateur flounders; the experienced writer plods on with scarcely a pause. If plots fail him for the moment, he creates situations that afford ample opportunity for dramatic action. The man who writes the Nick Carter weeklies confesses that he forces his characters into some position from which escape, by all the laws of