At 46, William Edward Vaughan, a floor-pacing, pipe-cleaning, book-thumbing, paper-clip-twiddling fidgeter, is already something of an anachronism. Vaughan writes “paragraphs” for the Kansas City, Mo.

Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb, famed short story writer, has set himself up in the paragraphing business. Mornings now readers of the New York Herald Tribune and other journals scattered throughout the land ...