DESCRIPTION OF PERSONS
As I have stated in another place, the writer cannot gain much in capacity to express through the objective study of examples. He can only practice the art, seriously and intelligently. But Stevenson's brief story of an episode in the life of Master Francois Villon of Paris, poet, master of arts, and house-breaker, "A Lodging for the Night," so perfectly describes the persons involved that it calls for quotation. The object is not to display perfect use of epithet, rather to demonstrate the entire adequacy of brief and pungent description. Villon, after a short introduction, is discovered in a small house with "some of the thievish crew with whom he consorted."
"A great pile of living embers diffused a strong and ruddy glow from the arched chimney. Before this straddled Dom Nicholas, the Picardy monk, with his skirts tucked up and his fat legs bared to the comfortable warmth. His dilated shadow cut the room in half; and the firelight only escaped on either side of his broad person, and in a little pool between his outspread feet. His face had the beery, bruised appearance of the continual drinker's; it was covered with a network of congested veins, purple in ordinary circumstances, but now pale violet, for even with his back to the fire the cold pinched him on the other side. His cowl had half fallen back, and made a strange excrescence on either side of his bull neck. So he straddled, grumbling, and cut the room in half with the shadow of his portly frame.
"On the right, Villon and Guy Tabary were huddled together over a scrap of parchment; Villon making a ballade which he was to call the 'Ballade of Roast Fish,' and Tabary spluttering admiration at his shoulder. The poet was a rag of a man, dark, little, and lean, with hollow cheeks and thin black locks. He carried his four-and-twenty years with feverish animation. Greed had made folds about his eyes, evil smiles had puckered his mouth. The wolf and pig struggled together in his face. It was an eloquent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. His hands were small and prehensile, with fingers knotted like a cord; and they were continually flickering in front of him in violent and excessive pantomime. As for Tabary, a broad, complacent, admiring imbecility breathed from his squash nose and slobbering lips; he had become a thief, just as he might have become the most decent of burgesses, by the imperious chance that rules the lives of human geese and human donkeys.
"At the monk's other hand, Montigny and Thevenin Pensete played a game of chance. About the first there clung some flavor of good birth and training, as about a fallen angel; something long, lithe, and courtly in the person; something aquiline and darkling in the face. Thevenin, poor soul, was in great feather; he had done a good stroke of knavery that afternoon in the Faubourg St. Jacques, and all night he had been gaining from Montigny. A flat smile illuminated his face; his bald head shone rosily in a garland of red curls; his little protuberant stomach shook with silent chucklings as he swept in his gains."
The first thing to note about this fine descriptive fragment is that the persons are definitely placed in the room. The monk before the fire is the focal point; the others are placed in groups on his right and left hand. Two objects are achieved thereby; not only does the picture gain in definition, but it is given a closer relation to the story, which is partly concerned with what happens in the room. In other words, Stevenson describes his characters in relation to the story, and does not merely describe each one as he has occasion to name him, in isolation, and merely to give a reader a photograph with the name. Each is described in relation to the story and as he comes up in it.
The second thing to note is the extreme brevity and yet the complete adequacy of the description of each person. There is no itemizing of physical details; Stevenson has visualized not so much each man as the most striking characteristic of each man, and has used all resources of language to precipitate that characteristic in words. The result is impressive. A reader gains a clear and definite impression of the individual personality of each character, his spiritual nature as well as his physical aspect. The definition of the impression in each case results from the author's having described nothing possessed by any two in common. He has shown the unique quality of each person, which is all that is necessary.
This point of the technique of describing persons is nine-tenths of the whole technique. The fiction writer's proper aim is not so much to build up a physical picture of a character by itemizing the details of hair, complexion, stature, and so forth, as it is to reproduce the person's unique quality as an individual human being. Whether the character is an individual depends on the writer's creative genius, but whether he seems individual depends on his actions and the way he is described. Stevenson states Villon's salient physical characteristics, then remarks that the wolf and pig struggled together in his face, and a reader has the man, soul and body. The same method, though with less emphasis, is employed in picturing the others of the group.
A fundamental philosophical truth is that all knowledge is relative; we know things only in comparison with things previously encountered and classified. It follows that the difference between objects or persons is the ultimate factor that determines the character of each. The single unique quality of any character in a story is what the author must bring out in describing him if he is to have on paper the vivacity and distinction of the author's mental conception. In real life a reader meets many men and women; he does not take trouble to phrase the individual peculiarity of each, but he is acutely conscious of it. Each acquaintance stands for something unique and distinctive in his eyes, though he does not and perhaps could not state the essential difference from all others. And, in describing a person in his story, the writer must state that person's essential difference from all others, if the person is to have the reality of life for a reader, for the reader's only contact with the person is through the writer's words. In life, a reader will eliminate unconsciously from his mental representation of an acquaintance all qualities which the latter has in common with others, but verbal representation of a human being is shadowy enough at best, and in a story the writer himself must eliminate his characters' undistinctive qualities for the reader, or the persons will lack definition and concreteness.
