h faster upon a machine than with a pencil or a pen.

The danger then lies in a temptation to haste and carelessness. This is
one reason why many fastidious magazine writers always do the first
draft of an article in longhand and turn to the typewriter only when
they are ready to set down the final version. Temperament and habit
should decide the matter. Nearly any one can learn to compose newspaper
"copy" at the keyboard, but not so many of us dare attempt to do
magazine articles at the same high rate of speed. Particularly does this
hold true of the first page of a magazine manuscript. The opening
paragraph of such a manuscript is likely to make a much more exacting
demand upon the writer's skill than the "lead" of a newspaper "story."
All that the newspaper usually demands is that the reporter cram the
gist of his facts into the first few sentences. The magazine insists
that the first paragraph of a manuscript not only catch attention but
also sound the keynote of many words to follow, for the "punch" of the
magazine story is more often near the end of the article than the
beginning.

Though the technique of newspaper and magazine writing may differ on
this matter of the "lead," do not make the mistake of supposing that the
magazine introduction need not be just as chock full of interest as the
opening of a newspaper "story." You are no longer under any compulsion,
when you write for the magazines, to cram the meat of the story into the
first sentence, but one thing you must do--you must rouse the reader to
sit up and listen. You can well afford to spend any amount of effort
upon that opening paragraph. Write your lead a dozen times, a hundred
times, if necessary, until you make it rivet the attention.

CHAPTER III

HOW TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS

After he has bought or rented a typewriter, the would-be free lance in
the non-fiction field has his workshop only half equipped. One more
machine is an urgent necessity. Get a camera.

Few of our modern American newspapers and magazines are published
without pictures; so anybody ought to be able to perceive how absurd it
is to submit an unillustrated manuscript to an illustrated periodical.
Good photographs have won a market for many a manuscript that scarcely
would have been given a reading if it had arrived without interesting
pictures; and many a well-written article has been reluctantly returned
by the editor because no photographs were available to illustrate i