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Brigadier General Charles King Soldier & Author
Brigadier General Charles King Soldier & Author
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Kindle version of vintage magazine article originally published in 1899. Contains lots of great info and illustrations seldom seen in the last 100 years.
Read excerpt -
On a shelf in Gen. King's workroom is the worn and battered field-desk which he has carried through his campaigns. In its pigeon-holes is to be found the secret of his marvelous accuracy in writing. A half dozen small blank books of the ordinary commercial kind are filled with entries, written in a minute but legible hand. These record the occurrences of each day of his active, honest service, and present concisely but vividly the impressions made upon his mind at the moment by the stirring scenes through which he has passed.
His first work when beginning a new novel is to consult these priceless records. It is doubtful if there is another author who composes more rapidly than Gen. King when once he is inspired by a sympathetic theme.
While he emphatically disavows all literary traditions, and declares that his labors in this field are inspired solely by the motive of "making one woman happy" and giving his son and daughters an education which would be impossible by any other means within his command, the strong human interests, the swift movement, and the delicate sympathy and tender pathos of his stories are sufficient proof of the fact that his work is done with a genuine heart interest, and not as a perfunctory task.
His methods of work are undoubtedly different from those of all other authors. After a perusal of his note-books he writes his pages in a short hand of his own and reads his stories into a phonograph which is passed to an operator of the typewriter, who transcribes the record of the cylinder. The sheets are then returned to Gen. King for revision, but the dictated manuscript is seldom changed to any great extent.
"Between the Lines" and the "General's Double" are Gen. King's favorites of the scores of stories which he has given to the public. His first story was "Kittie's Conquest," and was written in the '70s. Its production was then regarded by its author as a passing whim, a pastime to relieve the monotony of an officer's life of a frontier post. This was published in the United Service Magazine of Philadelphia, and immediately attracted favorable attention. The manuscript was carried in the officer's luggage through the Nez Perces and the Sioux campaigns, and shared the fate of many another first literary effort in being respectfully declined by one or two editors.
Read excerpt -
On a shelf in Gen. King's workroom is the worn and battered field-desk which he has carried through his campaigns. In its pigeon-holes is to be found the secret of his marvelous accuracy in writing. A half dozen small blank books of the ordinary commercial kind are filled with entries, written in a minute but legible hand. These record the occurrences of each day of his active, honest service, and present concisely but vividly the impressions made upon his mind at the moment by the stirring scenes through which he has passed.
His first work when beginning a new novel is to consult these priceless records. It is doubtful if there is another author who composes more rapidly than Gen. King when once he is inspired by a sympathetic theme.
While he emphatically disavows all literary traditions, and declares that his labors in this field are inspired solely by the motive of "making one woman happy" and giving his son and daughters an education which would be impossible by any other means within his command, the strong human interests, the swift movement, and the delicate sympathy and tender pathos of his stories are sufficient proof of the fact that his work is done with a genuine heart interest, and not as a perfunctory task.
His methods of work are undoubtedly different from those of all other authors. After a perusal of his note-books he writes his pages in a short hand of his own and reads his stories into a phonograph which is passed to an operator of the typewriter, who transcribes the record of the cylinder. The sheets are then returned to Gen. King for revision, but the dictated manuscript is seldom changed to any great extent.
"Between the Lines" and the "General's Double" are Gen. King's favorites of the scores of stories which he has given to the public. His first story was "Kittie's Conquest," and was written in the '70s. Its production was then regarded by its author as a passing whim, a pastime to relieve the monotony of an officer's life of a frontier post. This was published in the United Service Magazine of Philadelphia, and immediately attracted favorable attention. The manuscript was carried in the officer's luggage through the Nez Perces and the Sioux campaigns, and shared the fate of many another first literary effort in being respectfully declined by one or two editors.
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