imagination and the power to use it, but because frequently the
good idea is expressed in such unintelligible language, and with such
execrable spelling and hopelessly incorrect punctuation, that the
thread of the plot, its meaning, and values, cannot be grasped by the
editor. Even when the story itself is not utterly lost to the script
reader, he is too busy a man to wade through it bit by bit, struggling
to make something out of a jumble of confusing words. The demand for
good scripts is greater than the supply--but the supply is increasing,
and the standard is rising. This means that although there are
dozens--to put it mildly--of men and women entering the field each
week, easily three-fourths of these brand themselves as hopelessly
unqualified when they drop their first script into the mail-box.

The repeated failures of the unprepared have given rise to the rumor
that only the scripts of favored writers are read in editorial
offices. The old trick of placing small pieces of paper between the
sheets, in order to prove whether or not the script was read through,
is as popular today as it was twenty years ago with story writers. The
gentleman who has the first reading of all the scripts received by a
certain company called the attention of one of the present authors to
just such a script only recently. What was the result? Some of the
minute pieces of paper fell out the moment the script was taken from
the envelope for examination. That was enough. The script was almost
immediately placed in another envelope and returned to the
writer--with a rejection slip. Unfair treatment of the writer? Not at
all! Following the discovery of the concealed particles of paper, a
glance at the first page was sufficient to convince the editor that it
was the work of another amateur who was foolish enough to add to a
miserably prepared script the proof that he doubted the honesty of the
editor to whom he had addressed his offering.

It is only reasonable to believe that every editor will read at least
so much of every script as is necessary to convince him of its value
or its lack of value to the firm by which he is employed. He draws a
salary to discover stories which _are_ worth while, and is always on
the lookout for good, live, gripping stories which will make pictures
calculated to add to the reputation of his employer. There is just one
way he can find such stories, when the author's name is unknown to
him, and that is by readi