The third thing to note about this example of the description of persons is a matter which it really does not illustrate, because it is perfect. My statement is at once obscure and paradoxical, but what is meant is that in describing a person it is possible to give so sharp a verbal etching that the reader will believe from the word itself. It is the descriptive aspect of narrating with such vividness that the word will be accepted as visual evidence. As it happens, in describing Villon and his fellows, Stevenson has found a combination of words which not only constitutes a vivid picture but is one that a reader may realize in imagination without loss of definition. Yet take such a touch as Balzac's in stating that a character had a face like a glass of dirty water. It is extremely vivid, but its vividness is somewhat superficial, that is, if a reader dwells on it, and tries to realize the image in thought, it will lose much of its definition. I have first-hand knowledge of the effect on only one reader, of course, myself, but others have confessed when questioned the same inability to realize this particular figure without loss of definition. The important point for the writer of fiction is that a reader will not pause to scrutinize too closely an image verbally definite and striking; such a descriptive touch as to a minor character will perform its office of giving the person vivacity and reality better than a more accurate but less heightened itemization of details. In a sense, Stevenson's passage is an example of this matter. It happens that his description can be realized without loss of definition. That is why it is perfect. But the same method may be employed less justly and yet have more effect than any mere itemization of physical details.
In picturing his chief characters the writer should not rely solely upon mere verbal sharpness. If the story is worth while they will have saliences that should be stated as well as exemplified in action. But the minor characters are shadowy enough at best, and any verbal definition that can be given them will lend concreteness to the story. If an image is not only striking, but also subject to realization without loss, so much the better. If an image is verbally happy, but not intrinsically perfect, it may be better to employ it than to write with just accuracy, but flatly. I believe that accuracy should be sacrificed to verbal felicity in no other place than in describing a minor character. It is an aspect of the general fictional necessity that mere literalness be sacrificed to verisimilitude, and, in describing a minor character, verisimilitude requires that a reader be faced by what will seem to him to be a definite person rather than some particular definite person. Strictly speaking, a minor character need not be individualized, but he must be drawn with the nearest possible approach to the sharp outlines of life. A major character must be drawn definite and unique; a minor character need only be drawn definite, though the more individual he is made the better. It follows that any sharp verbal image applied to a minor character will help the story, though it is within limits meretricious.
The three matters here discussed are the main considerations to be held in mind in describing the persons of a story. They should be described in relation to the story, as they are placed by their actions in the physical setting. In describing the chief characters, the persons whose personalities have significant relation to the course of events, the writer should endeavor to bring out with maximum definition and vividness the single unique quality of each person. In describing minor characters, the chief necessity is to give each person as much as possible of the definition and concreteness of life. Little space is available, and the writer may be driven to the use of somewhat meretricious figures. The perfect figure should always be sought, but, if the writer cannot discover it, the literally inaccurate figure may be better than flat writing. The general aim in describing persons is to give maximum concreteness to the whole story, and seeming definition will sometimes serve as well as actual definition.
The necessity that the persons of a story be described in relation to it, as they are placed in the physical setting, requires the writer to realize and regard the mechanical limitations of the story. If it is told in the first person, and the narrating character perceives another in the distance, a description of such other must confine itself to matters apparent at a distance, until the persons approach one another more nearly. The same necessity obtains where the story is told in the third person, from the viewpoint of a character who perceives another at a distance. Likewise, a character cannot be made to see through a house or a mountain, or into the next room. A good deal has been written on this matter, but from the wrong angle. The writer should not seek to master any abstract rule, rather should he strive to visualize his story as he writes it from the viewpoint from which he has chosen to tell it. If he thus gets into his story—so to speak—in describing he will unconsciously respect the mechanical limitations of the tale. Moreover, his attention will be free for the severe task of expression, undistracted by any eye to precepts. The way to write a story is to picture it in imagination and then follow it with the pen. That is why the unpracticed writer of high imaginative powers so often writes with a strict if unconscious regard for the laws of technique.
