The one excuse and breath of art—charm."—Stevenson.

The Technique of
Fiction Writing
By
ROBERT SAUNDERS DOWST
JAMES KNAPP REEVE
PUBLISHER
FRANKLIN, OHIO

Copyright, 1918
The Editor Company
Copyright, 1921
James Knapp Reeve

TO
C. K. R. D.

PREFACE

Many books have been written on fiction technique, and the chief excuse for the present addition to the number is the complexity of the subject. Its range is so wide, it calls for so many and so different capacities in one attempting to discuss it, that a new work has more than a chance to meet at least two or three deficiencies in all other treatments.

I believe that the chief deficiency in most works on fiction technique is that the author unconsciously has slipped from the viewpoint of a writer of a story to that of a reader. Now a reader without intention to try his own hand at the game is not playing fair in studying technique, and a book on technique has no business to entertain him. Accordingly, I have striven to keep to the viewpoint of one who seeks to learn how to write stories, and have made no attempt to analyze the work of masters of fiction for the sake of the analysis alone. Such analysis is interesting to make, and also interesting to read, but it is not directly profitable to the writer. It is indirectly profitable, of course, but it will give very little direct aid to one who has a definite story idea and wishes to be told the things he must consider in developing it and writing the story, or to one who wishes to be told roughly how he should go about the business of finding real stories. In fact, I believe that discussion and analysis of perfect work has a tendency to chill the enthusiasm of the beginning writer. What he chiefly needs is to be told the considerations he must hold in mind in conceiving, developing, and writing a story. The rest lies with his own abilities and capacities to work intelligently and to take pains.

Therefore the first part of this book takes up the problems of technique in the order in which they present themselves to the writer. Beginning with matters of conception, the discussion passes to matters of construction and development, and finally to matters of execution, or rather the writing of a story considered as a bare chain of events. Then the matters of description, dialogue, the portrayal of character, and the precipitation of atmosphere are discussed, and lastly the short story and novel, as distinct forms, are taken up.

Usually the propositions necessary to be laid down require no demonstration; they are self-evident. That is why a book on technique for the writer need not indulge in fine-spun analysis of perfect work. Where analysis will lend point to the abstract statement, I have made it, but my constant aim has been not to depart from the viewpoint that the reader has in mind some idea of his own and wishes to be told how to handle it. Unquestionably literary dissection is useful in that it gives the beginning writer familiarity with the terminology and processes of the art, but the main object of a book on technique is to place the results of analysis, directly stated, in logical sequence.

I will note one other matter. A great part of the technique of fiction writing concerns matters of conception and development which are preliminary to actual writing. In fact they are essentially and peculiarly the technique of fiction. The story that is not a justly ordered whole, with each part in its due place and no part omitted, cannot have full effect, however great the strictly executive powers of its writer. Verbally faultless telling will not save a story which is not logically built up and developed, either before writing or in the process of writing. The art of telling a story is largely the art of justly manipulating its elements. The art of telling it with verbal perfection is not so much a part of the strict technique of fiction writing as it is of the general technique of writing. Therefore I have made little attempt to discuss the general art of using words. For assistance in studying the art of expression the reader should turn to a work on rhetoric. The subject is too inclusive for adequate treatment here. Moreover, it is debatable whether the art of verbal expression can be studied objectively with any great profit. But the art of putting a story together can be studied objectively with profit, and its principles are subject to direct statement.

I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. William R. Kane, of The Editor Magazine, for much helpful criticism and many valuable suggestions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction[13]
I.The Writer Himself[22]
II. The Choice of Matter[30]
III. Conceptive Technique: Story Types[37]
IV. Conceptive Technique: Plot and Situation[48]
V. Constructive Technique of Narration[64]
VI. Executive Technique of Narration[80]
VII. Executive Technique of Narration (Continued)[95]
VIII. Description[107]
IX. Speech[121]
X. Portrayal of Character[136]
XI. Atmosphere[152]
XII. The Short Story[165]
XIII. The Novel[182]
XIV. Conclusion[197]
Appendix[209]

INTRODUCTION

"A work of art is first cloudily conceived in the mind; during the period of gestation it stands more clearly forward from these swaddling mists, puts on expressive lineaments, and becomes at length that most faultless, but also, alas! that incommunicable product of the human mind, a perfected design. On the approach to execution all is changed. The artist must now step down, don his working clothes, and become the artisan. He now resolutely commits his airy conception, his delicate Ariel, to the touch of matter; he must decide, almost in a breath, the scale, the style, the spirit, and the particularity of execution of his whole design."

Thus Stevenson, in "A Note on Realism," takes it for granted that the artist in pigments, stone, or words cannot reproduce until he first has produced, cannot show a perfect work unless he paints, builds, or writes along the lines of a perfected design.

One cannot dabble long at architecture or the graphic arts without gaining keen realization of the fact that conception in its elaborative aspects is as much a part and phase of technique as the executive handling of materials. But the art of literature, and, more narrowly, the art of fiction, deal with materials other than those employed in the other arts; words, not colors or marble, nor yet sounds, are the resource of the story teller to precipitate his conception in enduring form; and words are at once frank and mysterious things. Their primary office is to forward the common business of life; each has some meaning in itself, more or less definite. It results that the writer of a story who sets out with only the merest glimmering of what he means to do in mind can produce a superficially plausible work, a work not too obviously misshapen, a work that means something, at any rate, although his failure to trace a design to guide his hand almost inevitably will prohibit his giving the basic conception most effective expression. And, since almost any sequence of words has some significance, it also results that the writer of fiction who works at haphazard may fail to discover that failure in his work as a whole is due to lack of planning rather than to defective execution. The mere grammatical coherence of a fictionally slipshod piece of work is a shield between its writer's inquiring eye and its essential defects.

The art of fiction is the art both of the tale and of the story, fictions that differ radically. Their most striking difference is stated in the following pages; here I can only remark broadly that the tale is episodal, consisting of a fortuitous series of incidents without essential connection or relation except that they all happened to happen to the characters, while the story is a whole in that each incident functions in the development of a plot or dramatic problem. If prevision and full elaboration of his basic idea are essential to the writer of a tale, they are doubly essential to the writer of a story, simply because a story is a whole and the result of careful co-ordination of parts. Even if the writer of some particular story has not worked along the lines of a fully elaborated design, the story actually will manifest co-ordination of parts or else be worthless. A story is more than a series of incidents; it is a series of incidents significant in relation to character. Its writer cannot set to work with an eye solely to the physical spectacle and follow after with his pen; he must prepare his people as well as the events, a task of cunning calculation. He must have an eye to many other matters, but this is not the place to state them. The matter of character is the matter significant here, because the whole difference between tale and story is made by the presence or absence of relation between events and personality. And it is certain that the writer of a story cannot hope to do the best work if he postpones until the moment of actual writing the task of moulding and elaborating his basic idea with a view to giving it maximum effect. The task to express perfectly, in a verbal sense, is difficult enough to claim the undivided attention of the ablest artist, but undivided attention cannot be given the matter of verbal expression by a writer who shapes his substance and picks his words at one and the same time. Either word or substance must suffer.

Accordingly, to emphasize the necessity that the writer of fiction give full shape and development to his design before writing, I have stated the necessity and discussed technique itself under two heads, conceptive or constructive technique and executive technique. To have carried this division rigorously through the whole book would have been neither possible nor profitable, for it would have involved much repetition and confusion, but the various items of technique are either largely conceptive and constructive or largely executive, and the best place to discuss each has not been difficult to determine. It was only necessary to contemplate the actual process of conceiving, developing, and writing a story, and to take up in their order the problems that confront a writer of fiction. The only matter which found no natural place, so approached, was that of characterization, which is almost equally a matter of construction and of execution, so that discussion of it has been broken up to some extent.

This approach to technique is the natural approach, and has been adopted for that reason. The more naturally and easily any study can be conducted, the greater the results that will be achieved. But there is a more immediate reason for taking up the phases of technique in the order in which they present themselves to a writer of fiction, thereby emphasizing the existence and importance of the constructive phases of technique. Briefly, it is that construction is at once easier and more important to learn than execution. Perhaps a little argument in support of the statement is called for.

It will not be questioned seriously that it is easier to learn the main principles of construction than it is to learn or discover how to write with finish and power. It is entirely possible to state abstractly the principles of construction, to grasp their reasons and implications from abstract statement, and to apply them by a mere act of the intelligence in writing any story. But it is entirely impossible to state abstractly the principles of writing with finish and power, or to learn to write so from any mere discussion of the matter. The condition is illustrated by almost any treatise on rhetoric, where half the text will be made up of examples transcribed to lend some weight to the obviously—and necessarily—inadequate discussion. How to write with finish and power can be learned only by long continued and intelligent practice, if it can be learned at all. Of course, this is not to say that constant practice is not necessary to gain any real facility and adequacy in applying the principles of construction.

