, reference works, magazines, trade publications,
and files of newspaper clippings. These all contain something of
practical value in working up the bare ideas bought from contributors
or in writing his own story--for editors as well as producers often
write photoplays.

You can hardly go too far in making a study of the various
motion-picture trade journals, because, quite apart from the material
furnished by the different studio publicity departments--which
material, for a certain week, may be practically the same in all the
publicity mediums--each periodical may be depended upon to have at
frequent intervals if not in every issue some good special article
that will either help to instruct the writer or furnish a "tip" as to
the immediate needs of a certain company. While we make special
mention of _The Moving Picture World_ because of the fact that it has
had Mr. Sargent's department as a regular feature for over eight
years, we also recommend the student to keep regularly in touch with
what is published in the _Motion Picture News_ (New York), the _New
York Dramatic Mirror_, _Motography_ (Chicago), and--for the sake of
their critical reviews--any other trade periodicals he may be able to
procure. Apart from the trade journals, you can always be sure of
finding well-written special articles or regular departments of
interest to photoplaywrights in such monthly and semi-monthly
magazines as _Photoplay_ (Chicago), _Motion Picture Magazine_ and
_Motion Picture Classic_ (Brooklyn, N.Y.), _Picture-play Magazine_
(New York), and _Moving Picture Stories_ (New York). Many popular
magazines also print excellent photoplay material frequently and such
craft-periodicals as _The Writer's Monthly_ (Springfield, Mass.) are
always especially helpful to authors. All such tools of the writer's
trade you should get as regularly as you can--and _use_ them.

So long as you get your plot-ideas honestly, where you get them is
altogether your own matter. But get them you must, for, as A. Van
Buren Powell has said: "Everyone will grant that in photoplay writing
'The Idea's the thing.' The script of the beginner, carrying a
brand-new idea, will find acceptance where the most technical
technique in the world, disguising a revamped story, will fail to coax
the coy check from its lair."

_So, let your ideas be original._ Get your inspiration, your
plot-germ, from any source, but be sure that, before you claim the
story for your own, you have