Another matter as to the description of persons is worth noting. The normal human being has more than the sense of sight; he can also hear, feel, and smell; and verbal appeals to these other senses may be effective. The timbre of a character's voice or sound of his step, the feel of his hand when shaken, an odor about him or her, as of liquor, tobacco, or perfume, may be stated in describing the person. Such a descriptive touch will often prove most useful, the more so because it gives another dimension to the person, so to speak. A very characteristic and impressive thing about Uriah Heep is his handshake, as Copperfield felt it. The matter will be taken up again in discussing the technique of describing setting, where it necessarily bulks larger.[K]
DESCRIPTION OF SETTING
The fiction writer is a dramatist in a very real sense, but he cannot depend for verisimilitude on flesh-and-blood actors, painted scenery, and actual properties. He must describe all these to give his narrative verisimilitude and concreteness. The technique of describing persons has been discussed, and the technique of describing mere objects, the properties of the piece, as the dagger in the hand of an assassin, is not so much a part of the technique of fiction writing as of the technique of writing generally. It is a question of rhetoric. But the technique of describing setting is fictional as well as rhetorical, that is, the writer of a story must consider what he should describe as well as how he should describe it. His task is more highly selective than the task of describing the persons or properties of a story. They, with the events involving them, are the story itself; the setting or environment of a story is not, but merely a background or stage. Yet sometimes, as in the story of atmosphere, the setting is an integral and necessary part of the fiction. One can only say that it all depends.
The fact that the setting is sometimes an integral part of the story and sometimes not requires the writer to set to work differently in each case. In writing the story of atmosphere, he must regard the setting as matter for reproduction for its own sake; in writing the normal story, he must regard the setting as only incidental, and should not reproduce it unless it will clarify the course of events for a reader or serve to give the story its necessary body and verisimilitude. The story of atmosphere requires separate treatment; here only the technique of describing the setting or settings of the normal story will be discussed.
As stated, in writing the normal story, the story where interest centers in the course of events, the writer should not describe setting unless it will clarify the course of events or lend body to the fiction in the eyes of a reader. General descriptive writing has no other function to perform. Realization of the truth will lead the writer to avoid writing great wastes of description. If a particular story requires that the physical conformation of a neighborhood be brought out, a few words will serve better than many, which will be apt to confuse a reader, at least to distract his attention. And when the writer describes setting to give body to the story, scattered descriptive touches will have more effect than a single isolated block of description. It is another aspect of the matter touched upon in relation to the description of persons. If a story is to have the concreteness, definition, and vivacity of life, the descriptive quality must permeate the whole, both as to the persons and their environment. The descriptive task cannot be performed once and for all, either as to the persons or the setting, any more than can the narrative task. Narration continues throughout the whole story, for it is the story; and likewise description must accompany each item of narration, for description is a part or quality of the whole story. Where the course of events is rapid, their quick succession itself will counterfeit a like phase of life, for an observer would note the events as such rather than the setting. But where the course of events is more leisurely, descriptive touches as to setting will be necessary to counterfeit such a phase of life, for an observer would note not only the happenings but the environment. A story is a reproduction of a phase of life; a reader is its observer; and the whole must be made to stand forth for him as a like spectacle would show in actuality.
The other necessity, to describe setting to give the story verisimilitude and concreteness, is not so easy to state or to meet. This sort of descriptive quality must permeate the whole story, as has been stated, and its introduction or creation is a matter of difficulty. The natural and best way to conquer the secret is to imagine the course of events while standing in the shoes of the person from whose viewpoint the story is told, then to follow them with the pen. Where the character would see, feel, hear, or smell something, state the impression upon him. Thus Kipling, in "Without Benefit of Clergy": "... Old Pir Khan squatted at the head of Holden's horse, his police sabre across his knees, pulling drowsily at a big water-pipe that croaked like a bull-frog in a pond. Ameera's mother sat spinning in the lower veranda, and the wooden gate was shut and barred. The music of a marriage procession came to the roof above the gentle hum of the city, and a string of flying-foxes crossed the face of the low moon." Kipling has imagined his story as Holden would have lived it; not only has he seen through Holden's eyes—he has heard with Holden's ears. In this short passage there are three appeals to the sense of sight, and two to the sense of hearing, and the fragment gains by stating more than visual impressions.
The point has been noted in discussing the description of persons, but is worth enlarging upon. The task to give body to a story is difficult enough at best, and the writer can afford to neglect no resource. Of the five senses whereby man grasps his surroundings, that of taste is probably of the least use to the writer of fiction, but the senses of sight, hearing, smell, and touch can all be utilized on occasion. A character at sea can be stated to have seen the waves of a storm, felt the force of the gale and the sting of driven raindrops, and tasted the salt spray, also to have smelt the musty fo'c'sle when he went below. Each touch will give the whole picture added reality for a reader. The beginning writer is too apt to rely solely upon what a character might have seen. A deserted house has a smell as characteristic as its look, and the fragrance of violets is as impressive as their visual beauty. Night can be told from day by its odor, and the rattle of typewriter keys in an office is as suggestive of modern industry as a serenade is of other days and other loves. A hero can feel his sweetheart's soft or toil-roughened fingers as well as see her expensive silks and furs or cheap and much worn dress. Life is a complex of many sense-perceptions, and the more numerous and varied the fleeting impressions a character is stated to have caught, the more concrete and real the story will be for a reader.