The argument of the last paragraph is clinched by the fact that of a thousand stories, all of which are well constructed and put together, only a few or perhaps none will be written with any approach to real literary power, in the verbal sense. Of all the writers of to-day who can put together a story in workmanlike fashion how many have the power of the telling word? how many have even a style?

I have yet to substantiate the assertion that construction is more important for the writer of fiction to learn than execution, but the task is easy. In the last analysis, the power of a story, that is, its power to interest, depends upon its matter, the spectacle it presents. If the whole conception is justly elaborated and properly put together, it will have very nearly full effect, even though its writer does not give it perfect verbal expression, provided the verbal precipitation of the thing is not too shamelessly inadequate. Perfect verbal expression is necessary to give a properly constructed story maximum effect; it is not necessary to give it approximate effect. But perfect verbal expression will not save a story that is misshapen and distorted through lack of proper construction.

These considerations strongly urge the writer of fiction to master the principles of constructing a story before he frets about the nuances of expression, and just as strongly they impose upon a book on technique the obligation to discuss matters of construction at length and also to discuss them as such. The book which does not explicitly insist that certain matters are matters of construction, therefore to be performed before writing, is very apt to mislead. It is a defect from which too many books on fiction technique are not free, and one that I have tried to avoid.

How comprehensive and inclusive are the principles of construction the first half of this book attempts to show. Here it is enough to state that they embrace matters so different as the manipulation of possible incidents in the interest of climax, and the preparation or building up of the people of a story that its situations may have real dramatic value for a reader. The writer of fiction who merely writes cannot hope to provide by any instinct for these and the other matters of construction, and no power in his words can fortify essential weakness in his matter. Style, literary power, the right word in the right place—all will resist the tooth of time, but no one will preserve a story from the contagion of decay at the heart. Indeed, in the juster sense, a shapely design is the necessary foundation or basis for perfect writing, which is no mere varnish.

In this present era of magazine literature the chances are that nine out of ten actual or prospective writers of fiction who take up a book on technique for serious study will do so with an eye to the short story. And since this book is for the practitioner of the art, not for the mere reader of fiction, I have felt myself under obligation to discuss the short story and its peculiar technique with some approach to adequacy. Statement of the way the short story has been approached may serve to align the reader's mind with the argument.

In the first place, the short story is yet a story, a fiction, so that the general technique of fiction is applicable to it, with suitable modifications here and there. In the second place, the short story is a distinct type of fiction in that it embodies a plot or dramatic problem and is brief enough to read at one not very prolonged sitting. It is at once slighter and more pointed or direct than the long story of plot, the novel or romance. The result is that all its processes, particularly the process of characterization, must be conducted in a fashion more swift and summary than in a long story, and the difference is the whole of the difference in the technique of the two forms.

Unfortunately, a discussion of the peculiar technique of the short story cannot confine itself to this difference without failing to clear away the many misconceptions that becloud the subject. A good deal has been written on the short story, and, since there is really not very much to say, a good many writers have been led into nonsense. With so much misconception in the air, I have felt that it would be useful to state a tenable theory of the short story, and have attempted to do so in the chapter on the form. The matter will be found there and cannot be reproduced here, but brief statement of the argument will complete the foretaste of the book.

Since the short story is a story, at least, it may be divided and classified, like all stories, into stories of character, stories of complication of incident, and stories of atmosphere, that is, into stories which emphasize or stress the element of personality, the element of incident, or the element of setting. But the truly significant division of the short story into types, the division which it will be most directly profitable for the writer of fiction to realize, is twofold, not triplicate, and is the division into the dramatic short story and the short story of atmosphere or unity of emotional effect on a reader.

These two types are as different as black and white, and the misconception noted above consists in confusing them. The short story of atmosphere is Poe's sort of story; he said something definite and true about his peculiar art; but later writers, critics rather, have padded and distorted his words to cover the whole field of the short story. The general result is much printed folly, and the specific result for the short story writer is that he is continually urged, commanded, entreated, and advised to invest his work with some mysterious "unity." The advice is sound if the short story of atmosphere, the short story of unity or totality of emotional effect, is meant; the short story of atmosphere is a mysterious and subtle unity in that its people and happenings are curiously of a piece with its setting, serving to deepen or intensify the emotional effect of the setting on a reader. But, applied to the dramatic short story, the advice is unsound, for the dramatic short story may and usually does involve much diversity and contrast in its three elements of people, events, and setting. The only sense in which it can be said to be a unity is that it is verbally coherent, a single story. The single story may involve radically different people, happenings, and scenes.

The positive evil tendency in telling the short story writer to seek to invest his work with "unity" is that if he follows the advice his material will be restricted, and he will write stories too simple really to interest, apart from the appeal of their characters. And this point of interest brings up another aspect of this book which I would mention.

The last chapter states a general theory or philosophy of fiction which it will prove most profitable for the writer of fiction to grasp, however imperfectly I may have stated it. The theory is not profound, in the sense that it is mysterious, being merely the theory which is implied in the content and aim of the art of fiction itself. The content of fiction is man and what he may possibly or even conceivably experience; the aim of fiction is to interest, in Stevenson's words, "the one excuse and breath of art—charm." How much is implied in the content and aim of fiction I have tried to show in my closing pages, but the theory there stated is the guiding principle of the whole book, and any value it may have derives from such unforced handling of the subject. Apart from the merit of my own work, one thing at least is certain. If commentators on the art of fiction generally would deal less in "isms" and seek less to display their profundity and critical acumen, the actual writer of fiction might read them with some profit. As it is, the greatest single danger threatening the practitioner of the art is that his eagerness for all that pertains even remotely to his trade may lead him to take seriously the empty thunders of the schools and to forget that his business is to interest and captivate Mr. and Mrs. Smith, simply that.

To sum up, my desire has been to write a book that would be of some practical use, at least practically suggestive to the writer of fiction; therefore the only natural way to approach technique has been adopted, and I have indulged in analysis only when the analysis would be useful in itself or would serve to clear away misconception. In other words, the book has been written strictly for the writer, not the reader of fiction, and that implies much.

CHAPTER I
THE WRITER HIMSELF

Critical Faculty—Cultivation of Genius—Observation and Information—Open-mindedness—Attitude Toward Life—Prejudice and Provincialism—The Social Question—Reading—Imagination.

Accessible as are the data of the fiction writer, the facts and possibilities of life, their very accessibility places him under strict necessity to sift the useful from the useless in search for the pregnant theme. For if life presents a multiplicity of events to the writer, from which he may select some sort of story with little labor to himself, life also presents the same multiplicity of events to the reader, who can see the obvious as well as the lazy writer, and who will not be pleased with a narration of which he has the beginning, middle, and end by heart. A tale which does not interest fails essentially, and novelty, in the undebased sense of the word, is the root of interest. Therefore the writer of fiction who takes himself and his art seriously must develop the open and penetrating eye and the faculty of just selection. All is not gold that glitters, a fact that too often becomes painfully evident only when some tale discovered with joy and developed with eagerness lies coldly spread upon paper. The beginner who will approach his own conceptions in a spirit of unbiased criticism and estimation before determining to set them down will save himself useless labor, much postage, and many secret tears. Half of the essentially feeble work produced that has not a chance of getting published is the result of the writer's falling in love with his own idea simply because it is his own idea. The defect is in conception rather than in execution, and a matter of first importance to the writer is to develop the faculty of estimating his unelaborated ideas.

Unquestionably this faculty can be developed. The struggle for its development is half over, in a practical sense, when the writer comes to judge his concepts at all before writing, when he wins free of the habit of writing just to be writing, and of choosing to work on a particular tale because it is the best he can squeeze from his brains at the particular moment, rather than because it is absolutely good and he knows it to be absolutely good.

Unquestionably, too, the critical faculty is powerless to supply worthy conceptions. But that is beside the point. If the conceptions are worthy, the just critical faculty will recognize their merit, and give the writer courage and confidence to send each tale across the almost inevitable sea of rejections until it comes to port, as it surely will, if well done. And if the conceptions are feeble, and the writer cannot better them, it will be better for him and all concerned that he discover the truth.

