Specific Subjects
For instance, the plot suggested in the previous chapters deals with Judaism. Now, if you don't know Jewish life through and through, it is the height of foolishness to attempt to write a novel about it. (The same remark applies to Roman Catholicism.) You will find it necessary to study the Bible and Hebrew history; and when you have mastered the literature of the subject and caught its spirit, you will turn your attention to the sacred people as they exist to-day—their isolation, their wealth, their synagogues, and their psychological peculiarities. Does this seem to be too big a programme? Well, if you are to present a living and truthful picture of the Jewess and her surroundings, you can only succeed by going through such a programme; whereas, if you skip the hard preparatory work you will bungle in the use of Hebrew terms, and when you make the Rabbi drop the scroll through absent-mindedness, you will very likely say that "the congregation looked on half-amused and half-wondering." Just visit a synagogue when the Rabbi happens to drop the scroll. The congregation would be "horribly shocked." The same law applies whatever be your subject. If you intend to follow a prevailing fashion and depict slum life, you will have to spend a good deal of time in those unpleasant regions, not only to know them in their outward aspects, but to know them in their inward and human features. Even then something important may escape you, with the result that you fall into error, and the expert enjoys a quiet giggle at your expense; but you will have some consolation in the thought that you spared no pains in the diligent work of preparation.
Perhaps your novel will take the reader into aristocratic circles. Pray do not make the attempt if you are not thoroughly acquainted with the manners and customs of such circles. Ignorance will surely betray you, and in describing a dinner, or an "At Home," you will raise derisive laughter by suggesting the details of a most impossible meal, or spoil your heroine by making her guilty of atrocious etiquette. The remedy is close at hand: know your subject.
Topography and Geography
Watch your topography and geography. Have you never read novels where the characters are made to walk miles of country in as many minutes? In fairy tales we rather like these extraordinary creatures—their startling performances have a charm we should be sorry to part with. But in the higher world of fiction, where ideal things should appear as real as possible, we decidedly object to miraculous journeys, especially, as in most instances, it is plainly a mistake in calculation on the part of the writer. Of course the writer is occasionally placed in an awkward position. A dramatic episode is about to take place, or, more correctly, the author wishes it to take place, but the characters have been dispersed about the map, and time and distance conspire against the author's purpose. It is madness to "blur" the positions and "risk" the reader's acuteness, but it is almost equally unfortunate to fail in observing the difficulty, and write on in blissful ignorance of the fact that nature's laws have been set at defiance. The drawing of a map, as before suggested, will obviate all these troubles.
Should you depict a lover's scene in India, take care not to describe it as occurring in "beautiful twilight." It is quite possible to know that darkness follows sunset, and yet to forget it in the moment of writing; but a good writer is never caught "napping" in these matters. If you don't know India, choose Cairo, about which, after half-a-dozen lengthened visits, you can speak with certainty.
Scientific Facts
What a nuisance the weather is to many novelists. Some triumph over their difficulties; a few contribute to our amusement. The meteorology of fiction would be a fascinating study. In second-rate productions, it is astonishing to witness the ease with which the weather is ordered about. The writer makes it rain when he thinks the incidents of a downpour will enliven the narrative, forgetting that the movement of the story, as previously stated, requires a blue sky and a shining sun; or he contrives to have the wind blowing in two or three directions at once. The sun and the moon require careful manipulation. At the beginning of a novel, the room of an invalid is said to have a window looking directly towards the east; but at the end of the book when the invalid dies, the author, wishing to make him depart this life in a flood of glory, suffuses this eastern-windowed room with "the red glare of the setting sun." The detail may appear unimportant, but it is not so, and a few hours devoted to notes on these minor points would save all the unpleasantness and ridicule which such mistakes too frequently bring. The reviewer loves to descant on the "peculiar cosmology and physical science of the volume before us."
The moon is most unfortunate. Mrs Humphry Ward confesses that she never knows when to make the moon rise, and obtains Miss Ward's assistance in all astronomical references. This is, of course, a pleasant exaggeration, but it shows that no venture should be made in science without being perfectly sure of your ground.