How To Write Special Feature Articles Part 7

"Wasn't it so?" I meekly inquired.

"No!" she thundered. "I served ice cream, cake and coffee, and that makes two courses. See that it is right next time, or we'll stop the paper."

Here my visitor laughed. "I suppose that's another reason for your staying here. When we write anything about a person we don't have to see them again and hear about it."

"But," I replied, "that's the very reason I cling to the small town.

I want to see the people about whom I am writing, and live with them. That's what brings the rewards in our business. It's the personal side that makes it worth while, the real living of a newspaper instead of merely writing to fill its columns."

In many small towns women have not heretofore been overly welcome on the staff of the local paper, for the small town is essentially conservative and suspicious of change. This war, however, is changing all that, and many a woman with newspaper ambitions will now have her chance at home.

For ten years I have been what may be cla.s.sified as a small town newspaper woman, serving in every capacity from society reporter to city and managing editor. During this time I have been tempted many times to go to fields where national fame and a larger salary awaited those who won. But it was that latter part that held me back, that and one other factor: "Those who won," and "What do they get out of it more than I?"

It is generally conceded that for one woman who succeeds in the metropolitan newspaper field about ten fail before the vicissitudes of city life, the orders of managing editors, and the merciless grind of the big city's working world. And with those who succeed, what have they more than I? They sign their names to articles; they receive big salaries; they are famous--as such fame goes. Why is a signed name to an article necessary, when everyone knows when the paper comes out that I wrote the article? What does national fame mean compared with the fact that the local laws of the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" were not being enforced and that I wrote stories that remedied this condition?

I began newspaper life as society reporter of a daily paper in a Middle-Western town of ten thousand inhabitants. That is, I supposed I was going to be society reporter, but before very long I found myself doing police a.s.signments, sport, editing telegraph, and whatever the occasion demanded.

I suppose that the beginnings of everyone's business life always remain vivid memories. The first morning I reported for work at seven o'clock. Naturally, no one was in the front office, as the news department of a small-town newspaper office is sometimes called. I was embarra.s.sed and nervous, and sat anxiously awaiting the arrival of the city editor. In five minutes he gave me sufficient instructions to last a year, but the only one I remember was, "Ask all the questions you can think of, and don't let anyone bluff you out of a story."

My first duty, and one that I performed every morning for several years, was to "make" an early morning train connecting with a large city, forty miles away. It was no easy task to approach strangers and ask their names and destination; but it was all good experience, and it taught me how to approach people and to ask personal questions without being rude.

During my service as society reporter I learned much, so much that I am convinced there is no work in the smaller towns better suited to women. Any girl who is bright and quick, who knows the ethics of being a lady, can hold this position and make better money at it than by teaching or clerking.

Each trade, they say, has its tricks, and being a society reporter is no exception. In towns of from one thousand to two thousand inhabitants, the news that Mrs. X. is going to give a party spreads rapidly by that system of wireless telegraphy that excels the Marconi--neighborhood gossip. But in the larger towns it is not so easy. In "our town," whenever there is a party the ice cream is ordered from a certain confectioner. Daily he permitted us to see his order book. If Mrs. Jones ordered a quart of ice cream we knew that she was only having a treat for the family. If it were two quarts or more, it was a party, and if it was ice cream in molds, we knew a big formal function was on foot.

Society reporting is a fertile field, and for a long time I had been thinking that society columns were too dull. My ideal of a newspaper is that every department should be edited so that everyone would read all the paper. I knew that men rarely read the social column.

One day a man said to me that he always called his wife his better judgment instead of his better half. That appealed to me as printable, but where to put it in the paper? Why not in my own department? I did so. That night when the paper came out everyone clamored to know who the man was, for I had merely written, "A man in town calls his wife his better judgment instead of his better half."

Then I decided to make the society department a reflection of our daily life and sayings. In order to get these in I used the initials of my t.i.tle, "S.R." I never used names, but I always managed to identify my persons.

As one might expect, I brought down a storm about my head. Many persons took the hints for themselves when they were not so intended, and there were some amusing results. For instance, when I said in the paper that "a certain man in a down-town store has perfect manners," the next day twelve men thanked me, and I received four boxes of candy as expressions of grat.i.tude.

There were no complaints about the society column being dull after this; everyone read it and laughed at it, and it was quoted in many exchanges. Of course, I was careful to hurt no one's feelings, but I did occasionally have a little good-natured fun at the expense of people who wouldn't mind it. Little personal paragraphs of this sort must never be malicious or mean--if the paper is to keep its friends.

