There is a sound of good logic about all this, but it is not conclusive. Some men have a natural predilection for the larger canvas and some for the smaller, so that the final decision cannot be forced upon anyone on purely abstract grounds; we must first know a writer's native capacity before advising him what to do. If you feel that literary art on a minute scale is your forte, then follow it enthusiastically, and work hard; if otherwise, act accordingly.
But, after all, there are certain abstract considerations which lead me to say that the short story should be practised before the novel. Take the very material fact of size. Have those who object to this recommendation ever thought of what practising novel-writing means? How long does it take to make a couple of experiments of 80,000 words each? A good deal, no doubt, depends on the man himself, but a quick writer would not do much to satisfy others at the rate of 160,000 words in twelve months. No, time is too precious for practising works of such length as these, and since the general principles of fiction apply to both novel and short story alike, the student cannot do better than practise his art in the briefer form. Moreover, if he is wise, he will seek the advice of experts, and (a further base consideration) it will be cheaper to have 4000 words criticised than a MS. containing 80,000.
Further, the foundation principles of the art of fiction cannot be learned more effectively, even for the purpose of writing novels, than in practising short stories. All the points brought forward in the preceding pages relating to plot, dialogue, proportion, climax, and so forth, are elements of the latter as well as of the former. If, as has been said, "windiness" is the chief fault of the beginner, where can he learn to correct that error more quickly? The art of knowing what to leave out is important to a novelist; it is more important to the short story writer; hence, if it be studied on the smaller canvas, it will be of excellent service when attempting the larger. "The attention to detail, the obliteration of the unessential, the concentration in expression, which the form of the short story demands, tends to a beneficent influence on the style of fiction. No one doubts that many of the great novelists of the past are somewhat tedious and prolix. The style of Richardson, Scott, Dumas, Balzac, and Dickens, when they are not at their strongest and highest, is often slipshod and slovenly; and such carelessly-worded passages as are everywhere in their works will scarcely be found in the novels of the future. The writers of short stories have made clear that the highest literary art knows neither synonyms, episodes, nor parentheses."[159:A]
Short Story Writers on their Art
I cannot pretend to give more than a few hints as to the best way of following out the advice laid down in the foregoing paragraphs, and prefer to let some writers speak for themselves. Of course, it does not follow that Mr Wedmore can instruct a novice in literary art, simply because he can write exquisite short stories himself; indeed, it often happens that such men do not really know how they produce their work; but Mr Wedmore's article on The Short Story in his volume called "Books and Arts" is most profitable reading.
Some time ago a symposium appeared in a popular journal,[160:A] on the subject How to Write a Short Story. Mr Robert Barr could be no other than pithy in his recipe. He says: "It seems to me that a short story writer should act, metaphorically, like this—he should put his idea for a story into one cup of a pair of balances, then into the other he should deal out words—five hundred, a thousand, two thousand, three thousand, as the case may be—and when the number of words thus paid in causes the beam to rise on which his idea hangs, then his story is finished. If he puts a word more or less he is doing false work. . . . My model is Euclid, whose justly celebrated book of short stories entitled 'The Elements of Geometry' will live when most of us who are scribbling to-day are forgotten. Euclid lays down his plot, sets instantly to work at its development, letting no incident creep in that does not bear relation to the climax, using no unnecessary word, always keeping his one end in view, and the moment he reaches the culmination he stops." Mr Walter Raymond is apologetic. He fences a good deal, and pleads that the mention of "short story" is dangerous to his mental sequence, so much and so painfully has he tried to solve the problem of how one is written. Finally, however, he delivers himself of these pregnant sentences: "Show us the psychological moment; give us a sniff of the earth below; a glimpse of the sky above; and you will have produced a fine story. It need not exceed two thousand words."
The author of "Tales of Mean Streets" says: "The command of form is the first thing to be cultivated. Let the pupil take a story by a writer distinguished by the perfection of his workmanship—none could be better than Guy de Maupassant—and let him consider that story apart from the book as something happening before his eyes. Let him review mentally everything that happens—the things that are not written in the story as well as those that are—and let him review them, not necessarily in the order in which the story presents them, but in that in which they would come before an observer in real life. In short, from the fiction let him construct ordinary, natural, detailed, unselected, unarranged fact, making notes, if necessary, as he goes. Then let him compare his raw fact with the words of the master. He will see where the unessential is rejected; he will see how everything is given its just proportion in the design; he will perceive that every incident, every sentence, and every word has its value, its meaning, and its part in the whole."
Mr Morrison's ideas are endorsed by Miss Jane Barlow, Mr G. B. Burgin, Mr G. M. Fenn, and Mrs L. T. Meade. Mr Joseph Hocking does not seem to care for the brevity of short story methods. He cites eight lines which he heard some children sing:
"Little boy,
Pair of skates,
Broken ice,
Heaven's gates.
Little girl
Stole a plum,
Cholera bad,
Kingdom come,"