Of essential importance in story-telling is movement. This is an advantage in other forms of composition, but indispensable in Narration. There can be no sense of unity, no continuity of interest, unless there is a constant sense of progression. A story can no more stand still than can life. When the incidents cease to carry the reader forward, it is as if the heart stopped beating. Each incident in a narrative, as in existence, must stand in relation to what comes before it of effect to cause, and to what follows it of cause to effect. It is necessary to make the reader feel that he is ever going forward, now slowly and now swiftly, according to the exigencies of the tale. Contrast, variety, relative importance, have all to be considered. When the reader is eager to reach some culmination, when he is excited in regard to some crisis in the narrative, it is often wise to condense days into a sentence, hours into a phrase. Again, there are times when it is important to prepare the mind for a situation, to go slowly in order that an effect be produced by the cumulative force of trifles. No hard-and-fast rule can be given to govern this progression. The technical means by which swiftness or deliberation are secured are simple and easily learned. The whole matter is pretty well covered by the statement that many words and minute details retard movement, while few words and a suppression of particulars give rapidity. When to employ these means the writer must learn from the study of the work of the masters, from the careful consideration of what result he wishes to insure, and above all by a close examination of the manner in which effects are produced in real life. Naturally, the movement is swifter as the tale nears its conclusion, and in passages which deal with exciting and intense emotions. Illustrations are hardly possible in limited space, but the climax of any masterpiece may serve as an example.
Description and dialogue must be subordinate to the movement of a story, as they must be subordinate to the general purpose. Speaking broadly, dialogue aids swiftness of progression, and description delays it; yet an over-abundance of talk may retard as effectually as profuse word-painting. With dialogue we shall have to do later, and here it is enough to say that talk which really belongs to the tale, which helps the story forward, adds sprightliness to the movement. We all know how the elder Dumas makes dialogue increase the vivacity and the rapidity of movement of his dashing romances. What can be told in the speech of the characters in a narrative seems generally to go forward with more briskness than what is related in the words of the author.
The mention of Description brings us to the scene of a narrative. The setting of a tale is not unlike the mounting of a play. When the use of nature in fiction was fresher than now the affair was very simple. It was only necessary to bring in gloomy skies and wailing winds as accompaniments for a doleful situation, or to have the flowers, the sunshine, and the birds properly specified when things were going happily. The birds sang most obligingly for the old novelists, utterly ignoring the habits which ornithologists had with painful care observed,—they warbled when they were wanted, although they were called upon at times of day when they had never before dreamed of piping up:—
Singing gladly all the moontide,
Never waiting for the noontide.
In less artistic fiction there is still something of this method. There are many transiently popular novels where in the closing chapter the autumn rain still falls dismally upon a lonely grave, or the summer sun—the June sun—and the obliging dicky-birds decorate the wedding of the long-persecuted but at last triumphant heroine, transcendently lovely in white satin.
In really serious work the matter has become more intricate. Nature must be used without the appearance of design. It is recognized that no man can command the weather, and the trick of seeming to manage the elements is no longer tolerated. Art must conceal art. Even contrasts have been used until it is necessary to be very cautious in employing them. The villains no longer steal through smiling gardens whose snowy lilies, all abloom, and sending up perfume like incense from censers of silver, seem to rebuke the wicked. The thing sought now is the appearance of naturalness. Simplicity and directness are the prime qualities to be kept in mind. Set a story carefully, but above all things be sure that it does not appear that pains have been taken. The finest art is that which works with apparent frankness, seeming to display its methods without disguise, yet in reality producing its effects by a skill which is utterly beyond perception.
One of the faults most common with beginners is self-consciousness. The inexperienced writer is apt to show that he is not sure how what he writes will be received. Cultivate the attitude of being conscious of nothing but the story to be told. Above all, do not seem to apologize. In fiction as elsewhere apologies are apt to breed contempt. The writer who seems to plead to be excused inevitably suggests that there is need of excuse. Tell a story or leave it, but never take the middle course of telling it with apologies, direct or indirect. Often the self-conscious author shows that he secretly fears that he will be thought to lack cleverness if he allows himself so to be imposed upon by his characters as to think them real. If they are not real to him he should not be telling their history. The slightest appearance of doubt on his part ruins all illusion and the story along with it.
On the other hand, it is a mistake to expect the reader to share an emotion simply from being told that it is felt by the writer. Every phrase like “I felt,” “I was amused,” “I was enraged,” and so on, which is not amply supported by the narrative, weakens the effect. It is generally enough to destroy the entire flavor of any ordinary witticism to tell the reader that it is droll. It sometimes will do to say that the characters of the tale thought a thing funny, but even this is a somewhat dangerous expedient. If a thing does not strike the reader as amusing, it is of little use to inform him that it is his duty to find it so. An author has no business to put himself in the attitude of a verger who leads pilgrims from one historic spot to another, saying in effect at each, “Here it is necessary that you feel yourselves thrilled!”
When everything else has been said, the essential thing in regard to Narration is that it shall be interesting. It is the old question of Force. “Tediousness,” observes Dr. Johnson, with his usual sententiousness, “is the most fatal of faults.” He might have added that it is a fault so serious that it overcomes all excellences. Macaulay inquires, “Where lies the secret of being amusing? and how is it that art, eloquence, and diligence may all be employed in making a book dull?” Dullness is less easily forgiven in narrative than in any other form of composition. The avowed aim of a story is to entertain; and if it fail of this, its merits count for nothing. The specific methods by which interest may be secured or increased must be studied with the realization that the very existence of narrative depends upon them.
The first point is to be interested one’s self. In other words, the first great secret is earnestness.