Description is the usual but not the happiest term to denote the general process of giving a story a setting and environment of its own. It is—or should be—more than a process of picturing scenes. All pertinent and striking sense-impressions received by the characters should be stated, for only thus can the nearest approach to a just representation of life be made. The writer's sole object is to give the fiction the concreteness of life; it cannot be achieved by painting verbal pictures for a reader, but it can be achieved by stating justly the ways in which the totality of the environment affected the characters. Just description of the characters will make them real men and women for a reader, and just statement of the effects of their environment upon them will make them real people in a real world.
The strictly executive technique of descriptive writing is not hard to grasp, however hard it may be to find the desired word. The impression that the character involved would receive first should be stated first, and the less striking details should follow in the order of their impressiveness. Thus, in describing a skating scene, the observant character should be made to see the interweaving skaters and to hear the peculiar whinnying ring of the skates before he sees individuals. It is all a matter of visualizing, or, better, visualizing and living the story in the shoes of the character from whose viewpoint it is told. The writer who will live each story thus in imagination, and will state the successive impressions the character would naturally receive while moving through such a chain of events in real life, will do far better work than one who strives to carry in his head a body of rules and precepts and to write with observance of them. Technique cannot be discussed without directly stating principles, but the business of actual writing is natural, not mechanical and artificial. The writer becomes artificial precisely when he forgets he is writing a story and begins to daub in descriptive matter without relation to the characters or the events. The thing to do is to get inside the skin of the character from whose viewpoint the particular story or particular part of the story is told, to see with his eyes, hear with his ears, smell, taste, and feel with his nerves, and to state no impression as received by him that the course of events would not allow him to receive. A horse-thief fleeing from a posse will have no eye for the beauties of a landscape. If the writer desires to show the scene for the sake of its contrast with such an event, he must do so lightly and quickly. A reader will be mounted with the pursued man, and his eyes will be ahead.
As to the matter of contrast between event and setting, no rules can be stated. All that can be said is that sometimes it is a useful device. But the main purpose of descriptive matter in the normal story is to give it concreteness, and generally the purpose will be realized best by stating the sense-impressions which would be received in actuality by the characters. A story will gain much in naturalness and plausibility thereby, for the same reason that narration in the first person or from the viewpoint of a single character is the most natural and plausible way to write, if the particular story permits.
One other thing may be useful to note. In describing a person, the writer should strive to state his unique quality as an individual; in describing a scene, also, the writer should seek to bring out its unique quality. That quality should be sifted out and realized in imagination, and then the writer should search diligently for the few telling words that will precipitate it. As the story moves on, men, women, and children, houses, ships, and electric cars, streets, deserts, and smiling fields, will come beneath the writer's pen. And they must all be given reality, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the story.
CHAPTER IX
SPEECH
Potency of Dialogue—Mechanical Distribution—Naturalness—Directness—Dialect—Situation—Three Resources to Meet Demands of Situation—Physical Effect—Ellipsis—Elements of Language—Style—Verbs of Utterance—Transcription of Speech for it Own Sake—Creative Process.
When the writer of a story is not using narrative or description, he will be transcribing the speech of his characters. And in the matter of transcribing speech the writer of fiction has a chance comparable with that of the dramatist and the practitioner in the graphic arts. The effect of narrative or description upon a reader is secondary and derivative; the effect upon him of written speech or dialogue is very nearly primary. The fiction writer has not the actor's studied tones to give dialogue complete life and body, but the appeal of written speech is infinitely more direct and compelling than that of any other sort of writing. A word is a word, whether spoken or written, and cannot be read without setting up some echo in the ear. When the writer of a story describes its hero, a reader may or may not see an image, faint or distinct, behind the words. But when the writer sets down his hero's words, a reader cannot choose but hear. Even if the words be unnatural and stilted, they will be heard. That is why badly managed dialogue is so potent to ruin a story. The speech of the characters in a story is strongly impressive, whether for good or ill. The more powerful a tool, the more damage it will do if mismanaged.
Thus the essential force of dialogue or written speech may be a handicap or an assistance. If a character's words jar upon a reader, they will do so strongly, if they are natural and in keeping with the whole conception of the person, they will do much to give him the breath of life. It follows that the writer of fiction should give due attention to the transcription of speech, the more so because superficially the task is easy.
Perhaps the first consideration is the mere mechanical distribution of dialogue. In real life only the after-dinner speaker talks at inordinate length. Conversation, except that of the bore, is essentially fragmentary. Not only is each person's part fragmentary, but the whole conversation is usually somewhat brief. People caught in a more or less rapid sequence of events have no time to talk at length, and a story is a more or less rapid sequence of events. The writer must counterfeit a like phase of life with his story, and to do so he must mingle the mechanical elements of the story in a texture pleasing because varied. The mechanical elements of a story are its narrative, its description, and its dialogue or speech of the characters; these must blend and intermingle, varying the appeal to a reader and simulating the pattern of life. An unfailing sign of the amateur, at least of the amateur with no innate sense of fictional values, is a story made up of hard and angular blocks of narration, description, and dialogue. The skilled writer—if the particular story permits, a proviso always to be understood—will intermingle speech with action and description with both. Dialogue should no more be written pages at a time than should description, and if a great deal of speech must be transcribed en bloc, it should be broken up to some extent by descriptive touches and even by narration more detailed than that part of the story naturally calls for.
