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There's money in stories about other animals too. A small herd of zebras fetched $40, and a beaver who liked the nice smell of lilac toilet water brought $50. A foolish dachshund paid $4, but even this modest sum was gratefully received.

As a hobby, I write stories about these animals for children's magazines on my week ends.

I have no children of my own and rather tend to dislike children, in fact. I write solely to please myself, turning out the kind of stories I'd liked to have read when I was a child. I flout the advice of those who know how to make a living writing juveniles: I write fantasies; I do not slant my stories toward any particular market; I seldom have previously read the magazines to which I submit.

Yet now, after four years of writing fantasies, things are looking hopeful. My sales in the last twelve months to Junior Catholic Messenger, Story Parade, and Treasure Chest have amounted to $718, as compared with $8.32 for my first year. This is the fruit of six or eight hours' work each weekend, a good part of which is spent writing duds which never sell.

Besides receiving the checks, always a pleasant experience, I have a lot of fun writing the stories. I like animals, and I like to cook up amusing and fantastic things to happen to them.

OF COURSE, I frequently have trouble selling these animal fantasies; the market for fantasy of any kind is a narrow one, though it shows some signs now of broadening out. But when I do manage to click—aah! The rates run from two to five cents a word, as compared with the cent or less paid by most juveniles.

It's not that fantasy commands a premium, but that only the better paying markets seem to care for it. This means that your story will not only have to be good, but that it must bear the stamp of your own unique style. Fantasy, to succeed, must be fresh and original—just as any other kind of writing, for that matter.

If you want to write, the children's market is the best place to start because the competition is less tough than in adult magazines. Here I am, writing to please nobody but myself, just to have a good time, and I get paid something over $2 an hour for it. Maybe the idea attracts you; maybe you'd like to try it yourself. Here's how:

From your newsstand get a copy of the 1951 Writer's Yearbook, which contains an excellent list of children's magazines. Get hold of a typewriter somehow. Stock up on white paper, second sheets and carbon paper from the dime store, along with a lot of legal size stamped envelopes from the post office. Mail your manuscripts, folded twice, in these envelopes.

But before you start mailing manuscripts you have to write them. What shall you write, and how?

My advice is, write what you would like to read. I happen to like to read animal fantasies, so animal fantasies are what I write. I'll stress animal stories here because I know a little about how to do them.

THE FIRST thing you must do is to decide one question. What is the problem that faces the hero in your story? Unless the hero has a problem that he must solve, you have no story.

This is important. If you don't get anything else from my article, get this and remember it:

Your hero has absolutely got to have a problem to solve.

No problem, no sale.

Not only that, but you must make us feel that it is important for the hero to solve his problem. A successful story is one in which the hero, through his own efforts, solves his problem. It need not be a successful solution, but in that case the very failure itself must be a resolution that leaves the reader with a sense of satisfaction.

In my "Fox Ferry" a giant tried to beat the high cost of living by capturing six foxes which he intended to bake into a pie. The foxes, however, made such nuisances of themselves that he turned them loose at last. He never did get his pie, but the six foxes had become tame in the process, and they frightened the grocer into charging reasonable prices. Now they live contentedly with the giant as his pets.

Generally, however, I like to make an animal the hero in my stories because animals are vexed by the kind of problem which is acceptable to editors of children's magazines. Here are some of the problems that sold stories for me:

"Too Many Bears" told of a bear who needed a new place to live because a lot of other bears moved into his cave with him. In "The Call of the Sea" a camel yearned to go to sea on a ship. The bear in "Curry in Everything" was camp cook for a crew of lumberjacks; his bumbling desire to be a better cook led him to douse everything with curry powder. "Zebra Trap" was about Mr. Prism who, more than anything else, wanted to own a few zebras. "The Thinking Bear" wanted an education. "The Wicked Bear" hated (and gloried in) his wickedness, and tried to reform.

