Wife" report from the afternoon paper. Reality would be uninteresting; it would play too slowly, lack form, fail to make its points. No, it is the illusion of life which you require. Often scenes must be falsified and facts suppressed in order to counteract the natural distortion of the medium. If the audience is interested, it will accept false premises, overlook bald facts, and feel rather than think. Make your characters true. Make your incidents seem true. That is enough.

A treatment must, of course, be composed for the most part of pantomimic business, gags and the like. You will be allowed from 130 to 190 subtitles the written captions -averaging fifteen words and never longer than thirty words. The titles must foreshadow the action to come, but must never forestall it with some such announcement as "Upon Returning Home, Mary Finds the Letter", followed immediately by a scene in which she does exactly that. They must be clear, unstilted, and in character. Some will be spoken by the actors, while others, lapse-of-time and change-of-locale titles, connect the sequences.

Your first treatment will be greeted with oaths and loud reproaches. Suggestions are in order. Perhaps it will be rewritten half a dozen times. The business department will issue man

You will have the pleasure of reading some such press notice as the following:

"The new superproduction 'What Are Women For?' combines the best efforts of a great director and a great star. Mr. Bogenschuts has long been known for his excellent direction, but in this production he has handled the story still more admirably. His smooth construction, his well balanced editing, his trenchant dialogue, strikes home with a new force. The small touches of business supplied by his star were worthy of her fine art. The original author is to be congratulated on a masterful plot. Now and then a false note was contributed by a hastily written scenario as for example the vulgar and entirely uncalled for cabaret but that is to be expected." But then, life is like that!

scene

"AS

S a child I wanted to be an actress. I've always wanted to be an actress. I'm not a writer at all", said Miss Ferber; but in that same week "So Big", one year after its publication, sold three thousand copies, carrying its total distribution well on toward two hundred thousand. The popularity of this novel of mother love is romantic for more than one reason. It entails a story of struggle and ultimate success, a story which is always dear to the heart of an American, no matter how sophisticated he may be. It tells also the story of artistic achievement. Whatever critics may think of Miss Ferber's work, and some of them rank it high, she has progressed steadily, she has selected, eliminated, forced herself to follow a standard, and raised that standard as the years have passed. The bushy haired, dark eyed little tomboy whose family had moved from Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Appleton, Wisconsin, when she was very young, whose great dream was to attend the Northwestern School of Expression, has become the successful, poised woman of striking appearance who keeps herself in trim for her writing much as an athlete prepares for a race, who goes to her desk every morning to work, who says that she would not give up her six years of newspaper experience for a similar period of study in any university in the world.

As a child, she says, she was a great "piece speaker"! Her greatest joy was to find an audience before which

she could perform. Upon occasion she was taken to Chicago to visit Grandmother. The rest of the family would gather on the front steps along Calumet Avenue. "Where is "Pete"?" someone would ask "Pete" was her father's name for her. Then there would be a wild search, and "Pete" would be found on some corner, an admiring crowd of kids gathered round, content, exuding dramatic power, speaking pieces to her heart's desire.

The Ryan High School of Appleton was her alma mater. Before high school days, even, she had loved school. "When I woke in the morning to find that it was Saturday, it was almost unbearable", she says. "Fridays were the great days; those were the piece speaking days when we went around from room to room, saying our poems to each other."

So far, though she had organized amateur theatricals where violent dramas were given on improvised stages before audiences happy after the payment of the requisite number of pins, she had never wanted to write. All her imagination and desire were directed toward the stage. Yet she read, read avidly, everything she found. At nine, she read all of Dickens. Why? Because there was a full set of Dickens at home in the old walnut bookcase. Then followed "Hypatia", "Quo Vadis", George Eliot.

"My prize possession", she told me, "was a large green volume called 'The World of Wit and Humor'. If there

is any humor in my work, I owe it to that volume. In it were selections from Washington Irving, from Artemus Ward. I have it still, and the pages are worn and broken at the binding."

Presently she discovered the library, and took away two and three books at a time. One of the most tragic days of her life was that on which she finished her quota of books, took them back, and found that she could not borrow more until the sun had set and risen again. She was not entirely a bookish young lady, however. She climbed trees with the best boys in the town, played games, and was as independent as a hawk.

Evenings at home form a vivid part of her memory-sitting hunched up in a chair with a book, reading to her father, who was blind, whom she adored. Going to him sometimes, when his head ached, and with strong, firm fingers rubbing away the pain. The story of these early days, much of it, is found in the first part of "Fanny Herself". Miss Ferber's mother also tells of them, the kindly, gay, youthful mother who lives with her in an apartment looking out over Central Park.

Beaux there were, too, in plenty; twice a week she tramped off to a dance. Always, when she wasn't reading, she was active, and always, while she was active, she was acting. "Even now", she says, "I'd rather see a good play than do anything else, and I'd rather see a bad play than no play at all!"

Small things change the course of ambition. In the case of every writer of best sellers I have considered, that obvious truth has been proved. Miss Ferber had been the editor of the Ryan High School paper; but the idea of literature as a career had not occurred to her. It was some little family quarrel – over pin money, as a matter of fact- that made her give up her idea

of going to the School of Expression and march down to the offices of the Appleton "Daily Crescent", sign a contract at the age of seventeen to work as a reporter at three dollars a week.

The girl reporter on a paper, no matter how small, learns much of life. She collects news at the dry goods store and the post office, from the lounger on the street corner and the gossip in the parlor. Miss Ferber was a good reporter, and she took her work so seriously that presently she was made local correspondent for several papers, among them the Milwaukee "Journal". Meanwhile, her sister Fannie kept house for the blind father and the hard working mother, the same sister Fannie who has since become Mrs. Fox and has written an excellent cookbook to prove that early training counts.

