How to study "The best short stories"

by Blanche Colton Williams

For parallelism of the final situation, read Edith Wharton’s “The Bolted Door.”

Characterization. Bear in mind that the diverse personalities of Jasper and John are bound up in Jasper, that although “John” was originally invented and then assumed, he finally dominated. The dramatic climax marks the point at which the outer Jasper disappears; the climax of action marks the disappearance of the inner Jasper. The man who goes to work at the sand pits is, essentially, John.

Details. Suspense, one of the best features, in the earlier two-thirds of the story, operates progressively, the cause shifting with the various steps of the action. For example, perhaps the first important question aroused is, “What is Jasper doing all this for?” The second, “Will he succeed in carrying out his well-laid plans?” Meantime, subordinate questions arise, to be satisfied by the author in the unfolding of the narrative. Show that suspense works of necessity less forcibly toward the end, where the outcome becomes more and more inevitable.

Do you know what became of the stolen money? Should that trailing thread be gathered up, or is it better left as it is?

Mr. Lewis declares that “The Willow Walk” has, so far as he can remember, no history at all. But he contributes the following by way of his views on the short-story:

“Technique defeats itself. The more nearly perfect it becomes, the nearer it is to stagnation. This rule holds true whether it be applied to ecclesiastical ceremony, to that humorous art known as ‘the manners of a gentleman,’ to the designing of motor-car bodies, or the practise of the arts. Once your motor-body designer has almost approximated the lines of a carriage, an innovator appears who boisterously ridicules the niceties of that technique, and, to the accompaniment of howling from the trained technicians, smashes out a new form, with monstrous hood and stream-line massiveness. Within two years he has driven out all the old technique, and is followed by a ‘school,’ neatly developing a new technique, in its turn to be perfected—then destroyed by some vulgarian who is too ignorant or too passionate to care for the proprieties of design.

“Once the technique of the academic school of painters of still life and landscape and portraits was practically perfect, a noisy, ill-bred, passionate crew of destroyers appeared, under such raucous labels as ‘futurists,’ ‘vorticists,’ ‘cubists,’ and despite the fact that their excesses have not become popular in plush parlors, these innovations have forever ruined the pleasure of picture-gazers in the smooth inanity of the perfected old technique. And now their followers in their turn——! As I write, the perfect militarist technique of the German empire has cracked into socialist republics. In time those republics will build up a perfect technique of bureaus, and be ready for the cleansing fire.

“Technique defeats itself. I have repeated the word ‘passion’ because that is the force that starts the rout. The man who is passionate about beauty or scientific facts, about making love or going fishing or the potentialities of Russia or revolt against smug oppressors, is likely to find himself cramped by the technique of the art which he chooses as a medium, to discard it, and to find a technique of his own. Austin Dobson could endure the triolet for the expression of delicate inexactitudes regarding French curés, but when Shelley was singing a world aflame, he made for himself a new mode of expression which, to formalists, seemed inexpressibly crude.

“And so to the short story. I am not afraid of this new technique of the proper beginning, the correct ending, the clever dénouement, the geometrically plotted curve of action—because I do not believe that anybody who passionately has anything to say is going to cramp himself by learning its pat rules. But I do believe that—before they go and smash the technique, anyway!—young writers may be saved much spiritual struggle if they be taught that there is nothing sacred, nothing they unquestionably must follow, in any exactly formulated technique.

“They will, of course, if they succeed, make a technique of their own. That is a short cut to salvation for them. It is only when a technique is that of other writers, when it is so crystallized that it can be definitely exhibited, that it becomes dangerous. I know that Joseph Hergesheimer in such absorbingly beautiful short stories as ‘Wild Oranges,’ ‘Tol’able David,’ or ‘Asphodel’ has a technique, a very definite idea of what he is doing; or what he is going to do before he starts, and of why he has done things after he has done them. But he has not obediently imitated the technique of other writers. None knows better than Mr. Hergesheimer the great art of such men as Conrad, Galsworthy, George Moore; but none has less imitated them, less accepted their technique as his guidance.