The next consideration is to make the people of a story talk naturally. The necessity has affiliations with the necessity that the speech of any person be made characteristic, for dialogue is an efficient aid in the portrayal of character. The writer must make each person talk like a human being, even if not like some particular human being. Good, nervous dialogue will be full of elisions, mere exclamations, unfinished sentences, gaps that a reader will bridge readily for himself. He will be skilled in the business, for that is the kind of talk addressed to him every day. In more sedate and leisurely ages, if we may judge from the tales then written, people could frame a sentence on the lips, but it is a lost art now. To be "literary" in transcribing speech is to invoke almost certain failure. "Literary" dialogue usually is ruinous. A reader's interest may survive stilted and affected narrative or descriptive writing, for most readers have read so much of such writing that it is almost expected, but stilted and affected dialogue will kill interest once and for all. In narrative there is something behind the word for the reader, even in description there is a faint something, but in dialogue there is nothing at all. The word is the word; if it fails, the failure is total.
Yet it will not do to be quite literal in transcribing speech. If the speech of real life is broken and fragmentary, it is also impossibly wordy and purposeless. The lawyer who has spent weary hours in reading transcripts of testimony knows the fact to his cost. The writer of fiction has not space to set down with minute accuracy just what his people probably would have said during the progress of the story; he must counterfeit the auditory impression of real speech by eliding and leaving sentences unfinished; but this mechanically broken and abrupt speech must have the purpose and direction which is wanting in real speech. The characters must not only talk naturally; they must say certain definite things and convey definite and necessary information, directly or by implication. There is little need to emphasize here the necessity that the writer have some fictional purpose in making a character say something, except to warn against transcribing speech solely for the sake of its suppositious intrinsic wit or vivacity, for each story will assert its own claims over the talk of the characters.
The question of dialect has been debated often and at length, both for and against. There are many fine stories in dialect in whole or in part, but their merit does not result from the employment of dialect, though the dialect may be a necessary part of some of them. In the larger sense, the question is merely one of naturalness. The pronunciation of no man is in exact accord with the ideal standard of the dictionary; all have mannerisms of speech and accent. In some sections such mannerisms are so common and marked as to form a dialect, almost a patois, and, if a story involves a character from such a district, fidelity to fact requires the writer to write dialect when the person is speaking. Dialect in a story must be intelligible to one unfamiliar with it, which requires the writer to iron out its greatest divergences from the normal in an endeavor to retain its piquancy while avoiding its obscurity. The question is not one of technique, but one of material. The only insistence of technique as to dialect is that it must be intelligible.
Unquestionably there is prejudice against the story told wholly in strongly marked dialect by a narrating character, both on the part of editors and readers. The type had a vogue some years ago, but its commercial and artistic defect is that it tends to be unintelligible.
Dialect is a useful aid in characterization, as is any slighter mannerism of speech. The matter will be taken up in discussing the portrayal of character. Here I am concerned only with the more general aspects of the management of dialogue.
As stated, the first necessity in writing dialogue is to place the word where it would be spoken in life, during the action, not in isolated masses of speech. The second necessity is to write naturally, and yet to invest the hasty and elided speech of the characters with purpose in the fiction. Dialogue must be not only natural and easy; it also must be significant, significant in relation to life—which is the matter of naturalness re-stated—significant in relation to the characters, and significant in relation to the story. That is to say, the justly written bit of dialogue will be natural, will illustrate character, and will inform a reader, directly or by implication, of something he must know if he is to catch the full savor of the story. These are the most general conditions to be borne in mind in writing dialogue. It remains to discuss the necessity that a writer consider the matter of situation while transcribing speech. The necessity requires discussion. Not only is it stringent, but it is politely ignored by too many books on technique.
The abstract statement is that the same person will talk differently according to his situation at the moment. Jones is Jones, of course, but the Jones who discusses preparedness with Smith is a different Jones from him who telephones to summon the doctor for his dying child, and his speech in each case will not be the same. My lady will not berate her maid for a fault as she will reprove her lover, and the head bookkeeper talking to a subordinate and to the boss would impress a listener as two different persons. The man and his speech are influenced by the event. The writer of fiction, being under constant necessity to counterfeit life, must keep the speech of his characters in accord with the situation as well as with the general looseness of actual talk.