Whether the essential genius of the teller of tales, the power that first supplies a theme of moment and then a fitting garb for it, is a plant capable of nurture, is not for me to attempt to show, or even to state. Fortunately, the question is academic. The dons may debate the point, but for those who themselves labor in the literary vineyard the thing to remember is that the same habits of observation and practice which some claim will create the literary faculty will at least foster its growth, if it is a gift, as others claim, and not to be artificially cultivated. Steady hours at the desk and moments with the notebook, the cultivation of the seeing eye, the informed mind, and the sympathetic heart, may not be able to create the divine spark. But it may burn within one for all that; and shall one neglect to bring it to full flame on the mere chance that it may not exist because of the possibility that it cannot be created? If the chance of its existence is great enough in the individual's eyes to justify the labor of writing at all, it is great enough to justify undertaking the correlative activities of observation and self-culture. At the least of it, these can result only in making one a better and more complete man or woman, irrespective of the literary result. The writer who fancies that his labor is but to string words, and that idea or passion come to life in the barren mind or heart, is foredoomed to failure. No equation can be formed between something and nothing, nor can something come from nothing. All life and all art is a quid pro quo; the writer must barter his time and sweat for his raw materials, ideas.

There is little need to state that of writers of equal genius the one with the deepest reservoirs of observation and information to draw upon will produce the more significant work. In relation to expository and argumentive writing the fact is patent; in relation to the writing of fiction it may be less obvious, but, curiously enough, is even more impressive when perceived. The writer of special treatise or argument may "devil" his subject for the occasion; though the writer of fiction may specially investigate the phase of life or society with which he deals, his investigations will aid him only in the external matters of dress, customs, speech, or atmosphere. For the preservation of the essential congruity and justness of the whole as a presentation of life he must depend solely upon his own innate familiarity with life, which cannot be brushed up for the occasion, for it necessarily derives from the totality of the individual's experience and the use he has made of it.

In this connection it may be noted that above all else the writer of fiction must be catholic in his interests and sympathies. He is the sieve through which the motley stream of life is poured to have selected for presentation its most significant aspects, and any unwisely cherished aversions of his are so many gaps in the netting through which, to his own loss, worthy matter constantly will escape. It is difficult enough at best for even the most open-minded writer to achieve some approach to an adequate presentation of a phase of life, and for the writer whose vision is distorted by prejudice and predilection, however perfect his technique, it is nearly impossible. The writer of fiction is concerned with political, social, or religious dogmas only in so far as they impinge upon and affect the individual life whose course his pen is tracing, and his only proper and fruitful attitude toward such dogmas is that of observer, not of fierce advocate or equally fierce assailant. The heart of the people is sounder than its head, perhaps because larger, and life is a complex of passion rather than a complex of intellectual crusades. The writer of fiction addresses the whole man, his emotional nature as well as his intelligence, and should address him by presenting the whole man, instead of some feeble counterfeit not actuated primarily by passion.

Emotion can be evoked only by the portrayal of passion, and emotion—sympathy, disgust, admiration, any spiritual excitement—is the root of the appeal of fiction. There are other elements of interest, primarily intellectual, as in the detective story or any story of ratiocination, but emotional appeal is the one essential in work of any compass. Emotional appeal is attainable only through a just presentment of life, and toward life the writer of fiction must preserve an attitude of observation and ready acceptance. In the last analysis, that is his business. The world pays its wage to the scientist for the narrow, intensive view; it pays its wage to the teller of tales for the broad, extensive view.

The course of letters is marked by great failures whose essential technical powers were nullified or at least hampered by their narrow outlook on life, and by great successes whose achievements bear the scar of prejudice and provincialism. In our day, the multitudinous standing controversies of the past have been reduced in bitterness by the more general diffusion of information and by the conflicting claims of more numerous interests that demand exercise. Nevertheless we still have the division between rich and poor, capital and labor, conservative and radical. For reasons immaterial here, this division and resulting social conflict will become more complete and bitter; the writer of fiction will face the fact and be forced to deal with it at times; and it is to be remembered that one may be abreast or even ahead of the best thought of the day without being hectic, and that to draw the conservative of fiction as a fool or a villain simply because he is a conservative is bad art. Conceivably a man may be back in the ruck of thought and belief because he is a fool, but he is not a fool merely because he is behind the times. He may have had no chance to learn better, and that is precisely the story.

Besides viewing life with a sympathetic and inclusive eye, the writer of fiction should investigate the smaller world of books. Life is infinitely more rich in substance than the printed word, but the observer is not a disembodied spirit, and cannot scrutinize the whole world, cannot exhaust even his own little neighborhood. He can call to his service the eyes of his contemporaries and of those who have gone before, and, in a few hours reading, can live vicariously a dozen lives. In this very real sense the world of books is practically larger than the actual world; one can hope to exhaust its more significant matter. By reading, the writer of fiction can gain familiarity with the actual tissue of life, the casual relation between motives and acts—so often obscured in real life—can mingle with nobler, baser, more significant people than he will be apt to meet, and can estimate the efforts of others in his own art. Reading of all sorts will yield information, and reading of fiction will reveal the root causes of success and failure in the difficult task to precipitate life in words.

There is little need to emphasize the difficulty of the task, twofold as it is. One must find matter, and one must display it. Not only will reading conduce to mental development and flexibility; it will reveal the function of the single word. Life is seen in chiaroscuro, but words are sharp and definite things. As Stevenson has said, the writer must work in mosaic, with finite and quite rigid words. If he really works, scorning to abuse a noble instrument and to prostitute a noble profession, his difficulties will but increase with his earnestness. Flaubert is a case in point. Only by reading can the writer discover the resources of language, and only by reading can he find encouragement in the spectacle of what patience and devotion have achieved.

One may employ a method of literary presentment diametrically opposite to that of fitting the right word in the right place, the method of taking a broad canvas, disregarding length, and, in a sort, modeling the verbal mass, which will possess plasticity to an extent, though composed of words intractable and rigid in themselves, like the atoms which compose modeler's clay. But this method is open only to the writer of a novel of epic length; the verbal economy of the short story forbids it; and it will usually be found that the books which manifest it—"Les Miserables," "David Copperfield," "Tom Jones," "Jean Christophe," "War and Peace," much of Thackeray's work, for instance—owe their appeal to the essential vitality and worth of their matter rather than to any detailed perfection of artistry. If the story is worthy, it will not be injured by compact and artistic expression; the function of the artist is to select the significant from life and to present it as pungently and as perfectly as possible; brevity in expression is as essential as economy of line in drawing. I have read and heard it stated that Stevenson and many others eminent for artistry are thin and self-conscious in their work, and personally I would give much to know whether this impression does not derive from the fact that many of the accepted great books of the world, and most of those appearing day by day, are negligible as examples of executive artistry, by their contrast making the occasional work that is concisely and artistically done seem somewhat artificial. The reader is perhaps so accustomed to imperfect work that the perfect has a touch of artificial glitter, and seems unreal. But this is a digression. The fact remains that the writer of fiction who would live by his art cannot afford to go in ignorance of what has been done before him. He should read, widely and with all his faculties on the stretch. A vast amount of experiment lies ready on the printed page. One may not by reading learn how to do perfect work, but one can at least discover what cannot by any possibility be done.

The general proposition is that the writer of fiction must observe life, must estimate it, and must express the phase that his estimation shows to be significant. The open eye, the cultivated and able mind, and the trained hand are all equally essential, and all must work together in harmony. Some have the eye without the hand; some the hand without the eye; in others the faculty of discrimination is wanting; but eye, mind, and hand may all be trained by application. No one who has not done his best has the right to complain of failure, and he who engages in the difficult business of letters, and neglects to use all efforts to equip himself, is a fool and nothing else. The writer may live in prosaic surroundings and be repressed by daily contact with people as dull as ditchwater; yet the world is wide and man a free agent within limits; let him strike his tent and go elsewhere. But let him first make quite sure that the defect is in his environment and not in himself. Otherwise, when ensconced in a snug artistic Bohemia, he may suffer the pain of learning that some quiet, clear-eyed seer has found rich ores in the old home life, and has wrought them to fresh shapes of beauty. And beyond the influence of all accidents of time and place lies the world of imagination, instinct with austere beauty, offering escape, solace, and rich gifts to him who has the golden key. Investigate the life that was Hawthorne's in Salem, Massachusetts, in the thirties and forties, then read "The Scarlet Letter," and turn your eyes within if ugliness lies stark about you. No boor and dullard may walk with you in the fields of fancy, alone with the night wind and the quiet stars. Dream with sanity, live with sanity, work with sanity and purpose, and realize that life and thought are your business, and that the stream of life as a whole is clean and fresh and sweet and utterly interesting even if you yourself are caught in some stagnant backwater. Open your eyes and swim for the clear reaches of the stream.

CHAPTER II
THE CHOICE OF MATTER

Selection—Sincerity—Adventure—Common Problems of Life—Originality—Novelty and Worth—Three Elements of Fictional Literature—Interest—Elements of Interest.

