His first published novel, the adult
With Force and Arms (1902), sold poorly and was apparently a financial disaster. Garis soon turned to a children's adventure story; a plot focusing on an expedition to find a radium deposit provided the meat for this initial venture. Lippincott accepted it and in 1904 published it as
Isle of Black Fire. Following quickly on the limited success of this adventure came
The White Crystals, published in 1904 by Little, Brown, for which Garis received a flat payment of one hundred dollars. Garis has described this book as "a simple story for boys, with the lucky discovery of the salt [the white crystals] saving the farm from the mortgage sale." It was the beginning of the formula adventure with which his name would soon become closely associated.
Garis was most deliberately a formula writer: he understood how to make a plot move, how to create interest in his characters, and how to close out one adventure while making his audience long for the next. Writing about his father's technique, Garis's son, Roger, maintains, "He understood that stories must move--and, for youngsters, must move constantly and rapidly." All of the various series books as well as all of the Uncle Wiggily stories employed the same basic fictional elements of, according to Roger Garis, "problem, suspense, a climax, a solution." Howard Garis explained that his stories end "with escape from some predicament, the solving of some problem, a demonstration of the value of self-sacrifice, or the joy of helping others.
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