mber, every writer was once a beginner.

The reader may think, having read this much, that undue stress is laid
upon the question of the previously successful writer and the
ambitious but inexperienced amateur; it is this very insistence on the
comparison, however, that should cause the earnest and determined
aspirant to photoplaywright success to analyze more thoroughly the
difference, and profit by a knowledge of how he may quickly advance
himself to the position where the previously successful author will
have little or no advantage over him.

Almost all who have had anything to say upon the subject of writing
for moving pictures, but especially the writers of the advertising
copy for most of the correspondence "schools" that offer "fake"
courses of instruction upon the subject, have declared that there is
"no experience or literary knowledge necessary" in order to become
successful in the photoplay-writing field. One concern even
advertises that the student "can learn this business in from ten to
thirty days." If by this is meant that the mere correct form of
putting the work on paper with the aid of the typewriter--the
mechanical arrangement of synopsis, cast, and scenario or
continuity--can be picked up in that many days, there is hardly room
to dispute the claim. That, however, is not quite "learning the
business." No previous "literary training" _is_ necessary, if by that
is meant the mastery of English prose writing, or the actual technique
of short-story construction or novel writing. We shall see, however,
that the photoplaywright who wishes to succeed in more than one, two,
or three flash-in-the-pan instances must really submit to a course of
training, whether self-conducted or under competent instruction, and
the more he knows of fictional and dramatic art the easier is his new
work likely to be.

Nevertheless, there is a real sense in which the statement that no
literary training is required by the student of photoplay writing is
true. Provided he is gifted with an imaginative mind and the native
ability to _see_ how an idea or a plot-germ would evolve itself into a
climacteric and coherent story, and provided he has the dramatic
sense, he can actually learn the rules of construction and produce
salable photoplays even if he has by no means the literary ability to
write a salable short-story. But he _must_ be a person of ideas--no
book and no instruction can supply that lack.

We have gone so far as d