It may be said that this necessity to write dialogue with an eye to the situation of the persons is merely a more narrow phase of the general necessity to be natural. That is true. The writer will never go astray who lives his story in imagination and sets down the speech of the characters as it would have been phrased in actuality. The only trouble is to determine just how the persons would have spoken, and it is a trouble because it requires more than a vivid imagination. Imagination will embody the course of events for a writer, will touch in the setting with glowing color, but imagination alone will not supply the words spoken. To find them, the writer must employ his intellectual faculties as well as his imaginative powers, and precisely for the same reason that the characters must employ their intellectual faculties in speaking. One who writes a story lives vicariously, lives another's life for the time being, and where that other would be forced to think, as in speaking, the writer must think likewise. Where the other would be forced only to observe, as in witnessing events or observing setting, the writer can rely solely on his imaginative powers.
There will be little difficulty in meeting the demands of the situation that is casual and commonplace. Speech that is merely easy and natural is adequate. If the incident is not particularly significant in a dramatic or emotional sense, the way that the character would talk in such circumstances is not hard to find. The story requires that a Southern gentleman of the old school welcome a stranger to his house, let us say; it will not be hard to find the host's words on that occasion. But suppose he must discover a few pages farther on that the stranger is his daughter's seducer. What will he say? The writer must find for him words that will chime with the tensity and dramatic value of the situation. To meet the necessity the writer has three resources.
The first lies apart from the matter of speech. By just portrayal of the physical effect of such a discovery upon a character the writer will accomplish much. To put it flippantly, the character will be made to talk naturally by making him speechless. To put it justly, in such a heightened moment in a story narration should be very detailed, and the writer should show the physical effect of any discovery upon a character before transcribing the words born of the moment.
The second resource of the writer to meet the necessity that a character's words fit the emotional and dramatic qualities of a situation is largely mechanical. Even casual speech is elliptical and exclamatory; speech born of excitement or agony of soul is strongly so. The more broken and fragmentary the character's speech, the greater the suggestion of emotional stress and upheaval.
The third resource of the writer is a matter of diction. English is a language compounded of Anglo-Saxon and Latin and Greek elements. The primary basis of the tongue is Anglo-Saxon; that is why it is English, and not a Romance language. We learn the simpler, less abstract part of our vocabulary, the part that stands for fundamentals, in childhood; the rest is acquired later. Not only is the Anglo-Saxon word the word we know best; it is also the word which will express our deepest loves and dreads and hates. The Latin element of the language gives it its flexibility and its capacity to express ideas, but its capacity to express emotion resides in its Anglo-Saxon element. Love, hate, birth, death, God, devil, father, mother, sister, brother, sin, lust, greed, filth, hope, care, weep, laugh, smile—all are strictly English words of Teutonic origin, and all are much more forceful and suggestive or connotative than any Anglicised Latin equivalents. The writer of fiction should realize the fact, and should make his people use strictly English words when caught in a pregnant situation. A lawyer, in discussing a case, properly may be made to employ the word deceased, for instance, but when informed that his wife has died suddenly, "Dead?" he should be made to say, "Dead?" That is very obvious, of course, but it will serve for an illustration.[L]
The question of character intrudes here. All speech should be characteristic of the person uttering it, but the necessity that the word should fit the moment is more stringent than the necessity that the word should fit the person, provided that the moment is so tense that its force might be expected to strip any husk of mannerisms from the persons involved. Indeed, the more strikingly individual the casual speech of a character, the greater will be the effect of making him utter in a crisis the broken and disjointed English words that come to the lips of all of us when our loves or our pocketbooks are threatened.
After stating the necessity to make dialogue accord with situation, and after pointing out the three resources of the writer to this end, a word of caution may not be out of place. In all human probability the writer will have for the significant situations of his story a much keener feeling and appreciation than any reader. There is some danger that the writer's feeling for his own situations will lead him to make his people talk a thought too brokenly for acceptance by a reader without the same keen appreciation of all the emotional and dramatic values of the situations of the story. The danger cannot be overcome by toning down the dialogue; the writer must force a reader to feel the power of all the situations of the story. In other words, dialogue in tense situations must meet the fact of situation, and each situation itself must be built up for a reader by proper development and adequate writing of the whole story. The art of fiction is a whole, as a story is a whole, and perfect handling of one element alone of his story, as the dialogue, will avail the writer nothing.
In transcribing speech, the less the writer thinks about the style or manner in which he has chosen to tell the story the better. The first consideration is to be natural, that is, to write as some real person would talk, and, if possible, to write as some particular person would talk. But the general tone of the story must be considered. The necessity is less stringent or nonexistent in writing the novel, with its permissible variety of texture, than in writing the short story of unity of effect. If the people of a story are super-normal, their lips must not drop banalities. That is a matter of character. But if the single effect sought to be produced by a story is of horror, for instance, its people cannot be permitted to make remarks that will hinder the attainment of the effect, which is a matter of preserving the general tone of the story. The speech of the characters must be in keeping with them, in keeping with the significant situations, and in keeping with the story as a whole.
