[Picture]       And I don’t get the point in running down men who are trying to do a job as well as they can.

      As for having Plot 4 and Plot 11 furnished, McIntyre might be a wiser man if he tried to write and sell a pulp story. I doubt that he could. I know dozens of people who are always sidling up to a writer and saying, “I’ve got a swell plot for you.” The plot, I might say, is a very small part of a story. Handling is a fine art and handling determines the yarn from beginning to end.

      Please pardon me when I smile a little at Mr. McIntyre’s selection of plot sources. “Ivanhoe,” according to [Sir Walter] Scott’s own statement, is a pulp yarn. The plot of the “Merchant of Venice” had been used several thousand times before Shakespeare ever plagiarized it. You can find both plots in Greek, and in Arabic.

      Plot, Mr. McIntyre, is the least of a pulpateer’s worries. I have an agent who drowns me in plots I cannot use. I was once given a book which contains millions of plots and I cannot use that either. I recently saw a pack of cards which dealt of plot but, although they might help somebody they don’t help me.

      During the past year I sold many hundreds of thousands of words, and I don’t happen to be ashamed of any story in the lot. In fact, Mr. McIntyre, I would like to forward you the file for your education. I once gave a college short story professor a twenty thousand worder to read. He had never read a pulp story in his life and yet he was eager to heap sarcasm upon my head. He read this story all right, and it kept him up until dawn. He has had nothing to say about pulp since. Maybe the dose would be good for you, too.

      When I look for tripe to read, I don’t go to the pulps. I go to the magazine section of the Sunday papers. I think pulpateers avoid that market because the pay is too small and too irregular.

      And here is one last, parting shot. I have a few slick paper friends and I’ve loaned most of them money at one time or another. I don’t want anything to do with slick paper...I couldn’t write light love and the old trite doctor-in-love plot anyway because it is too bare.

      But just by way of proving that pulpateers aren’t really machines, I have a couple books on the way up. I’ll forward some copies to you. I might as well do something with the books because they certainly won’t make over a cent a word even if they happen to become bestsellers.

      This is a mild protest, I assure you. If at any time you wish to know anything, Mr. McIntyre, about writing and writers, please communicate with some writers for a change.

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