,
or have been, within the range of your personal experience. Many a
writer has successfully built his story on well-verified second-hand
knowledge. If you are not familiar with the subject at first-hand, and
cannot get direct, personal information, get the knowledge from books
and periodicals, _but get it exactly--squeeze the last drop of
information_ from the subject. If there is no library in your town,
search your own as well as borrowed books and magazines until you find
at least enough correct data to enable you to turn out a script that
will not betray second-hand knowledge. Jules Verne had only indirect
knowledge of most of the countries which he depicted, yet to read his
books one would believe that he had travelled everywhere. Because he
had read up on and investigated his subjects he was able to produce
such thoroughly convincing, and always interesting, books as "A Tour
of the World in Eighty Days," "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,"
and "The Clipper of the Clouds," in which he wrote, and apparently
authoritatively, of almost every country on the globe.

Until your work is pretty well known by the editors, it is just as
well not to attempt to write historical dramas. But if you do write
them, the greatest care must be taken to adhere closely to facts,
especially in composing scripts in which famous historical personages
figure. Three or four years ago a certain company that made a
specialty of two- and three-part historical, Western, and military
dramas, was called to account by an army officer in Washington for
having brought out a photoplay of pioneer life which held up a
well-known officer of the United States army in a rather bad light by
making him responsible for an act of great injustice to a famous
Indian chieftain. The author of the photoplay--whether a staff-writer
or a free lance--was doubtless unaware that he was doing an injustice
to the memory of a gallant and kind-hearted American soldier; but,
however the picture came to be written, it elicited the strong
disapproval of someone _who knew_, and who did not hesitate to tell
the makers that a mistake had been made.

Manufacturers have to be careful; they cannot afford to offend anyone.
Moreover, the motion picture has come to be looked upon as a great
educational factor, and no picture can be truly educational that is
not strictly accurate. If you want to write historical photoplays
after you have become known to the editors, very well;