Life is infinitely various, and the possibilities of the imagination are even more extensive; the writer of fiction has enough material at hand. His primary task, to pitch upon a theme, is almost wholly selective, unless he is cursed with a paucity of observation or barrenness of imagination, in which case he has mistaken his calling. And in this task of selection the writer must bear in mind several considerations, his own predilections, his own powers, the intrinsic worth of the idea, and—last but not least—the audience he is to address. The writer should give ear to his own personal likings because he will do better work when he has interest in the matter under his hands; he should consider his own powers lest he attempt too much; he must consider the intrinsic worth of his theme lest his work be essentially feeble; and he must ponder his audience that his work may not go for naught. As to this last, a word of advice may not be out of place. Though the average reader may have little power to express, he usually has a well developed power to appreciate, and there is no need to "write down" to him. Condescension on the part of the writer of fiction is less obtrusive than in more directly informative writing, but it is instantly perceived and resented when present. The best audience for the writer to imagine is simply the best audience, alive in sensibilities and intelligence.

Stories—and therefore potential stories—may be divided roughly into two classes, those meant frankly to entertain and those designed to perform a higher function in addition. The line between them is not hard and fast; the same basic idea will slip from one side to the other under different handling by different authors. But there is a real difference, and that difference is made by the presence or absence of sincerity in the writer. The complete and rounded story will interest, which is the element of bare matter, will be so perfectly told that its mere structure will give pleasure, which is the element of artistry, and will truly express some phase of life as the author sees it, which is the element of sincerity. Stories may possess all, some, or none of these elements, but no story which does not possess them all can be said to fulfil completely the ideals of the art of fiction. There is no abstract obligation to be sincere resting on a writer of fiction; he should be sincere because his work will gain in power. A reader will feel the presence or lack of the quality.

This does not mean that the writer of fiction should take himself and life too seriously, a fault of which George Eliot is perhaps an example. He should simply be true to his own artistic convictions. If he must write "pot-boilers" for a living, he should refuse to let the hours so spent dull his artistic sense. No taint attaches to writing an entertaining story for the money in it; the elder Dumas, for instance, was a far greater artist in letters than hosts of more sombre writers who preceded and have succeeded him. And the writer who has Dumas' intrinsic gaiety and verve may write adventure and write literature too.

Back of the possibility lies the fact that the more bizarre phases of life are somewhat accidental and not very inclusive. The writer who deals with them must draw on his imagination heavily, not only for initial conceptions but for details. Very possibly he may miss some of the warm verisimilitude that derives from writing of familiar things and constitutes the keystone of the fictional arch. The strange and striking may gain a reader's superficial interest very easily, but "easy come, easy go" and the story of deep-rooted appeal is the story that displays to a reader sharply individualized human beings meeting the daily problems that are our common human lot. These problems are not dull because they are common and universal; their universality is the source of their interest. The writer who can reduce a general problem of love, hate, or labor to specific terms of persons and events, and can invest the whole with that certain momentousness, as of life raised to a higher power, which is the hallmark of literature, fulfils the highest possibilities of the art, whether he be as realistic in method as Dostoievsky in "Crime and Punishment" or as romantic in spirit as Hawthorne in "The Scarlet Letter."

Perhaps all this is somewhat repellent. We are not all Hawthornes in embryo—worse luck!—and though a good many aspire to do something worth while in itself some day, another good many are more humble, and incline to view the editor's check as sufficient warranty of success. Such an attitude is much healthier than that of the persecuted genius who refuses to investigate present conditions in the public taste and to coax and take advantage of them. But it may be carried to extremes. I do not think that many deliberately write trash, but it is apparent that a good deal of trash is written through too sedulous imitation of the tone of current literature. There is a recognizable type of machine-made story used by all the all-fiction magazines, and so forth. Subject to correction, I believe that the greater part of this cut-and-dried product is owing less to editorial conservatism than to authorial diffidence toward truly original work. Work may be original in substance, method, and viewpoint without being obscene or even "frank." When they do leave trodden ways, too many young writers persist in opposing the justifiable editorial reluctance to print anything that might give offense in a magazine of general circulation. The sex relation is not the whole of life, and even the sex relation may be treated, without the conventional sugar coating, to give all essential facts and make all essential comments and not be forbidding. We have a great world spread before us, and there is more in it for telling than is already printed and on the newsstands. When looking for a story, the thing to do is to forget those that have been written, to forget everything except the spectacle of life.

In the choice of matter the two main considerations are novelty and worth. Freshness in substance or form will go far to stimulate the writer and to sell the result of his labor, and essential worth is inspiring. No man finds pleasure in trivial and useless labor, but all normal men find pleasure and exhilaration in labor that is worth while. The writer who has worthy matter beneath his hands, and who knows it, will remain keyed to the requisite pitch during the labor of composition. Numbers have testified that the truest joy of authorship is found in conceiving and elaborating a tale before setting pen to paper, and time spent in estimating an idea and exhausting its possibilities and deficiencies before writing is necessary to make certain that the idea is worth while. Moreover, it is necessary that the writer know precisely what his idea is in order to develop it properly by excising the superfluous and emphasizing the significant. Conscious artistry is impossible unless the author knows definitely what he is striving to express.

The writer of fiction should bear in mind the three elements of the story that is literature, and should ask himself whether his projected tale is interesting, whether it is capable of being cast in literary form, and whether it is worth while. If the idea meets all these requirements, any failure in the completed work will be due to defective execution, not to deficiency in the conception. If the idea fails to meet the test as to form and worth, it may yet be worth while to write the story, for it may sell; if the idea is not interesting, it should be rejected without remorse. The first and highest function of a story is to interest and entertain; indeed, artistic form is but a means to that end, as is essential worth; and the dull, uninteresting story—a contradiction in terms—is the most woebegone literary failure under the stars.

The writer who allows any discussion of the art of fiction or the content of fiction to cloud for him the basic fact that fiction must be interesting is on the highroad to failure. It would be better for him had he never opened a book, except of frank adventure. Nine tenths of the ponderous and silly comment on fiction past and fiction present is written by critics and professors who first kick up a great dust over a work in order to display their insight in seeing through it, and nine tenths of that nine tenths—written purely from a reader's and not from a writer's standpoint—consists in appraising character by conventional ethical standards and in attributing to the writer whose work is under examination intentions and philosophies of which he never dreamed. It is at once very dull and very amusing, but the young writer whose eagerness for all information about his craft leads him to take such matter too seriously is in grave danger.

The writer of good fiction and the reader of good fiction are alike in that they both realize that the chief end of fiction is to entertain and interest, that perfection of form is desirable simply because it heightens the illusion of a story, and that worth of matter is necessary if the story is to be true literature because the cultured mind cannot find interest in the trivial. Culture has been finely defined as "the quality of a mind instinct with purpose, conscious of a tendency and direction in human affairs, able and industrious in distinguishing the great from the trivial." If this definition is valid—it bears its credentials on its face—great fiction may be defined as fiction which interests the cultured mind. The quality of arousing interest is the criterion and determinant, and implies perfection of form and essential worth of substance. The writer of fiction must never lose sight of the fact, nor of the resulting necessity that all his work be interesting. The fortunate thing is that fiction deals with so universal a thing as life; it need not repel the ignorant and uneducated in order to attract the abler mind.

The twin elements of fictional interest are the story and its people, and here becomes apparent the essential weakness of the story of mere incident. It cannot evoke interest as deep as that called forth by the story having closer relation to character. The range of character required by the story of incident is narrow; there are a thousand pregnant human qualities which the story of incident cannot first develop by action and then utilize to hold a reader's interest, but which the writer of the more leisurely and inclusive tale of everyday life can common can be truly vivified only by showing the person in acts displaying his essential traits, and the less dependence the action of a story has upon character, the less real to a reader will be the persons involved. The story of complication of incident, of mere structural ingenuity of plot, is superficially interesting, but it lacks the deeper appeal of the story which develops its people adequately. At any rate, it is true that a reader can love or hate characters, beside being interested in them; he can only be interested in an event. The people of a story are not to be neglected as sources of interest. They are harder to display than mere events, but they are infinitely more compelling. A bare series of events may interest, but the interest and appeal of what happens will be doubled if the observer is a friend of the persons affected, that is, if he knows them. The same is true in the case of a story. Its reader stands in the position of observer of events and people. The only trouble is that some stories have little action significant in relation to character, and when that is the case the writer loses one means to make his people real for a reader. The point to remember in searching for an interesting story is that the people are as influential an element as the events.

