The interspersion of comments in dialogues is another matter of detail which greatly increases or lessens the finish of work. It is often possible to give a much more lively and vivid presentation of the speakers if amid their talk are mixed bits of action or even of description. The two things to be observed are that there shall not be too much of this and that the interpolations shall be significant. The movement of the current of conversation must not be hindered. Trifles may be effectively used, yet it is one of the most difficult points of literary art so to use them. It is a good thing for the student to write little sketches in dialogue form; stories in which he is forced to depend almost entirely upon the talk itself for characterization and narrative. Readers as a rule do not care much for this sort of thing, and it is to be done as part of the training of the workman rather than for itself. To sum up this matter, it may be said that in interspersing comment, as in all else that has to do with dialogue, the great secret lies in realizing the persons speaking and in allowing them to utter their own words, instead of making them speak the words of the author or stand aside while the author expresses his thoughts himself.
[XIX]
CHARACTER AND PURPOSE
The secret of character-drawing of course lies largely in the ability to understand and to appreciate character, but in its application to practical work it largely resolves itself into the power of realizing the personages of the tale. A striking example of how a vitalizing imagination can and may make the actors in a fiction real in spite of all drawbacks is furnished by George Meredith. George Meredith’s style is a teasing madness; his characters talk as no human beings ever dreamed of talking; and yet these personages are so actual, so individual, so human, that it is impossible not to feel that if one of them were pricked, real, red, warm human blood would flow. They existed so vividly for the author that they exist vividly for the reader and convince in spite of all the author’s mannerisms. The relation of an author to his puppets has been well put by Trollope when he says:—
The novelist has other aims than the elucidation of his plot. He desires to make his readers so intimately acquainted with his characters that the creatures of his brain should be to them speaking, moving, living, human creatures. This he can never do unless he know those fictitious personages himself, and he can never know them unless he can live with them in the full reality of established intimacy…. He must learn to hate them and to love them. He must argue with them, quarrel with them, forgive them, and even submit to them.—Autobiography, xiii.
Deliberate description of persons is seldom of much effect. Says Stevenson:—
Readers cannot fail to have remarked that what an author tells us of the beauty or the charm of his creatures goes for naught; that we know instantly better; that the heroine cannot open her mouth but what, all in a moment, the fine phrases of preparation fall from her like the robes from Cinderella, and she stands before us, self-betrayed, as a poor, ugly, sickly wench, or perhaps a strapping market-woman.—A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas’s.
The same principle holds with mental traits. It is of little use to announce, and especially to announce early in a tale, what the character of an actor is. If the author declare that the fictitious person is this or that, he gives the reader a measure by which to criticise his performance. He puts into the hands of his public a rod wherewith to scourge him for whatever falls short of intention,—and if tried for falling short of intention, who shall escape? If the reader is left to judge of character by deeds, he becomes himself responsible for any opinions which he may choose to hold. The rule which every student should adopt for himself is that character is to be indicated first by the acts of the personages in a tale, and secondly by their talk. Description of character may be suggested, but it should not be direct if it is possible to avoid this.