cts the surest teachers are common sense, a
wide reading, the constant study of the photoplays seen on the screen,
a friendly critic, and the printed rejection slip. _And do not forget
this most important point_: It is not so much the time-worn _theme_
that makes a story hackneyed as it is the threadbare _development_ of
the theme. A new "twist," a fresh surprise, coming as the climax to an
old situation, may redeem its hackneyed character. But when you can
combine a fresh theme with a new treatment you have reached the apex
of originality. Time spent in working on unhackneyed lines will save
you many later heartaches.

_8. Inconsistent Situations_

A word or two concerning inconsistencies in film stories. While the
inconsistencies and absurdities occasionally seen on the screen are
often traceable to the director alone, the writer must do his share
toward eliminating what is incorrect or out of place. Take for
instance the Red Cross in war-pictures. The introduction of the Red
Cross into American Civil War pictures was something that one of the
present writers had commented upon and criticized two or three years
before Mr. Herbert Hoagland, of Pathe Freres American company, wrote
his helpful little book on the technique of the photoplay[27], but,
since Mr. Hoagland puts it so comprehensively in that work, what he
says is quoted here:

"In a Civil War story the scenario called for a field hospital with
the Red Cross flag flying from a staff. Well, the Red Cross wasn't
organized until the closing year of the war, and then it was done in
Switzerland. The Southerners and the Yankees never saw this emblem of
mercy _during the whole four years of strife."_

[Footnote 27: Herbert Case Hoagland, _How to Write a Photoplay_.]

Following the foregoing paragraph in his book, Mr. Hoagland speaks of
another script in which an officer in Confederate uniform is informed
by a courier--in Confederate uniform--that war had been declared
between the North and the South. "But," the Pathe censor of scripts
remarks, "there was no gray uniform of the Confederacy before the
C.S.A. was formed!"

As one critic has remarked, "Screen credit for the author may not
bring him the credit for which he is looking." In other words, if the
director bungles a scene or allows some historical or other inaccuracy
to creep into the picture, the blame may be placed by the unthinking
spectator on the author--or even, in case of the picture's being an
a