The woman reporter of the Milwaukee "Journal" was sick. The editor was at a loss to replace her. Then he remembered having heard of this young lady in Appleton, remembered her copy as good, and sent for her. Miss Ferber left home with the assurance and innocence of youth, and came to be a regular "sob sister" on the great city paper.

Yet

She arrived puzzled, naive, with everything to learn. Her first assignment was on the famous Schandain case, a scandal trial filled with events whose import meant little to her. she sat and drank it in, seemed to understand, turned in her copy at the end of the day. Those were the days of swift newspaper writing and of grinding work at impossible hours.

"Hey, kid, d'you think we're getting out a weekly!" was the cry of the desk. Copy would be ripped from the typewriter as it was being written. The girl covered street and morgue. She remembers nights in police court, when

"As

S a child I wanted to be an actress. I've always wanted to be an actress. I'm not a writer at all", said Miss Ferber; but in that same week "So Big", one year after its publication, sold three thousand copies, carrying its total distribution well on toward two hundred thousand. The popularity of this novel of mother love is romantic for more than one reason. It entails a story of struggle and ultimate success, a story which is always dear to the heart of an American, no matter how sophisticated he may be. It tells also the story of artistic achievement. Whatever critics may think of Miss Ferber's work, and some of them rank it high, she has progressed steadily, she has selected, eliminated, forced herself to follow a standard, and raised that standard as the years have passed. The bushy haired, dark eyed little tomboy whose family had moved from Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Appleton, Wisconsin, when she was very young, whose great dream was to attend the Northwestern School of Expression, has become the successful, poised woman of striking appearance who keeps herself in trim for her writing much as an athlete prepares for a race, who goes to her desk every morning to work, who says that she would not give up her six years of newspaper experience for a similar period of study in any university in the world.

As a child, she says, she was a great "piece speaker"! Her greatest joy was to find an audience before which

The Ryan High School of Appleton was her alma mater. Before high school days, even, she had loved school. "When I woke in the morning to find that it was Saturday, it was almost unbearable", she says. "Fridays were the great days; those were the piece speaking days when we went around from room to room, saying our poems to each other."

So far, though she had organized amateur theatricals where violent dramas were given on improvised stages before audiences happy after the payment of the requisite number of pins, she had never wanted to write. All her imagination and desire were directed toward the stage. Yet she read, read avidly, everything she found. At nine, she read all of Dickens. Why? Because there was a full set of Dickens at home in the old walnut bookcase. Then followed "Hypatia", "Quo Vadis", George Eliot.

"My prize possession", she told me, "was a large green volume called 'The World of Wit and Humor'. If there

is any humor in my work, I owe it to that volume. In it were selections from Washington Irving, from Artemus Ward. I have it still, and the pages are worn and broken at the binding."

Presently she discovered the library, and took away two and three books at a time. One of the most tragic days of her life was that on which she finished her quota of books, took them back, and found that she could not borrow more until the sun had set and risen again. She was not entirely a bookish young lady, however. She climbed trees with the best boys in the town, played games, and was as independent as a hawk.

Evenings at home form a vivid part of her memory-sitting hunched up in a chair with a book, reading to her father, who was blind, whom she adored. Going to him sometimes, when his head ached, and with strong, firm fingers rubbing away the pain. The story of these early days, much of it, is found in the first part of "Fanny Herself". Miss Ferber's mother also tells of them, the kindly, gay, youthful mother who lives with her in an apartment looking out over Central Park.

Beaux there were, too, in plenty; twice a week she tramped off to a dance. Always, when she wasn't reading, she was active, and always, while she was active, she was acting. "Even now", she says, "I'd rather see a good play than do anything else, and I'd rather see a bad play than no play at all!"

Small things change the course of ambition. In the case of every writer of best sellers I have considered, that obvious truth has been proved. Miss Ferber had been the editor of the Ryan High School paper; but the idea of literature as a career had not occurred to her. It was some little family quarrel – over pin money, as a matter of that made her give up her idea

fact

of going to the School of Expression and march down to the offices of the Appleton "Daily Crescent", sign a contract at the age of seventeen to work as a reporter at three dollars a week.

The girl reporter on a paper, no matter how small, learns much of life. She collects news at the dry goods store and the post office, from the lounger on the street corner and the gossip in the parlor. Miss Ferber was a good reporter, and she took her work so seriously that presently she was made local correspondent for several papers, among them the Milwaukee "Journal". Meanwhile, her sister Fannie kept house for the blind father and the hard working mother, the same sister Fannie who has since become Mrs. Fox and has written an excellent cookbook to prove that early training counts.

The woman reporter of the Milwaukee "Journal" was sick. The editor was at a loss to replace her. Then he remembered having heard of this young lady in Appleton, remembered her copy as good, and sent for her. Miss Ferber left home with the assurance and innocence of youth, and came to be a regular "sob sister” on the great city paper.

She arrived puzzled, naive, with everything to learn. Her first assignment was on the famous Schandain case, a scandal trial filled with events whose import meant little to her. Yet she sat and drank it in, seemed to understand, turned in her copy at the end of the day. Those were the days of swift newspaper writing and of grinding work at impossible hours.

"Hey, kid, d'you think we're getting out a weekly!" was the cry of the desk. Copy would be ripped from the typewriter as it was being written. The girl covered street and morgue. She remembers nights in police court, when