There is one point about the management of dialogue which should be the less neglected because it is purely mechanical and very easy. A page of dialogue should not present to a reader a monotonous succession of "he saids" and "she saids," simply because the reader will feel the repetition and some of the illusion of the story be lost. The verbs characterizing utterance are infinite in number; moreover, it is frequently possible to set down nothing but the words of the speaking character. Thus Henry Sydnor Harrison, in "V. V.'s Eyes.":
"'Did she hurt herself?' said Carlisle, third-personally, to the elder girl, who had suspended her game to stare wide-eyed. 'What on earth is the matter?'
"The reply was tragically simple:
"'A lady stepped on her Junebug.'"
"Sure enough, full on the vestibule floor lay the murdered slum-bug, who had too hardily ventured to cross a wealthy benevolent's path. The string was yet tied to the now futile hind-leg. Carlisle, lingering, repressed her desire to laugh.
"'Oh!... Well, don't you think you could catch her a new one, perhaps?'
"'Bopper he mout ketch her a new one mebbe tomorrow, mom ... Hiesh, Rebecca!'
"Moved by some impulse in her own bouyant mood, Carlisle touched the littlest girl on the shoulder with a well-gloved finger.
"'Here—Rebecca, poor child!... You can buy yourself something better than Junebugs.'
"The proprietor of the deceased bug, having raised her damp dark face, ceased crying instantly. Over the astounding windfall the chubby fingers closed with a gesture suggesting generations of acquisitiveness.
"'Is it hers to keep?' spoke her aged sister, in a scared voice. 'That there's a dollar, mum.'
"'Hers to keep ...' replied the goddess, smiling."
Dialogue so managed is infinitely more natural and fitting than the he-said, she-said sort. Of course, the more characteristic the speech of the characters, the less the need for verbs of utterance. The primary office of such verbs is to indicate the person who is speaking, and, if the words spoken do that, the verb may be omitted. The secondary office of verbs of utterance is to characterize the manner of speech, and here it is well not to be too extreme. A character may snarl or bellow or invite or plead, for instance, but if he is made to flame in words there will be a suggestion of strain and artificiality for a reader. Intelligibility and suitable—not unsuitable—variety should be the writer's aims in managing dialogue.
The total amount of dialogue any story will contain depends on its nature and character. Possibly it is true that the more strictly dramatic a story, the greater will be the proportion of dialogue to the rest of the text. At any rate, a writer should never transcribe speech at any length simply for its own sake in an endeavor to trick a reader into thinking that the story is livelier than it is. Dialogue is attractive to a reader, but it is attractive in a story only when it is an essential element of the story. The writer should not depend on the intrinsic wit and vivacity of his characters' speech. Even if it is interesting in itself, apart from the story, the fact will not help the story as such, for a reader's attention will be distracted from its movement. Mr. Dooley's talk is beautiful, read apart and by itself; thrust into a short story, it would hurt the tale.
Finally, a word as to the actual creative process of writing dialogue. The way to narrate is to live and see the story's happenings in imagination; the way to describe is to feel the totality of the story's environment or setting in imagination as some character or characters must have felt it; and the way to write dialogue is to be each speaking character in turn for a space, and to write as the particular person would have spoken. As stated above, the writer will have to think as well as to imagine. He will have to comprehend the essential nature of each speaking character, his personality, education, and habits of life and mind, in order to discover the words that would be called forth from such a person by each new event. The task is not easy. But the writer should bring his full powers to bear upon it, for the dialogue of a story is tremendously effective, whether for good or ill.
CHAPTER X
PORTRAYAL OF CHARACTER
The Three Modes of Characterization—Dialogue—Action—Description or Direct Statement—Aims of Characterization—To Show the Nature—To Show the Man as a Physical Being—Character and Plot—Characterization by Speech—Characterization by Statement—Characterization by Action.
Characterization is an unlovely term, but it stands for much. In fact, it stands for so much that it is the hardest point of technique to discuss adequately. In the fiction writer's vocabulary, it stands for things as diverse as the necessity that the whole action of a story be significant in relation to character, and the necessity that the persons of the fiction seem real and individual, apart from any unique quality of their actions. Whether the action of a story is significant in relation to character depends upon whether the writer has discovered a real plot and developed it properly; whether the persons of a story seem tangible and unique apart from their actions depends upon the writer's skill in describing them and transcribing their speech. That is to say, characterization is a matter accomplished by narration, by description, and by the transcription of speech. A reader of a story has a clue to the natures of its people in their actions, in their words, and in what the writer has to say about them.
