regular income. At least, they _seemed_ to promise that, especially
when coupled with the assurance that "no previous literary training"
was required. These advertisements looked attractive, also, to the man
whose income was not regular. Small wonder that within a few months'
time scores, hundreds, rushed blindly into a field where even writers
of established reputation would have failed--and did fail--without
preliminary technical training. Even those who succeeded in getting
their efforts accepted by the producers found that the check was more
likely to be for ten dollars than for any amount in excess of that.


_4. Advance in Requirements_

The real change has come within the past ten or twelve months. A sort
of weeding process has been carried on by the various manufacturers,
and as a result they recognize certain writers as being capable of
supplying them, at more or less regular intervals, with the kind of
scripts they want, quite as certain magazine editors have lists of
story-writers to whom they look for the bulk of their fiction.
Gradually this list of trained and capable, and consequently
successful, writers for the screen is growing larger, for daily some
new writer is demonstrating that the freshness, brightness, and
ingenuity of his ideas warrant the editor's putting him on the list of
those from whom good material may be expected.


_5. The Demand for Photoplays_

Is there not, therefore, it may be asked, a probability of the field's
becoming overcrowded?