This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X PLEASING THE READER Divide all readers into majority and minority. It is legitimate and profitable to aim at either. Now make your big decision, and it is a very big one. At which of these will you aim? If the majority, study and analyze their tastes and reactions. If the minority, study and analyze the majority first; then study the minority. Their tastes are not necessarily opposite, but they are necessarily different, also various; the minority are a unit only in being different from the majority. But you can reach them fairly well merely by giving them the opposite of what the majority like. Your problem is whether you can get a better slice of attention from the majority of readers in competition with the majority of writers or from the minority of readers in competition with a minority of writers. Majority vs. Minority.--Your own peculiar gifts and inclinations in writing should be the deciding factor, but you can make no intelligent decision until you really have some understanding of the two groups between which you must decide. If you write for money only, study them till you have your humannature formulas at your finger-ends and almost automatically apply them to every idea, expression or bit of material that comes up for consideration. If you write for art only, study them just the same (you'll be getting the best material in the world), but instead of turning the results into formulas turn them into your understanding. If you write according to the method--commonly called inspiration and attributed to what we, sometimes hastily, term genius--of merely exploding yourself into the world at large without deigning to look at said world, continue to explode as usual, but when your creation is all created go over it with...