CHAPTER III
CONCEPTIVE TECHNIQUE: STORY TYPES

Conception and Execution—Utility to Know Types—Novel and Romance—Short Story—The Three Types—Emphasis—Three Elements of Any Story—Story of Character—Character and Action—Story of Incident—Archetypal Character—Short Story and Fallacy of Compression—Story of Atmosphere—Other Types.

The labors of the fiction writer are of two sorts, conceptive and executive. In actual practice, of course, the writer may have only the faintest glimmering of his story when he begins to write, and may simultaneously conceive, elaborate, and express as he goes along; but that is not the method of the conscious literary artist. An understanding adaptation of means to ends is impossible unless the writer has a definite purpose fixed in mind from the first moment of execution. And in writing on technique it is necessary to assume the natural order of the total artistic or creative process, whether the actual practice of any writer coincides with it or not. Therefore the body of conceptive technique first calls for treatment. Strict executive technique and also the technique of construction—which is both conceptive and executive—will be taken up after dealing with the matter of story types and the matter of plot.

I need not state that there is no technique of conception, mastery of which will yield the writer the golden secret of how to create or find a good story. That depends strictly on personal ability, and not on any objective knowledge of the mechanics of the art of fiction. But a knowledge of the several fundamental types of story, and of the how and why of the differences between them, cannot fail to aid the writer in estimating and realizing the potentialities and deficiencies of a particular idea. The writer who knows precisely where his story idea will classify under analysis has a standard that will prove most useful in the work of development. If it classifies as a story of atmosphere, rather than of plot or of character, the writer will be led to concentrate upon his proper task of creating the atmospheric illusion, and will not dissipate his energies and spoil the effect of the finished work by interpolating unnecessary touches of emphasis upon character or incident.

Another preliminary word may not be out of place. A story is a story, whether long or short; but the novel or lengthy romance is so much more inclusive in matter and complicated in structure than the short story—viewing the latter as a distinct literary type—that it is less essential for the writer of fiction of book length to know with exact definition the effect he wishes to produce than it is for the writer of the short story of a few thousand words. The potential and usual effects of the novel are many; it may and usually does contain chapters or passages emphasizing all three story elements of character, complication of incident, and atmosphere; but the short story is limited by its brevity to the creation of a single effect, and any touch of emphasis looking elsewhere usually will detract from the power of the whole. Therefore it is in short story writing that a firm preliminary grasp upon all the implications and connotations of the basic idea is most essential, also most attainable, and therefore a discussion of fundamental story types concerns itself largely with the short story. But much the same principles of constructive analysis utilized by the writer of the short story may be profitably employed in developing the various but more or less unified episodes of the novel.

The three fundamental types of story have a perfectly natural origin. A story is the relation of what (1) certain persons (2) did (3) in a certain place and under certain conditions of existence. Accordingly, as the elements of personality, action, or surrounding conditions are emphasized, we have the story of character, of incident, or of atmosphere. As Stevenson has said, there are but three ways to create a story, to conceive characters and select and devise incidents to develop them, to take a plot—a climactic series of incidents—and devise characters to enact it, or to take an atmosphere and precipitate it as best the writer may.

There is, however, an obvious fact to remember. These several types of story differ from one another only in point of emphasis; in each case an element possessed by all is stressed; no type is entirely devoid of the elements emphasized in the other two. An intended story lacking any one of the three elements of character, of complication of incident, or of setting is not a story, but something else. The most common example is the composition portraying character without any plot or complication of incident, which is not a character story, but a character sketch. It cannot be too strongly insisted that a story is a story, consisting of a climactic series of incidents, as distinguished from a tale, which is a level series of incidents, unrelated save in that all happen to the same group of characters. Plot is a matter not specifically under discussion as yet, but half the difficulty and most of the inutility in writing on fiction technique reside in the fact that one must treat in isolation matters which are but elements of a unified artistic synthesis. A story is a story; its people do not merely exist, they live and act. In the case of the story of complication of incident, the complication supplies the story-element of the fiction; in the case of character story, the evolution or degeneration of character supplies the story-element; while in the case of the story of atmosphere, the climactic progression of the particular emotional impression to the point of highest intensity in itself supplies much of the plot- or story-element of the conception.

Another qualification should be stated. The normal story, written for its own sake, is emphatic in that it stresses some one of its three elements. But there is also the thematic story, written to vivify an abstract proposition or to point a moral. The type lays no special emphasis on character, incident, or setting, and is written with an eye to an ulterior purpose beyond the mere sake of the story. It is not a natural type, and may be disregarded here. Incidentally, it is not a very successful type, and of course any success it may achieve as a work of art cannot derive from the truth or weight of the proposition or moral behind it.

Starting from the proposition that there are three normal story types, it may be profitable to examine them in detail. I am not yet concerned with the technical devices whereby character may be drawn, a plot devised and narrated, or atmosphere created; my sole purpose is to suggest how the writer may recognize the true character of his idea, that in developing it he may know exactly what he is trying to do.

The story of character is concerned with the infinitely diverse traits of our common human nature as manifested by the people of a story. The single trait or few traits, rather than the totality of each person's nature, should be sought to be developed, for reasons that a moment's thought will render apparent. Character can be truly realized only by showing the person in characteristic actions and, unless the writer desires to extend his work to a great length, he can formulate no course of action which will illustrate a complete personality. In all its aspects, fiction is a matter of selection, and the writer of a story of character should concentrate his powers of description and exposition upon the traits of personality involved in the acts of the persons. The short story must present a relatively incomplete picture of each character's soul; the novel may approach each person from a number of angles; but even the novelist should consider whether he cannot give maximum reality and vivacity to his people by not attempting a too complete presentation of each.

If, then, the initial conception of a story involves or suggests true traits of character, it may be advisable to develop the story so as to throw into strong relief the quality or qualities involved. The possibility of the wisdom of such development becomes a probability if the traits are somewhat novel and not those possessed in common by all men to some extent, such as the capacity to love, to hate, to sacrifice self, ambition, the fear of death, and so forth.

It should be remembered that the hallmark of the true character story is its progression; the persons of the story grow stronger or weaker in their respective traits under the pressure of events. There is a climactic moment of indecision and suspense when it is doubtful whether the character will shape circumstances or circumstances the character. This distinguishing attribute of the character story is its essential quality as a story; the strict type is debarred from recourse to complication of incident to save it from being a mere sketch; change or progression in the characters is itself the story or plot element of the fiction. Realization of the fact will give the writer a firmer grasp on the truth that characters and events must be developed in strict concert and harmony. Anticipating later statement a trifle, let me say that portrayal of the actions of a character is portrayal of the character himself, so that his actions must be characteristic, or two elements of the story will be at cross purposes. In setting out to write a character story, the author deliberately chooses to emphasize character and to depend for interest on the spectacle of its evolution or degeneration. Since he is after all writing a story—though of one type—the author must devise some climactic series of incidents. But the character element is the preponderant strain of the fiction, and each successive incident should be chosen with an eye to that element, and its climactic value should inhere in its being climactic and progressive in relation to the trait of character sought to be developed.

This is all somewhat abstract, but the test is much easier to apply to a concrete story idea than it is to formulate in terms. If the idea consists of a tentative grouping of incidents which suggests an interesting phase of character in an interesting phase of development, the conception may be elaborated into the story which emphasizes character. On the other hand, if the initial idea is simply of a phase of character which can be adequately shown in progression by a series of incidents devised to that end, the same treatment is advisable. In each case it is possible that such treatment will give maximum effect to the conception.

The story of complication of incident interests primarily because of its plot, and not because of its people or the totality of its emotional effect.[A] It is more than a type of story; in a way it is really the archetype of all stories. An historical analysis will show the truth of the statement. First came the tale, a chain of incidents having no essential connection except that they all happened to the characters. Then came the story, a chain of incidents which are not fortuitous and accidental, but each essential to the whole design. And from the story have sprung such variations as the character story, which emphasizes the element of personality, and the story of atmosphere, which emphasizes the setting, spiritual or material. But the story of plot, which stresses the bare incident, is archetypal of all fiction in that interest centers in the story rather than in the persons or their environment. Perhaps the French conte, or brief dramatic narrative, is the strictest story type of all.

I have chosen to touch upon the character story first, rather than the more fundamental and inclusive story of plot, simply because the potential story of plot is easily recognizable, and my sole aim here is to state some of the tests which the writer may apply to his idea after conception to discover its true character, that he may know how to handle it. The germ of a plot can be distinguished at a glance, while the question of what a plot really is requires separate treatment.