Of all my newspaper experience I like best to dwell on the society reporting; but if I were to advance I knew that I must take on more responsibility, so I became city editor of another paper. I was virtually managing editor, for the editor and owner was a politician and was away much of the time. It was then that I began to realize the responsibility of my position, to grapple with the problem of dealing fairly both with my employer and the public. The daily life with its varying incidents, the big civic issues, the stories to be handled, the rights of the advertisers to be considered, the adjusting of the news to the business department--all these were brought before me with a powerful clarity.

When a woman starts on a city paper she knows that there are linotypes, presses and other machinery. Often she has seen them work; but her knowledge of "how" they work is generally vague. It was on my third day as city editor that I realized my woeful ignorance of the newspaper business from the mechanical viewpoint. I had just arrived at the office when the foreman came to my desk.

"Say," he said, "we didn't get any stuff set last night. Power was off. Better come out and pick out the plate you want to fill with."

What he meant by the power being off I could understand, and perforce I went out to select the plate. He handed me long slabs of plate matter to read. Later I learned that printed copies of the plate are sent for selection, but in my ignorance I took up the slabs and tried to read the type. To my astonishment it was all backward, and I found myself wondering if it were a Chinese feature story. Finally I threw myself on his mercy and told him to select what he chose. As I left the composing-room I heard him say to one of the printers: "That's what comes of the boss hiring a hen editor."

Shortly after noon a linotype operator came to me with his hands full of copy.

"If you want any of this dope in the paper," he said, "you'll have to grab off a paragraph here and there. My machine's got a bad squirt, and it'll take an hour or more to fix it."

Greek, all Greek! A squirt! I was too busy "grabbing off" paragraphs to investigate; but then and there I resolved to penetrate all these mysteries. I found the linotype operator eager to show me how his machine works, and the foreman was glad to take me around and instruct me in his department and also in the pressroom. I have had trouble with printers since; but in the end they had to admit that the "hen editor" knew what she was talking about.

There is a great cry now for woman's advancement. If the women are hunting equality as their goal let them not seek out the crowded, hostile cities, but remain in the smaller places where their work can stand out distinctly. A trite phrase expresses it that a newspaper is the "voice of the people." What better than that a woman should set the tune for that voice?

Equality with men! I sit at my desk looking out over the familiar home scene. A smell of fresh ink comes to me, and a paper just off the press is slapped down on my desk.

"Look!" says the foreman. "We got out some paper today, didn't we?"

"_We_!" How's that for equality? He has been twenty years at his trade and I only ten, yet he includes me.

When I am tempted to feel that my field is limited, my tools crude, and my work unhonored and unsung, I recall a quotation I read many years ago, and I will place it here at the end of the "hen editor's"

uneventful story.

Back before my mind floats that phrase, "Buried in this burg." If a person has ability, will not the world learn it?

"If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or sing a more glorious song than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."

That a personal experience story may be utilized to show readers how to do something is demonstrated in the following article taken from _The Designer_. It was ill.u.s.trated by a half-tone made from a wash drawing of one corner of the burlap room.

A BEDROOM IN BURLAP

THE MOST SATISFACTORY ROOM IN OUR BUNGALOW

BY KATHERINE VAN DORN

Our burlap room is the show room of our bungalow. Visitors are guided through the living-room, the bedroom, the sleeping-porch and kitchen, and allowed to express their delight and satisfaction while we wait with bated breath for the grand surprise to be given them.

Then, when they have concluded, we say:

"But you should see our burlap room!" Then we lead the way up the stairs to the attic and again stand and wait. We know what is coming, and, as we revel in the expressions of admiration evoked, we again declaim with enormous pride: "We made it all ourselves!"

There is a solid satisfaction in making a room, especially for an amateur who hardly expects to undertake room-making as a profession.

We regard our room as an original creation produced by our own genius, not likely to be duplicated in our personal experience. It grew in this wise:

When we came to the bungalow last spring the family numbered three instead of the two of the year before. Now number three, a healthy and bouncing young woman, necessitated a "sleeping-in" maid if her parents were ever to be able to detach themselves from her person.

We had never had a sleeping-in maid at the bungalow before and the problem of where to put her was a serious one. We well knew that no self-respecting servant would condescend to sleep in an attic, although the attic was cool, airy and comfortable. We rather thought, too, that the maid might despise us if we gave her the bedroom and took up our quarters under the rafters. It would be an easy enough matter for carpenters and plasterers to put a room in the attic, but we lacked the money necessary for such a venture. And so we puzzled. At first we thought of curtains, but the high winds which visit us made curtains impracticable. Then we thought of tacking the curtains top and bottom, and from this the idea evolved. The carpenter whom we consulted proved to be amenable to suggestion and agreed to put us up a framework in a day. We helped.

