lyn was developed a
feature article for the _New York Herald_, and from a story-telling hour
at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was evolved a feature story for the
_Boston Herald_ on the telling of stories as a means of interesting
children in pictures.

Magazine articles also may originate in the writer's observation of what
is going on about him. The specific instances given below, like those
already mentioned, will indicate to the inexperienced writer where to
look for inspiration.

A newspaper reporter who covered the criminal courts compiled the
various methods of burglars and sneak thieves in gaining entrance to
houses and apartments, as he heard them related in trials, and wrote a
helpful article for _Good Housekeeping_ on how to protect one's house
against robbery.

The exhibition of a novel type of rack for curing seed corn gave a
writer a subject for an article on this "corn tree," which was published
in the _Illustrated World_.

During a short stop at a farm while on an automobile trip, a woman
writer noticed a concrete storage cellar for vegetables, and from an
interview with the farmer obtained enough material for an article, which
she sold to a farm journal.

While a woman writer was making a purchase in a plumber's shop, the
plumber was called to the telephone. On returning to his customer, he
remarked that the call was from a woman on a farm five miles from town,
who could easily have made the slight repairs herself if she had known a
little about the water-supply system on her farm. From the material
which the writer obtained from the plumber, she wrote an article for an
agricultural paper on how plumber's bills can be avoided.

A display of canned goods in a grocer's window, with special prices for
dozen and case lots, suggested an article, afterwards published in the
_Merchants Trade Journal_, on this grocer's method of fighting
mail-order competition.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. What we actually do ourselves, as well as what we
see others do, may be turned to good use in writing articles. Personal
experiences not only afford good subjects and plenty of material but are
more easily handled than most other subjects, because, being very real
and vital to the writer, they can the more readily be made real and
vital to the reader. Many inexperienced writers overlook the
possibilities of what they themselves have done and are doing.

To gain experience and impressions for their articles, special writers