If the writer would produce a strict short story, he cannot rest content with the apparent fact that his initial conception is the germ of a story plot, that being the case. The story of plot may be easy to recognize as a genre, but not all stories of plot are potential short stories. All plot germs are not susceptible of adequate development within the narrow limits of the short story. Ten thousand words is probably the extreme limit of the type as a commercial possibility, and, in a space so brief, if the chain of events is at all complicated or lengthy, it is impossible to bring out all its nuances and implications. Too many critics and writers seem to entertain the idea that the short story is the result of compression, but emphatically that is not true. The synopsis of previous chapters before an instalment of a serial novel is an example of compression, and a most repellent one. A short story is the result of its own inherent brevity. A naturally long story, it is true, may be shortened materially by mere rhetorical compression, but it cannot be rendered a short story thereby, for the short story develops its fewer incidents with as much rhetorical elaboration as the novel or romance develops its many happenings. The short story that is a short story—such as Kipling's "Without Benefit of Clergy," Stevenson's "Markheim," or Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher"—gives off no impression of verbal bareness. The short story is a literary form, with all the elaboration of expression that the term implies. Its brevity results from careful selection of the incidents to be set forth, and not from concise expression of an indiscriminate welter of incidents.

Undoubtedly the matter requires emphasis. Too much has been written and said as to the necessity of compression in short story writing. If what is meant is rhetorical compression, bare statement without verbal elaboration, no such necessity exists. What is necessary is care in making certain that the story is a short story, and care to relate nothing not essential to its development.

The French type of short story in general, and Maupassant's work in particular, are often cited to illustrate the need for compression. In the first place, the essential genius of the French language is such that in translations, to English or American apprehension, fully elaborated statement often seems somewhat bare. Moreover, I cannot admit that Maupassant's best work is equal in rounded artistry and appeal to that of others who have chosen to write less barely and mathematically. If compression means anything, it means squeezing something into less space than it would normally occupy, which is not artistry, but an attempt to do in execution the proper work of conception and construction, to devise a story which can be given adequate literary expression in a limited number of words.

A critical reading of almost any successful short story will disclose that the manner of its telling is as truly the source of its interest and appeal as is the novelty or human importance of the naked story idea. The difference between a recital of facts and a work of fiction is the difference between mere reporting and true literature. The writer who strives to compress in expression, instead of carefully selecting the matter for expression, deliberately rejects his only means to produce a sufficiently full and rounded presentment of the particular phase of life he seeks to depict. That means is to write with due elaboration, lest the phrasing seem stark and flat in comparison with the softly moulded contours of life itself. There are two elements in literature, the fact and the form; they are equally important and should be equally complete. When considering the fitness of a plot to serve as the skeleton for a short story, remember that in execution the thing must be written with due verbal elaboration, else it will be angular and unattractive, and that the idea of many incidents, people, or places cannot be so written in the space available. In execution, write adequately, and in conception and construction, select.

The story of atmosphere, which emphasizes the setting in which its people move, and seeks to bring out the emotional value of the physical or spiritual environment, is not difficult to recognize, being like the story of plot in this respect. But it is most difficult to do well. The story of character deals with concrete people, and the story of plot deals with concrete events; the story of atmosphere deals with these and something more, an intangible sensual or emotional impression, as of beauty or horror, correspondingly more difficult to create. It demands imaginative powers of the highest order, and perfect technical powers. Within limits, the unimaginative author may write effectively of characters and events, for he can see and study them objectively in daily life, and, again within limits, they may also be presented effectively by matter of fact phrasing. But atmosphere cannot be seen—even physical atmosphere must be felt, or there is no emotional effect—and all the resources of language at times become pitifully inadequate to precipitate an emotion. It is all a matter of clear conception and careful design, and the secret cannot be stated, but must be learned, each for himself. However, I am not concerned in this place with executive technique, or even with constructive technique, and whatever hints can be given as to the creation of atmosphere would be out of place. My object is merely to state the fundamental types of story and the necessity that the writer recognize the true character of his conception, that he may develop it with emphasis properly laid.

Other types of story exist, but the lines between them are not drawn by the inherent character of the art of fiction. The love story, for instance, may be told with emphasis on character, on incident, or on atmosphere, and the placing of emphasis determines its artistic character. The technique of conception is concerned only with fundamental types, and the sole object of its mastery is to give the writer knowledge of the essential artistic character of each of his conceptions, that he may work with a definite aim in development. My object is not to discuss or analyze pedantically, for the sake of the analysis itself, but simply to state the importance of discovering the basic fictional character of the idea, that it may be properly expanded. Strict constructive and executive technique of course require separate treatment.

CHAPTER IV
CONCEPTIVE TECHNIQUE: PLOT AND SITUATION

Definition of Plot—Character and Plot—Dramatic Value of Plot—Complication—Interest—Plot as Problem—Three Basic Themes—Conflict Between Man and Nature—Conflict Between Man and Man—Conflict Within the Same Man—Arrangement of Elements of Plot—Climax—Major Situations—Situation and Plot.

The plot of a story is its heart and essence. This is obviously true in the case of the strict story of plot, and it is very curiously true in the case of the story of character or of atmosphere. For in the story which lays emphasis on personality, the evolution or degeneration of the particular trait which has been selected for presentation is the real story-element of the fiction. The fact is the root of the necessity that the action develop in concert with the trait of character, giving it opportunity for expression. And in the story which lays emphasis on atmosphere, the climactic progression of the particular atmosphere to the point of highest intensity is the real story-element, which is the root of the necessity that the action develop in strict keeping with the atmosphere, that the effect may not be spoiled.

What is a plot? Many attempts at definition have been made, and the results have not been illuminating. Everyone has an idea of what a plot is, but those who have attempted to state their conception briefly have encountered difficulties. Perhaps an indirect approach to the problem will yield results.

A tale is not a story, for a tale is a relation of events which happened to happen to the characters. It is episodal, and the interest of the thing inheres in each episode separately, not in the whole. There is no essential connection between the incidents, except that they all happened to the same group of characters. The contrary is true of a story, interest in which is in the whole, as a progression, and, since the difference between tale and story is made by the presence or absence of plot, it appears that a distinguishing mark of a plot is that its events function together as a unit. There is some connection between them other than chance, and that connection lies in the intimate relation between the events of a story and its characters. Event and personality each influence or even determine each other simultaneously. Incidentally, realization of the fact will free the writer from any misconception that the action and the characters are separable elements of a story. For instance, jealousy, a trait of character, may cause a murder, an event, and a husband's chance opening of a letter addressed to his wife, an event, may give rise to Jealousy, the trait of character. Or the husband's loyalty will be strengthened in the fiction if he refuses to credit appearances.

Interaction, then, between incidents and characters, arising from the unity of the whole conception, is the first essential element of a plot. The second essential element—and there are but two—is that the several incidents of the story possess climactic value, not necessarily climactic value in the sense of ascending tensity—though that is most desirable—but climactic value in that each event should have influence in forwarding the story to a definite end, that state of quiescence which is not attainable in real life short of the grave, but which fiction must postulate. In other words, since a plot is made up of incidents which influence and are influenced by the characters, and since the story must move to an end, a plot presents a problem. What will the persons do? if the emphasis is on personality; and what will happen? if the emphasis is on the event.

To state it in the form of a definition, a plot is a series of events which influence and are influenced by traits of personality, and which are climactic in that they move to a definite conclusion, so that the series embodies some problem of life brought to solution.

I state this merely for what it may be worth, which possibly is no great matter to the writer of fiction. Plots are not to be found by vivifying a definition, but a definition may prove useful in testing a story idea when it is found, and the object of the whole discussion is merely to give the writer some aid in appraising the essential fictional value of his conceptions.

The fact that a plot is a problem gives the several events their climactic value. They are steps and approaches to the solution. And a plot is a problem simply because fiction concerns man, while man is a free agent, in possibility at least. Given certain characters and an event bearing upon them, and the problem of what they will do instantly arises, and the problem of the ultimate result of their actions. Given certain events, to reverse the emphasis, and characters on whom they bear, and the same problems arise. A plot is question and solution in one, and the solution must inevitably follow from the characters and events.

It will be perceived that the distinguishing quality of a plot is its dramatic value. A plot is a problem of life, and a problem is a conflict between opposing forces. Event and character wrestle with one another, and the outcome is doubtful, wherein lies the interest of the story. It is accurate to state that the conflict is between event and character, for though character may struggle with character, nevertheless the struggle is operative only in action, and the opposed persons struggle with the doings, not the naked souls, of each other.

It will be perceived also that the element of complication is not essential to a plot, as Poe has pointed out. Of course, in the story of incident, where the reader's interest centers chiefly in the events, not in the characters or atmosphere, complication is most useful, and in fact supplies much of the problem- or plot-element of the fiction. But complication is not a sine qua non, and should not be so regarded. Complication of incident, indeed, in the story which is fundamentally of character or atmosphere, may prove a positive handicap, adding to the difficulties of execution and spoiling the unity of effect, if the fiction is a short story. As has been stated, the novel is a broader canvas, without a single emphasis if the writer wills, and here, within the limits of naturalness, complication of plot is thoroughly desirable. Any bid for a reader's interest is of use, only in the short story the writer must necessarily limit himself to one sort of bid.