You will notice how that bear keeps popping up. I like to write about bears. They are amiable and sympathetic, big enough to masquerade as human beings ("If I can only remember to walk on my hind legs nobody will ever notice"), and it does not seem too outrageous to picture one trying to learn knot tying or wearing shoes which hurt his feet because they are on backward. Besides, bears have long teeth; I like a character with salt, and I try to remind my little readers that the bear could be a tornado of ferocity, if he did not choose to be well-behaved.

Beavers are good too. Their flat tails are made to order for the animal fantasist. You can have the beaver thump the ground angrily with his tail; you can tell how his tail dragged sadly; you can say the weather was so hot that his tail curled up at the edges. Beavers are great little workers, too. "There must be something magical about a beaver," said the bear in my "Too Many Bears," "the way they can build things!"

IN PICKING an animal to write about, take one that has habits which are fairly well-known, and then play up these habits in the story. I wouldn't write about a snake, because there are people who get sick at even the thought of snakes. I wouldn't write about a coati because not many people know what a coati is, and it would waste a lot of space just to introduce him. Seals are good, and rabbits and tigers or elephants; zebras or giraffes are excellent because they work up into splendid pictures.

These stories always appear with illustrations, which is a point to keep in mind. Choose an animal that will capture the imagination of the artist the editor picks to illustrate your story. Not the least of the delights of writing juvenile fantasy is seeing your creation through the eyes of a competent artist. "Just wait until you see the expression on the bear's face," wrote an editor to, me, well knowing that I would then haunt the mailbox until the magazine came out.

Now that you know what kind of an animal to use, and I hope you remember that he must have a problem, how do you go about telling your story?

Start with a bang, right in the middle of things. Get a statement of that all-important problem into the first sentence, if it is humanly possible. If you begin with action, have the action directed toward a solution of that problem. If you use conversation to start out, let the talk bring up the problem. If you like the traditional "Once upon a time"—and it's a good opening sentence—get the problem into that sentence.

Polish your first sentence with loving care. It is the most important single sentence in your whole story: it is the hook to catch an editor. I don't mean it has to be lush writing. It should, in fact, be very simple. The first story I ever sold opened with, "Once there was a beaver who was always tired." Simple, you see, and direct, but arresting. "The Wicked Bear" began, "'Why do I do these awful things?' moaned the bear to himself as he pushed against the beehive."

Now go on from there. Take a few sentences to tell more about the problem and why it troubles the hero, how the problem arose, with perhaps a brief account of some previous unsuccessful attempts to solve it.

This is called retrospect, and the less of it you have the better. The reader wants things to happen right before his very eyes; he doesn't want to be told about a lot of old stuff that happened a long time ago. A good way to handle retrospect is to do it a little at a time in the course of the action, letting the hero's current efforts to solve his problem recall the previous ones.

ACTUALLY, A successful story is the account of no more than the final few efforts toward solution—a couple of futile attempts that leave the hero even worse off than before, then the last successful (or unsuccessful) effort.

These are the bare bones of a story. Now you have to breathe life into the corpse. You can have the best problem ever hatched making life miserable for the most fascinating animal in the world, but unless your story has certain touches you've got nothing but a zombie—and editors don't want zombies.

These touches appear in the way you characterize your animals and people, in the way you have them talk, in the way you show us what they do. Conversation is an excellent way to apply these touches. For example, quoting from "The Call of the Sea":

"'We are lost!' the camel shouted, sitting on the deck. His lower jaw waggled even more than usual, and he paid no attention to the flakes of oatmeal that still hung on his lips.

"'Nonsense,' replied the lion. 'After the ship sinks I'll tow you ashore. I can swim.' He shuddered; he hated water, but he hated drowning more. 'Just hold on to my mane with your teeth.'

"'Like this?' asked the camel.

"'Ouch,' said the lion. 'Don't bite my neck through; just get a mouthful of fur.'"

And here is some straight narration zipped up with needed touches, from "Curry in Everything."

"The loggers crowded around him, beating his shaggy brown flanks with affectionate fists, calling him an old sockdolager, an orey-eyed sawbuck, a long-haired galoot and the other names that loggers call their close friends.

