Characterization. Are Suvaroff and Minetti “living” characters? Is Suvaroff, in the beginning, obsessed? Does the obsession culminate in monomania?
Minetti’s physical self is given to the reader from Suvaroff’s angle, which angle is consistently used throughout. What is Suvaroff’s personal appearance? How do you account for your answer? Whose mental processes are not exploited? Why?
Why is the Italian’s mother introduced as a background character?
Details. The smaller features of the story reveal also the hand of the craftsman: the use of night, the wine-shop, ugliness, the shadows, and the arrangement of the steps to what seems an inevitable ending. “Seems”; for Mr. Dobie has a theory “that there is no such thing as an inevitable ending. Any opening situation may work out fifty ways.” Is it possible, after certain steps in the action, to produce an ending other than inevitable?
How is the cold inflexibility of Minetti made convincing?
General. “In my days of apprenticeship,” Mr. Dobie says, “I planned my story out in detail and did much re-writing. I think one must do this at the beginning. But if one finally evolves an unconscious technique which does away with a scenario I think it makes for more spontaneous writing.... But it is dangerous to advise methods. My point in dwelling on the virtues of ‘planless stories’ is to encourage those who find their salvation along these lines and who are uncertain as to whether such a method will lead anywhere.... I started ‘Laughter’ in September, 1916, wrote about five pages, got stuck, put it away, dug it up three or four months later and in about three weeks carried it to a conclusion....”
“It is rather hard to give a definition of a short story. I should say briefly that a short story is the reaction of a character or characters to a particular incident, circumstance or crisis. Obviously, as its name implies, there should be economy of line. Perhaps the shortest successful story on record is as follows:
‘Three wise men of Gotham went to sea in a bowl.
If the bowl had been stronger, my tale had been longer.’
“This narrative has also the virtue of suggestion: the greater the suggestion, the greater the story. In other words, a story is artistically successful in proportion to the collaboration exacted from the reader.”