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 her past life. All these have been done time and time again. Strive for originality if you would write acceptable stories.

Why not have the girl watching her faithless lover, ten miles away, through a telescope? Why not have the heroine dressed in brightest crimson and living in a convent? Why not have the girl wondering if the man she just pushed in the cistern is dead? All these are far-fetched and extravagant, I admit, but they illustrate the point I would make: that you must begin your story in a manner novel and original.

A goodly number of the light little love stories of to-day need no setting beyond that suggested by the conversation. It is pure idiocy to dilate upon the beauty of the scene, or the charm of the weather, or the innermost feelings of the characters. If you must get these points into your story, do it by suggestion. Make the man and woman so thoroughly in love with each other, that neither you nor a master-hand can keep your reader from knowing that the