"The bear, with tears of joy in his eyes, bit several of the men and clawed others to show that there were no hard feelings. Then they all walked back to the logging camp through the cool moonlight, singing songs and cheering."

NOW JUST a word. Don't let your imagination run away with you. These stories must be realistic. This may sound like a queer thing for a self-confessed writer of fantasy to insist on, but it is the absolute sober truth. When I stray from a strict realism, my stories bounce back as if they were made of rubber.

This is because even the wildest fantasy needs the solid framework of reality to support it. If you write about magic, the magic must be rigidly limited in its power. Where anything is possible, nothing is interesting; there is no problem possible, hence no story. The fantasy in my stories takes place in the everyday world, and for that reason it is more effective than it would be in some fairyland I cooked up.

The Cannery Bear worked in a real salmon cannery, and the foreman had trouble understanding him when he talked. The Thinking Bear went to school in an ordinary school. The giant in "The Fox Ferry" was overcharged at the grocery store and the gas company turned off his gas when he failed to pay the bill. The Wicked Bear joined a real troop of Boy Scouts in order to get help in reforming.

This principle of setting fantasy in the real world is a great help in working out plots for stories. Take an unlikely idea that at the same time has a certain plausibility—a bear, say, who loves fire engines and longs for the time he can at last see one. Take another idea, the mad streetcar; a streetcar worse than the worst you ever rode in—a streetcar definitely out of its mind, dangerously insane.

Now mingle them, along with a rabbit that has found the motorman's glove, a talisman that gives its wearer mastery over all metals and machinery. Here you have the wonder and mystery of magic in a strictly modern setting.

Out of these ideas came my story, "The Motorman's Glove." With the glove, the bear tames the streetcar and conjures up out of nothing a marvelous red and gold fire engine that he now keeps with him in his cage at the zoo. His problem is solved; he not only got to see a fire engine, but he now has one to cherish forever, his very own.

This technique doesn't always work out so well. I wish I had better control; sometimes I beat my brains, and come up with nothing better than "Television for Cats," which did not sell, and which seems pretty hopeless.

However, don't be downhearted by rejections. I have had a story turned down flat by six editors only to have the seventh grab it with cries of joy. That is what comes of writing just to please myself; I rub everybody the wrong way except those whose tastes happen to agree with mine.

YOU CAN never tell about editors. Editor A turned down a story because it was too complicated. Editor B bought this story, but rejected another because it was too complicated. This latter story was then bought by Editor A. The moral is, don't be discouraged by rejections.

Keep on writing—and mailing—your stories. Some people are too shy to mail out what they have written, but this is foolish. I know of a woman whose husband had to use threats to get her to mail a story she had written. The story sold the first time out to Collier's for $500. This was not an animal fantasy.

This illustrates another maxim: start with the best paying markets, but when your manuscripts come back, keep mailing them out. Make a file card for each story, entering where you sent it and when, and when it came back, along with any comments the editor may have made.

Now for a few more things to remember. Make your stories short, 300 to 2,000 words, with 1,500 as a good average length. Use simple language and vocabulary. There are technical books to be had that list a vocabulary suitable for each of the various age groups, but you will probably just make things harder for yourself if you try to go by the books. If your story is good, the editor will do his part for you by adjusting the language in any parts that need it. If the story isn't any good, the fact that you wrote it with nothing but three-letter words won't sell it.

Never write down for the kids. They are people just like anybody else, only smaller. Don't be preachy, even if you are writing a religious story.

After you have written it, read your story aloud. This will bring out all the ham in your style. Then rewrite. If your story can be read to a child by a normal adult without gagging, it has passed the first test of style.

Now you know all about writing animal fantasies. I hope.

Your typewriter is before you, loaded with a nice clean sheet of paper. You have the problem in mind (don't ever lose sight of that problem!) and you have some sort of an idea of what is going to happen in your story.

This is the big moment. Stories that don't get written don't get sold. Start punching those typewriter keys!