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Spaceways, v. 3, issue 5, whole no. 21, June 1941

SPACEWAYS                                   5
            HOW TO BE A HACK
                           by
      PUMPHANDLE J. SNORT, III.

         "Advice", tis said, "is, of all things, the easiest to give." The quotation may not be precisely accurate, but the idea is. And it wouldn't be so had save for the fact that the advisors all seem to gang up in one huge mob and write books for writers. In no other field, certainly, is there so much ludicrous chant-mumbling, mystic rites, and utterly useless exhibitionism as in books for writers. It's the happy Valhalla of charlatans, college professors, and pedants - the difference between the latter two being, unfortunately, often rather difficult to distinguish.
         Which is why, when a guy wrote a book, it became one of the most popular volumes on writing that would ever appear. The name of the guy was Jack Woodford, and the same of the book, "Writing and Selling" - originally titled "Trial and Error". The fact that the book was full of misleading advice, tinted with a philousephy that could lead only to bad mistakes on the part of the beginner, and showed, rather too evidently, the effects of being written by a person best compared with the southern extremity of a northward bound horse, made no difference to the readers; for here was a book that at last came down to earth and spoke in two-syllable words-some of them regrettably anlgo-saxon, and rich with connotations and traditions-and told him this business of writing was done.
         To touch upon the multitude of things Woodford completely neglected, and to save youse fellows some of the slow and painful assimilation of knowledge that comes through experience is the purpose of this article. In the pitifully limited space available, there's no place for a thorough coverage of the subject, but a few things that might conceivably help out in writing that epid you've been hugging to your mental breast can be mentioned. What you see in this article is conglomerate knoledge; knowledge from books, from magazine articles, and most of all, from actual experience. When your first story goes out to every stf. publisher in the country save two, and to several outside the stf. field, and comes back from all of them, with only three neglecting to enclose personal rejection slipes; when that process is repeated in a milder form by your second story; when a capable agent who really knows what he's doing returns all your stories except two, and begins giving you sound, helpful advice-hi, Doc!; guess who?-well, you start learning things, that's all.
           It's a deplorable fact, however, that no amount of real worth in an unsold story, can give the writer such an air of authority as one set up in cold print, no matter how bad, can. And I have never sold a story. I honestly believe I shall eventually, but I haven't yet. Which gives something of an egotistical air to an article written by me on how to sell stuff to prozines, doesn't it? And that, in turn, accounts for the name attached to the head of this article which, as you may conceivably have guessed, was not, thank Foo!, tacked on me at birth. Egotismo, though, never worries the chappie who's being egotistical, as long as his friends don't know who's leering out behind the mask!
           But enough for introduction. Let's start that story.
           Mechanical ends: change your ribbon. Anything that makes your story hard to read isn't going to help your chances any. If buying portable ribbons for your machine whenever you write a new story-which is just howoften they should be changed-is too expensive for you, do as I do and buy the standard ribbon sold at Woolworth for twenty cents, and rewind on your spools. The impression is quite sharp, clear, admirably black, and the savings are enormous. But be sure you get the Woolworth ribbon-the Kress ribbon is not worth the extra nickel it costs alone.
          You'll need twenty-pound bond. No don't squawk; dime story paper is out of the question. For one thing it looks like hell, especially after it's been out a few times, for for another it's difficult to erase at all; impossible to erase neatly. And you can get five hundred sheets of white sulphite Keeboard 20-1b bond for only $1.45; enough to do you for some while. Get a decent type-writer eraser while you're at it, too. Now drag out some type cleaner-what,

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SPACEWAYS 5 HOW TO BE A HACK by PUMPHANDLE J. SNORT, III. "Advice", tis said, "is, of all things, the easiest to give." The quotation may not be precisely accurate, but the idea is. And it wouldn't be so had save for the fact that the advisors all seem to gang up in one huge mob and write books for writers. In no other field, certainly, is there so much ludicrous chant-mumbling, mystic rites, and utterly useless exhibitionism as in books for writers. It's the happy Valhalla of charlatans, college professors, and pedants - the difference between the latter two being, unfortunately, often rather difficult to distinguish. Which is why, when a guy wrote a book, it became one of the most popular volumes on writing that would ever appear. The name of the guy was Jack Woodford, and the same of the book, "Writing and Selling" - originally titled "Trial and Error". The fact that the book was full of misleading advice, tinted with a philousephy that could lead only to bad mistakes on the part of the beginner, and showed, rather too evidently, the effects of being written by a person best compared with the southern extremity of a northward bound horse, made no difference to the readers; for here was a book that at last came down to earth and spoke in two-syllable words-some of them regrettably anlgo-saxon, and rich with connotations and traditions-and told him this business of writing was done. To touch upon the multitude of things Woodford completely neglected, and to save youse fellows some of the slow and painful assimilation of knowledge that comes through experience is the purpose of this article. In the pitifully limited space available, there's no place for a thorough coverage of the subject, but a few things that might conceivably help out in writing that epid you've been hugging to your mental breast can be mentioned. What you see in this article is conglomerate knoledge; knowledge from books, from magazine articles, and most of all, from actual experience. When your first story goes out to every stf. publisher in the country save two, and to several outside the stf. field, and comes back from all of them, with only three neglecting to enclose personal rejection slipes; when that process is repeated in a milder form by your second story; when a capable agent who really knows what he's doing returns all your stories except two, and begins giving you sound, helpful advice-hi, Doc!; guess who?-well, you start learning things, that's all. It's a deplorable fact, however, that no amount of real worth in an unsold story, can give the writer such an air of authority as one set up in cold print, no matter how bad, can. And I have never sold a story. I honestly believe I shall eventually, but I haven't yet. Which gives something of an egotistical air to an article written by me on how to sell stuff to prozines, doesn't it? And that, in turn, accounts for the name attached to the head of this article which, as you may conceivably have guessed, was not, thank Foo!, tacked on me at birth. Egotismo, though, never worries the chappie who's being egotistical, as long as his friends don't know who's leering out behind the mask! But enough for introduction. Let's start that story. Mechanical ends: change your ribbon. Anything that makes your story hard to read isn't going to help your chances any. If buying portable ribbons for your machine whenever you write a new story-which is just howoften they should be changed-is too expensive for you, do as I do and buy the standard ribbon sold at Woolworth for twenty cents, and rewind on your spools. The impression is quite sharp, clear, admirably black, and the savings are enormous. But be sure you get the Woolworth ribbon-the Kress ribbon is not worth the extra nickel it costs alone. You'll need twenty-pound bond. No don't squawk; dime story paper is out of the question. For one thing it looks like hell, especially after it's been out a few times, for for another it's difficult to erase at all; impossible to erase neatly. And you can get five hundred sheets of white sulphite Keeboard 20-1b bond for only $1.45; enough to do you for some while. Get a decent type-writer eraser while you're at it, too. Now drag out some type cleaner-what,