Talks on Writing English. First Series

by Arlo Bates

For our sins, moreover, the malevolent deities that deal in literary plagues have sent upon us that mongrel monstrosity, the novel with a theory. The more harmless are in the form of simpering eccentricities, or in the shape of childishly naïve whimsicalities; in the more hurtful sort authors often highly gifted lavish their powers in support of theories as generous in intention as they are mistaken and sentimental when tried by the facts upon which they are founded. We have, too, the theological novel, and the indecent novel, and more sorts than it is at all worth while to mention, in all of which the telling of a story is made the excuse for the exploiting of some view. Of these, however, we shall have occasion to speak later in connection with the moral purpose in fiction.

It has been remarked by Stevenson that in stories in which incident is made subordinate to character-drawing the interest is sure to be less vivid. He remarks:—

In character-studies the pleasure we take is critical; we watch, we approve, we smile at incongruities, we are moved to sudden heats of sympathy with courage, suffering, or virtue. But the characters are still themselves, they are not us; the more clearly they are depicted, the more widely do they stand away from us, the more imperiously do they thrust us back into our place as a spectator…. It is not character but incident that woos us out of our reserve. Something happens as we desire it to happen to ourselves; some situation, that we have long dallied with in fancy, is realized in the story with enticing and appropriate details. Then we forget the characters; then we push the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in our own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, and then only, do we say that we have been reading a romance.—A Gossip on Romance.

All these considerations are of interest to the student, and they should all be taken into account when he is looking for a subject or when he is considering methods. As a matter of practical work, it is probably true that nobody goes to work to construct stories without having some theme, some dominating suggestion in mind. He will therefore form his plot or shape his subject according to this germinating thought, without for the moment taking theories much into account. Have a theme he must, and to my thinking the more objective this is the better. The more it deals with outward things and shows what is within through them; the more it has of incident and is concerned with the actualities of life; the more it has of broad realities as distinguished from the trivialities of existence, the more likely it is to succeed.

In the treatment of a theme, the first thing is to be sure that it is thoroughly known to the writer. I do not mean that it is necessary to know every detail. I do mean that what is known should be apprehended clearly; that there should be no doubt about the end and the beginning, whatever vagueness there may be about the minutiæ of the way from one to the other. It is especially important in story-writing that the author know his characters before he write about them. It is generally safe to compose half a dozen chapters before beginning a novel, chapters which are not to be used in the book at all, but which serve to make the author acquainted with the personages he is to deal with. If every young novelist would study the methods of Hawthorne in this respect it would be to his advantage. Any one who is at all accustomed to examining literature critically knows how almost universal it is that new authors show in the first third or quarter of their books that they are slowly becoming aware of the natures of the characters in their fiction. Often the middle of the work is reached before the writer has any clear or intimate knowledge of the men and women whom he is trying to picture.

I do not believe in hard and fast rules for the construction of stories. Methods of work must vary with individual temperaments. My own way of work naturally seems to me the most logical, but I realize that this is a question which each writer must decide for himself. Personally, I find it necessary to know the general course of a story, and above all to know the end, before I can begin it. Once these are clear and true in my mind, I deliberately consider the beginning. I say “deliberately consider” because the succeeding steps have so much the air of being involuntary. Once I have decided where to begin, I devote myself to the study of my characters. I walk the streets with them; they have a share in my waking and in my sleep. I know the general course of the history I am trying to tell, but the details I am content to learn slowly. The thing which I endeavor to do is to be sure of the character of those who are involved in this history. I am not without a feeling that an old fellow who sits in solitary state in the attic of my brain tells me the incidents of the narrative, but the acquaintance of the actors I must make for myself.

Not only must a story be known to the writer but it must for the time being at least be true to him. He must believe it as he writes; he must be completely possessed by a sense of the verity of what he is telling, or he cannot persuade the reader to accept it as real. It may seem to you that this is equivalent to saying that a novelist must be a good deal like the White Queen in “Through a Looking Glass,” who practiced until she was able to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast. The difference is that the novelist does not have to practice. The characters become so vital in his mind, they act so independently and with so evident a will of their own, that it is impossible not to feel that their story is actual. Of course I do not mean that if the novelist were put on oath he would affirm that the tale is true; yet it seems to me that if I were called upon to swear that a story which I had written were not true, I should go about forever after with a humiliated sense that I had committed perjury.

I think it is the experience of every novelist that characters in a tale will often act apparently at their own good pleasure and in open defiance of the intention of the writer. They are not infrequently almost as independent of the will of the author of their being as the modern child is said to be independent of the will of the author of his. I have myself struggled to force characters to do a certain thing and have written and rewritten certain chapters in my effort to make them follow my wishes. I could set down the words which declared that they had done the thing which I desired, but I knew that I was lying and I was conscious that my characters knew that I knew it, so that of course there was nothing to do but to tear up the falsehood and tell the truth. The explanation of all this is, I suppose, that the superficial conclusions of the mind are corrected by the unconscious logic of the imagination. The characters of the personages in the story being what they are, the personages must inevitably behave in a certain way, and an underlying perception of this fundamental truth prevents an imaginative author from being able to treat his fictitious people as puppets.

The importance of knowing the end from the beginning is the same whether one is telling an anecdote or is writing a history, a romance, or a biography. It is necessary to discriminate clearly in regard to the climax of an anecdote, as it is to be sure of the climax of a novel. Everybody knows how the story which in the mouth of one man is racy and pointed becomes stupid and ineffective the moment it is told by another. I have to thank an English gentleman for having unconsciously furnished me with an example of the disadvantage of relating an anecdote with the wrong end first. He told in the smoking-room of a London hotel an incident which I dimly remembered as being in James Dodds’ “Biographical Study of Chalmers,” and I made a note of his version in order to compare the two. This is Dodds’ story:—

[Chalmers] was present at an evening party where a very accomplished lady was discoursing most eloquent music from the fashionable opera of the day. When she was at the overture and the recitatives he looked perplexed, as if listening to a medley of madness; but when she struck upon some lively and expressive airs, he turned with a look of great relief to the gentleman who was next to him: “Do you know, sir, I love these lucid intervals!”