At that last of it, pretty nearly all of the technique of fiction writing has root in the necessity first to gain the reader's interest and then to hold it. That is the real object of perfection of form, even, and the device of plot has root in the same object. In simpler and more unsophisticated ages the stage presented not drama but mere spectacles, as the tale did in the spoken word or printed page; the plot, lending to the play its dramatic character and to the fiction its story character, developed only when audience and readers lost the child's vivid interest in whatever he sees, and began to yawn at the episodal. Pageantry and the unrelated event became stale, in comparison with the spectacle of life itself, and then plot was found, a method of isolating a single one of life's strands, and, by showing it in high relief, lending it an added dignity and appeal.

The basis of the more intense appeal of the plot over that of the episode is psychological. The hardest thing in the world to do is to make a reader think, but the reader who does think is interested. That is why he is thinking. Since a plot is a problem, the reader of a story of plot is made to think, and the matter impinges upon him with some force. To repeat former phraseology, if the emphasis is on the events, he tries to figure out what will happen, at least wonders about it; if the emphasis is on the characters, he tries to foresee what they will do. Incidentally, the reader of to-day is habituated to the story of plot. If nothing happens he will chalk a black mark against author and magazine, as the editor knows.

As has been said—and emphasis is not out of place—a plot is a problem. Problem, in this connection, means conflict between opposing forces, which gives the various events and situations of a story any dramatic value they may possess. It follows that there are three basic plot-themes, conflict between man and his environment or Nature, conflict between man and man, and conflict between opposed traits in the same man. It will be profitable for the writer to bear this in mind when combing the world for his story.

In his essay on Victor Hugo's romances, Stevenson has touched upon the emergence in fiction of the conflict between man and Nature. Briefly, his argument is that in the works of such a one as Scott the world and natural forces serve but as stage and stage devices for man and his doings, while Hugo, particularly in "The Toilers of the Sea," draws storm, cold, and heat as man's active enemies, almost endowing Nature with a vindictive personality. Whatever the fact as to Hugo, it is certain that to those who meet her face to face on sea and land Nature is a somewhat stony-hearted mother, yielding food and shelter only at the pistol-point of toil and struggle. To those of us who live in cities, and whose concerns are mainly social, the constant struggle of mankind against drought and flood, storm and cold, fire and famine is obscured, but it is a living reality, nevertheless, and a rich source of fiction that will get under the skin of the most pampered apartment-dweller. The roots of our lives stretch far into the dim past, when the unending struggle with natural forces was a bitter reality to all, and adequate fictional presentment of the struggle with Nature often proves to have an incisive appeal wanting in less fundamental themes. Particularly, the writer may rely upon such a story's appealing to the cultured and the uncultured mind alike, for the intrinsic human importance of its theme is felt by all. The elements of the dramatic problem presented are so simple that previous familiarity with them in personal experience is not essential to their understanding.

A fine example of this theme given short story treatment is Bret Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," while the portions of Stevenson's "Kidnapped" dealing with David's experience on the Isle of Earraid and his flight through the heather with Alan Breck find their dramatic quality largely in the same theme. It is interesting to note that Harte, however, does not emphasize the conflict between man and Nature to the utmost of possibility, for in his story there is much emphasis on character and the struggle of man with man. Whether the story gains or loses in total effect thereby is immaterial; it will prove an interesting experience for the writer to recast the tale so as to bring out more exclusively the theme of conflict with Nature. In connection with the general discussion as to plot, I will state that if Harte had entirely excised the theft of the party's horses by the treacherous member, and had not brought out the contrast between the gambler, the prostitutes, and the innocents, the story still would have been adequately plotted. The bare situation of men and women snowbound in a mountain cabin is a plot germ, for it suggests the problem whether they will survive or perish.

The plot which presents conflict between man and man is distinctly social in nature. The possibilities for the writer of fiction in the general scramble for the almighty dollar, the rivalry of love, the desire for revenge, and a thousand other passions and ambitions that bring man into conflict with his fellows, are practically infinite. Three minutes spent in running over this field for plots will demonstrate the folly of bewailing the lack of something fresh to write about. Perhaps some ingenious mathematician, given the data that there are a hundred million men and women in the United States, and that each one has some small number of desires and passions active or dormant, will calculate the potential conflicts resulting. Each conflict is the seed of a plot, and each plot may be written a hundred times, each story being made different from the last by varying the manner of treatment. There is not too little to write about; there is so very much that keen selection is essential.

Any magazine offers examples of the exploitation, by short story writers, of the conflict between man and man, while to portray the conflict is peculiarly the field of the novel, with its social emphasis. Balzac and Thackeray are supreme masters in presenting a slice of the social spectacle; "Vanity Fair" and "Cousin Pons" depict struggle between their people, and but little else. At the top of the social ladder the struggle is carried on by intrigue and sugared words, at the bottom with the knife and naked fist, but the struggle is the same in essence, and of enthralling interest to a reader. All the world loves a winner, and all the world wants to find out whom it is to love. The mere mechanical details wherein the struggle finds expression and operation are the least of the plot, which is indebted for its dramatic quality to the bare fact of struggle. Doubtless the girl who runs daily to the public library for a novel would be shocked to be told that she is impelled by the same human quality that makes street-loafers and passersby gather about two fighting boys, but she is, nevertheless. The writer who would please her—and her father, mother, and brothers—will do well to remember the fact.

The story which seeks to present conflict between two opposed traits in the same man or woman is most difficult to write so as to create any fictional illusion. It deals almost exclusively with psychological data, of the facts of the soul, and requires knowledge and imaginative insight as well as verbal dexterity. It is supremely easy to conceive a plot involving struggle of the man with himself, but it is supremely hard to give such a struggle objectivity, to expand it into a fiction operative in action and yet developing the internal conflict. I cannot think of a finer example than Stevenson's "Markheim." A close and critical study of this story by one who is qualified to taste its full flavor will reveal at once the great difficulties that face the writer who chooses such a theme, and the high pitch of achievement attainable through proper handling of material.

The greatest practical drawback to the giving of much time to mastering the technique of soul-analysis lies in the narrow appeal of such a story even when perfectly conceived and written. To recur to the always apposite Stevenson, it is safe to say that his "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a thousand times more interesting to the average reader than "Markheim," simply because the soul-struggle is so much more completely made objective and given expression in action in the first fiction than in the second. This is done so very emphatically that nine readers out of ten entirely miss the point of "Jekyll and Hyde," and fail to realize that the struggle is between two tendencies in the same man, who is split into his good and bad selves merely for the sake of concreteness. Most fiction readers have little love for abstractions and fine spun analysis—witness the common repute of Henry James, to an extent undeserved, it may be said in passing. Exclusive emphasis upon the struggle of the man with himself will tend to confine the writer's appeal to the intellectuals, in the special modern sense, a matter inimical to the pocketbook, at the least of it. Psychological analysis is most useful in developing almost any type of story, but as the sole theme for a fiction it has its disadvantages.

When the writer has his hands on a plot, of whatever type and however found, his conceptive labors are by no means over. It remains to recast and rearrange the elements of the idea, that the most effective arrangement may be discovered. A first invention is very rarely incapable of improvement, and in the interests of artistry the author should exhaust all the possibilities of his idea before writing, that he may not chance upon unsuspected potentialities in his story only when it is half written, or not discover them at all. Within limits, of course, any story will tend to shape itself; in particular, there is much testimony as to the intractability of characters; but one cannot consciously strive to do any particular thing or to produce any particular effect without first knowing just what the thing or effect is to be.

Possibly the most important matter is to arrange the incidents, the separate elements of the problem or conflict which the plot presents, in such manner as to give the progression a climactic character. Not only should each major event be a definite step toward the conclusion, solution, or denouement, but each succeeding event should be more striking, significant, and tense than its predecessor. This sort of climactic movement is not essential to a plot, but it is an essential element of a good plot, particularly a good plot for a short story. The short story is a much more strict and artificial type of fiction than the novel; in other words, its writer has fewer resources to impress a reader, and he must utilize to the full whatever is open to him. Among his resources is the device of sensible movement to a crisis or climax. Like the rest of fiction technique, the device is useful because it tends to keep alive and stimulate a reader's interest. This it does because ascending tensity suggests further struggle. Any flat incident, on the contrary, less tense or striking than its predecessor, infallibly suggests that the story is already falling to its end, and the end seems dull because the problem is not fully worked out or even stated. Psychologically, the point is delicate; it is a queer paradox that a reader at once hates to think and yet wants to be made to think. But that is a reader's condition. With equal readiness he will welcome climactic movement and continue to read, or welcome any premature fall in tensity and throw the story aside.