It may be well to enlarge somewhat on the respective functions of the three modes of characterization. Dialogue, action, and description or direct statement by the author all serve to give the character concerned individuality in the eyes of a reader, but all do not function in precisely the same manner or to precisely the same end. A few illustrations will make this clearer.
Suppose a story involving a character whose most salient trait is cruelty. The author may demonstrate this quality in the person by stating directly that he is cruel, by showing him in wantonly heartless actions, and by placing on his lips words which only a cruel man would utter. So far, so good. Each sort of demonstration will add something to a reader's realization of the character. But more is necessary. Cruelty is not a particularly unique trait; moreover, if a trait is unique, merely investing a character with it will not serve to give him the solidity and liveliness of a real person. Whether cruelty or any other trait is brought out, if it alone is brought out, the person will be a disembodied moral attribute rather than a man or woman. To secure a maximum effect upon a reader, the writer must manage to show some particular cruel person rather than a cruel person. And he must resort to the same means employed to show the strict character-trait, description or direct statement, dialogue, and action. But the writer's aim will be different. He will be concerned with the person's appearance and effect upon an observer or listener rather than with his nature. As Stevenson did for Villon in "A Lodging for the Night," the writer of a story involving a cruel person may call him a "rag of a man, dark, little, and lean, with hollow cheeks and thin black locks," or may employ any other combination of words that will give a definite picture of the man, viewed merely as a physical object, whether he be thin or fat, ruddy or pale, tall or short. And, in setting down a cruel person's speeches, the writer not only may make them cruel in content, but also may make them unique and individual by some mannerism of speech.
What I am trying to show is the fact that characterization, as the term is commonly employed, includes description as well as the strict portrayal of character. I have taken up the matter of the description of persons under that head, and I shall take up, in this chapter, the matter of speech as both illustrating character and individualizing the person. The whole difficulty of discussing technique lies in the necessity to treat in isolation matters which are influential in numerous directions in a story. In the latter part of this book I am following the conventional mode of discussing separately the matters of description of persons, dialogue, and the portrayal of character, but only after much pondering whether such treatment is advisable. The advantage is clearness; the disadvantage is loss of relation between matters mutually influential. For instance, writing dialogue is descriptive writing in a very real sense. A reader of a story stands in the position of an observer of certain persons. Their mannerisms of speech, which come to him through the ear, serve to build up his total impression of them as much as their physical appearance, which comes to him through the eye.
The process of characterization, then, however accomplished, is the result of two very different aims on the part of the writer of a story. The first aim is to show the essential natures of the people of the fiction, and may be attained by illustration in action, by direct statement, and by transcribing their speech. The second aim is to make them appear real men and women, apart from their natures, and may be attained by description—which is direct statement—by transcribing their speech, and even by action. In all three matters of narration, description, and dialogue the double process may go on. Narrating a character's victorious fight with a bigger man will leave on a reader a twin impression of the person's strength—a physical attribute—and courage—an attribute more strictly of character. When Stevenson, describing Villon, states that the wolf and pig struggled in his face, a reader is made to see the cruel sensuality of the man's face as a physical object, and to feel the cruel sensuality of his nature as a spiritual fact. If an avaricious character is made to make a miserly speech, a reader will have a clue to his nature; if he is made to make it with a lisp or stutter, there will be a descriptive touch as well. Characterization may be accomplished by narration, by description, and by dialogue, and characterization, as the term is commonly used, includes the description of persons as physical objects as well as the strict portrayal of character.
The writer of fiction who seeks to acquire the technique of characterization should note two facts. The sort of characterization which consists in displaying the essential spiritual natures of the people of a story is largely a matter of plot, of the sequence and character of each person's actions. If the writer states that John is miserly, and puts miserly words on his lips, the reader will never believe in John's avarice if he does a generous thing in the story. Actions speak louder than words. A reader will believe in John's avarice from the writer's mere statement and John's words, if John's actions are not significant adversely to the trait. In other words, personality and event must have true relation, on account of the inherent nature of a plot, a matter previously discussed. The second fact for the writer of fiction to note is that the sort of characterization which consists in giving the people of a story the vivacity and concreteness of real men and women is superficial but extremely important. A story is concerned with the spiritual natures of its people; it shows their growth or decay; the process is the story itself, particularly in the case of the story of character. But a story does not deal with disembodied moral attributes. It deals with men and women, and, if it is to be effective, a reader must receive some definite physical impression of each person as well as a knowledge of his nature. In the whole philosophy of fiction writing, characterization, as commonly understood, functions thus: the natures of the several major characters are primary elements of the fiction, as are the events; the impression an observer and listener would receive from each person must be built up for a reader that the fiction may have the concreteness and reality of life for him.
Speech, direct statement, and action, the several means whereby characterization in its two aspects may be accomplished, now may be discussed.