We outlined the room on the floor. This took two strips of wood about one and a half by two inches. The other two sides of the room were formed by the wall of the attic and by the meeting place of the roof and floor--that is, there was in reality no fourth wall; the room simply ended where floor and roof met. Two strips were nailed to the rafters in positions similar to those on the floor, and then an upright strip was inserted and nailed fast at intervals of every three feet. This distance was decided by the fact that curtain materials usually come a yard wide. For a door we used a discarded screen-door, which, having been denuded of the bits of wire clinging to it, answered the purpose very well. The door completed the skeleton.

We used a beautiful soft blue burlap. Tacking on proved a more difficult matter than we had antic.i.p.ated, owing to the fact that our carpenter had used cypress for the framework. We stretched the material taut and then tacked it fast with sharp-pointed, large-headed bra.s.s tacks, and while inserting these we measured carefully the distances between the tacks in order to keep this tr.i.m.m.i.n.g uniform. The two walls supplied by the framework were quickly covered, but the rough wall of the attic necessitated some cutting, as we had to tack the burlap to the uprights and these had not been placed with yard-wide material in view. Above the screen-door frame was a hiatus of s.p.a.ce running up into the peak.

The carpenter had thoughtfully run two strips up to the roof and this enabled us to fill in by cutting and turning in the cloth. A corresponding s.p.a.ce above the window received similar treatment.

Then we covered the inner surface of the screen door and we had a room.

But we were far from satisfied. The room looked bare and crude. We bought a can of dark-oak stain and gave the floor a coat and this improved matters so much that we stained the wood visible on the door frame and about the window. Having finished this, we saw the need of doing something for the ceiling. The ceiling was merely the inner surface of the roof. The builders had made it of boards of varying sizes, the rafters were rough and splintery and there were myriads of nails sticking through everywhere. It looked a hopeless task. But we bought more stain and went to work. Before beginning we covered our precious blue walls with newspapers, donned our oldest clothes and spread papers well over the floor. It was well that we did. The staining was not difficult work but the nails made it splashy and we were pretty well spotted when we finished.

But when we did finish we felt compensated. The nails had become invisible. The dull blue walls with their bright bra.s.s tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, the soft brown floor and the stained, raftered roof made the room the most attractive in the house. We could not rest, although the hour was late and we were both tired, until we had furnished it. We put in a couple of small rugs, a bra.s.s bed, and a white bureau. We hung two pictures securely upon the uprights of the skeleton. We added a couple of chairs and a rack for clothing, put up a white madras curtain at the window, and regarded the effect with the utmost satisfaction. The room answered the purpose exactly. The burlap was thick enough to act as a screen. It was possible to see movement through it, but not form. It insured privacy and still permitted the air to pa.s.s through for ventilation. As a finis.h.i.+ng touch we screwed a k.n.o.b on the outside of the door, put a bra.s.s hook on the inside and went downstairs to count the cost.

As a quick and inexpensive method of adding to the number of rooms in one's house, the making of a burlap room is without an equal. The idea is not patented, and we who deem ourselves its creators, are only too happy to send it on, in the hope that it may be of service to some other puzzled householder who is wondering where to put an added family member.

THE CONFESSION STORY. Closely akin to the personal experience article is the so-called "confession story." Usually published anonymously, confession stories may reveal more personal and intimate experiences than a writer would ordinarily care to give in a signed article.

Needless to say, most readers are keenly interested in such revelations, even though they are made anonymously. Like personal experience stories, they are told in the first person with a liberal use of the p.r.o.noun "I."

A writer need not confine himself to his own experiences for confession stories; he may obtain valuable material for them from others. Not infrequently his name is attached to these articles accompanied by the statement that the confession was "transcribed," "taken down," or "recorded" by the writer.

Conditions of life in cla.s.ses of society with which the reader is not familiar may be brought home to him through the medium of the confession story. It may be made the means of arousing interest in questions about which the average reader cares little. The average man or woman, for example, is probably little concerned with the problem of the poorly paid college professor, but hundreds of thousands doubtless read with interest the leading article in an issue of the _Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_ ent.i.tled, "The Pressure on the Professor." This was a confession story, which did not give the author's own experiences but appeared as "Transcribed by Walter E. Weyl." This article was obviously written with the purpose, skillfully concealed, of calling attention to the hard lot of the underpaid professor.