To show by example the results that may be achieved by use of the device of movement to a climax is impracticable; these matters that cannot be displayed by pungent quotation the student must dig out for himself by intelligent reading. Almost any successful story will display climactic arrangement of its major events. I cannot forbear to mention the ascension whereby Thackeray leads a reader of "Vanity Fair" up to Rawdon Crawley's confrontation of Becky and Lord Steyne. Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables," a book in most respects so totally dissimilar, shows a like process in leading up to the death of Judge Pyncheon. George Douglas's "The House With the Green Shutters," less widely known, is strongly climactic in its latter part. But examples, in short story and novel, are infinite in number and sort.

To recapitulate, a plot is a problem of human life brought to a fitting and convincing solution, and consists of a series of events which displays the fact and result of a conflict between opposing forces, spiritual and material, actuating and affecting men and women. Therefore the chief characteristic of a plot is its dramatic value. The definition may be turned to use not so much in the discovery of plots as in appraising their fictional value, their power to arouse and hold a reader's interest, after they have been found or invented.

Since a plot is a conflict between opposing forces, and since fiction deals with man, the three fundamental plot-themes are conflict between man and his environment, conflict between man and man, and conflict in the soul of the same man. Realization of the fact will serve to give point and definition to the writer's search for the idea.

Finally, a just regard for his readers will lead the writer to cast his incidents into some climactic arrangement. The first, last, and only proper aim of a story is to interest, and break in the expected movement to a climax is fatal to interest.

It would be interesting to go into the matter of plot-analysis at some length—I have in mind particularly the deficiencies of Poe's definition that a plot is a series of incidents contrived to produce a single effect—but this book is for the writer. I shall try throughout to keep to the writer's viewpoint and to develop nothing not of practical utility in the work of conception, elaboration, and execution.

Thus far the discussion has been concerned with plot as a whole; it remains to consider the events, incidents, or situations which compose a plot. The situations of the plot or story are what its writer must cast into a climactic consequence, and he must have some standard to measure each before he can determine its proper place.

The fictionally significant aspect of a plot is that it embodies a conflict between opposing forces, that is, it is dramatic. Likewise, the fictionally significant aspect of a situation is that it displays opposed persons—or at least opposed forces—in conflict. The writer manipulates his material—preferably before writing—so that two or more persons, actuated by incompatible motives, are brought into conflict; there is a moment of indecision; then some person bends the other or others to his will; and the situation determines. Or the writer brings a character or group of characters into conflict with Nature, as did Harte in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat." Here, also, there is a period of indecision, and then either the human force or the natural force triumphs.

The dramatic quality of any situation inheres in the struggle between opposing forces which each presents, and rises or falls with the essential strength of such forces. Take two instances of conflict between opposed motives in the same person. In some humorous story a character may be unable to decide which of two women he wants to marry. One can cook, let us say, and he is a gourmand; the other is pretty, and he has leanings that way, too. The dramatic quality in such a story will be slight, because the motives involved are relatively weak, yet it will be present. But take the story of a French girl who is outraged by a German soldier and gives birth to a child by him. Her quality of patriotism can be built up to great intensity, if the writer wills, even to the point where the reader will accept an impulse on her part to kill her child. Her quality as a mother can be built up likewise. It would be a most effective touch to have her hate the unborn child furiously, then to arrange matters so that she should be unable to carry out her first impulse to kill it and be forced to care for it, giving it opportunity to awaken her dormant maternal instinct. Finally, love for France and hatred for Germany can be stimulated again, so that she is shown veering between the impulse to kill and the impulse to cherish. Such a situation is intensely dramatic, for it involves conflict between two of the most intense human qualities, love of one's country and love of one's child. The more terrific the opposed forces in any situation, the higher its dramatic value.

At first glance it may seem that the relative position in a story of each of its various major situations is determined by the plot itself, but that is not the case. It appears to be the case because it is usual to regard the plot of a story as the entire mechanical arrangement of the fiction, including the nature and order of the situations, which is a false view of plot. As the previous discussion has attempted to demonstrate, plot is merely the conflict between opposed forces of personality and environment, at least one of the forces being of personality. Any two stories which display conflict between the same forces have the same plot, though one may vary widely from the other in the means employed to give the struggle objectivity and expression in action.

The writer of fiction should realize the point. The imagination produces concrete pictures and conceptions, and, when a story is imagined, it will come to life in terms of concrete people and events, more or less definitely ordered and determined. But the writer should not stop there. He should ascertain just what opposed forces of personality or environment give the story and its situations plot and dramatic value, and then should seek to find whether he cannot give the basic conflict involved more effective presentment than will be given by the persons and situations which he has already conceived. An essentially weak conception may offer a clue to a dramatic conflict that will have fictional power if properly developed by persons and situations different from those first conceived.

It will be perceived how far it is within the writer's power to manipulate situation in the interests of art, which, in this connection, means climax. Starting with some basic conflict, which will be his plot, the writer can devise situation after situation in which the struggle will become more and more acute, until, finally, it will become so serious as to involve all the elements of the story. And with the determination of the dramatic situation which involves all the elements of the story, the story itself will terminate, for the struggle which it embodies will have been settled one way or the other. This final situation will be the climax of the story, and its outcome or result will be the denouement. The story will be ended because the struggle or conflict it serves to embody will have ended. One force or the other will have triumphed.

In considering the question of situation, the writer of fiction is considering a more specific aspect of the question of plot. Usually he desires to find a plot of real dramatic value, and likewise he usually desires to find a situation or situations of real dramatic value. The dramatic value of plot and of situation resides in the struggle between the opposed forces which it presents. The more powerful the forces involved in either case, the greater the dramatic value of the conception. Each major situation of a story derives its dramatic quality from the opposition of incompatible motives or forces that endows the story's plot with its dramatic quality. In fact, it is not too loose to say that the situation of a story is its plot, provided the main situation or climax is meant.[B]

The purpose of the action or incidents of a story is to give the dramatic struggle it embodies concrete expression. That is to say, the dramatic quality of a story is specific in relation to certain persons and certain events. Two definite men, for instance, will engage in a definite fight over a definite woman. The writer will seek to individualize the persons involved, which is a matter of description and characterization, and he will seek also to picture the physical struggle as definitely as possible, which is a matter of descriptive narration. It is not enough to conceive a plot or dramatic situation; the writer must also expand it into a story, which should be as concrete and specific as its nature permits. Only thus can a reader be made to feel the essential power of the whole conception. It follows that the action or incidents of a story should be devised with a view to express the dynamic elements of the plot and that no incident should be incorporated in the story unless it will serve to build up some one of the forces involved or else serve to illustrate the conflict of forces that have been built up previously.

CHAPTER V
CONSTRUCTIVE TECHNIQUE OF NARRATION[C]

Importance—Plot and Situation—Spiritual Values of Story—Order of Events—Introduction—Primary and Secondary Events—Climax—Naturalness—The End—Preparation—Proportion—General Considerations.

A story is the relation of what certain persons did in certain places and under certain conditions of existence, and in its broadest aspect the art of narration includes the description of persons and delineation of character, the depiction of scenes, and the suggestion of atmosphere. But these matters bulk so large in themselves as to call for separate treatment. My purpose here is to discuss constructive technique, how the bare story, a succession and progression of events, should be planned and built up before writing. The problem is constructive, not executive, and should be considered and settled, within limits, before setting pen to paper.

In fact, much of the technique of fiction writing concerns matters of conception and construction. Giving the story its verbal flesh after it is thoroughly mapped out in mind in accord with the canons of the art is in truth a more or less simple matter to the writer who has any command of language and literary facility. The result may not be a masterpiece—which is a significant idea, justly elaborated, and perfectly told—but it will possess one of the elements of a story worthy to live. The trouble is that so many writers set about the task of expression when all they have in mind is the merest germ of an undeveloped idea or story, and then are forced to wrestle with construction and with language at one and the same time. Each task is great enough for the undivided attention of the ablest artist. I believe that in the end the constructive task is pretty well done, but that the more strictly literary task to give the conception verbally perfect expression is usually somewhat slighted. We have so many well conceived and elaborated stories, and so very few so perfect in expression that they deserve to live, a fact indicating that construction can be learned by nearly all, though literary power seems to be incommunicable. The proper attitude for the beginner, who has not the facile practice of his art at his fingers' ends, is to treat the first draft of his story as merely tentative and an aid to development.