Talks on Writing English. First Series

by Arlo Bates

The second point is one which needs to be emphasized. The moment a man begins to write, his friends begin to offer true stories for use,—not one out of a hundred being usable; and they invariably commend these subjects by saying that they are things which really happened. It is impossible to make the general public understand that the fact that a thing happened is rather more likely to be against it as literary material than in its favor. Facts are admirable from their suggestiveness. No fiction is of value which is not founded upon them. They are to be used, however, as material which must be shaped and moulded before it can be used. They are the rocks from the quarry that must be dressed before they are fit building material. The danger lies in accepting actuality instead of literary propriety as the measure of value. There is perhaps no rule more useful or more necessary to young writers of fiction than to beware of the truth. If in a first novel are found scenes and incidents which are unreal and extravagant, the chances are that these are the things which have been confidently taken from real life,—and which have become hopelessly unreal in the transfer. In Narration as in Description the thing sought is not the truth but the impression of truth. The question is not whether what is told is true, but whether it seem true. We all know extraordinary incidents which are real yet which are too improbable to be used in fiction. The reason is obvious. It is necessary for fiction to be probable, while truth is free from all restrictions. The novelist is never allowed to take refuge behind the fact that a thing is veracious. He may tell whatever he has the art to make appear true, but the criterion of his success is the semblance of verity rather than verity itself. Aristotle formulated all this long ago,—“Prefer an impossibility which seems probable to a probability which seems impossible.” The philosophy of the matter is that fiction is tried by truth to the laws which lie behind fact, and that it is no less true in being false than reality is in being true.

It is to be remembered, however, that probability is largely a matter of consistency. There is always an implied hypothesis, a certain set of conditions tacitly agreed to, by which the truth, or rather the apparent truth, of any narrative is to be tried. If one is writing history, the hypothesis calls for actual facts and things which really occurred; if it is a novel which is in construction, actuality is no longer demanded, but probability according to the time and place is essential; an author may go farther by writing avowed romance, and may put events impossible and improbable into the very midst of the life of to-day, if he will but keep them consistent throughout. It is a question of what the writer attempts to do. If he choose frankly to cut loose from fact and write a fairy story, the hypothesis gives his fancy range, and here it is the strict truth which must be shunned as a violation of the implied conditions. In a number of folk tales we read passages like this:—

Then the fox stretched out his tail, the king’s son seated himself upon it, and away they went over stock and stone, so that the wind whistled through their hair.

It would be manifestly a violation of the rules of fairy lore to say instead:—

Then the fox stretched out his tail, and the king’s son tried to seat himself upon it; but of course it would not support him, so he rolled over in the mud.

To thrust facts upon the reader here is to depart from the standard. When we sit down to read fairy tales we have tacitly consented to believe the impossible, and upon this assumption fairy lore becomes, in the happy phrase of Douglas Jerrold, “as true as sunbeams.”

All this, however, is the exception, and as it is an exception which is sufficiently obvious, it is enough to mention it. The general rule for Narration is: In writing history select details with reference to their significance and their truth; in fiction with reference to their significance and their probability. In every case, significance is an essential quality. It is so easy to confound minuteness with subtlety; to suppose that to be finical is to be true; to assume that to be exact is to be effective; that more than one gifted author has come to grief and has wasted his powers through these errors. The measure of subtlety, of truth, and of effectiveness, is the relative value as measured by the central idea of the composition.

The order of events in a narrative depends chiefly upon the principle of cause and effect. Since every cause produces its effect, it follows that the sequence of incidents will generally be practically chronological. Where there are a number of threads involved and the plot is complicated, a good deal of ingenuity is often required to keep things clear, and to secure at the same time a continuous progression in the narrative. This is a problem with which the historian has almost always to deal, and upon his cleverness in solving it depends much of his success. The only rule to be given is that the writer shall have a careful and definite plan. In a simple tale it is often possible to depend upon the knowledge of the end to be reached, and to trust to one’s instinct for the rest. With an intricate theme this will not do. If one is driving a mild-mannered horse in a light wagon, it is usually enough to know the general direction, since it is possible from time to time to stop to inquire the way; in running a complicated system of railway trains the same method would be madness.

One matter involved in this question of the order of incidents is that of where and how a story shall begin. Often it is wise to commence with a striking incident or situation, and it is rare that a story can be effectively begun without there being more or less which must be told of what has gone before the actual tale. Much care is needed in managing this. It is one of the simplest devices, and it remains one of the most effective which have been devised, to have all explanations of this sort made to some personage in the tale instead of to the reader directly. If a story start with the striking appearance of the hero in some extraordinary situation, it is much more effective and pleasing to have the spectators, those who in the narrative are represented as seeing him, ask and obtain information in regard to his past and to the events which brought him to this place or situation, than it is for the author in a deliberate manner to set out to inform the reader.

Never presume on the reader’s patience and indulgence. The “gentle reader” of old-fashioned literature does not exist now, if indeed he ever existed. The modern reader is far more ready to be bored than to be interested, and all devices for persuading and holding his attention must be carefully attended to.