SOURCES ON MELVILLE DAVISSON POST
Mr. Post’s own two articles on the short story are of the highest value, not only to an understanding of his method, but as a contribution to the theory of literary structure—a contribution, unlike most, allied to and realized in practice.
His first article appeared under the title, “The Blight,” in the Saturday Evening Post for 26 December 1914. A shorter article on “The Mystery Story” appeared in the same magazine, 27 February 1915.
In April, 1924, while in New York for a short time Mr. Post dictated the following notes which amplify a little his written articles:
“The modern plan for the mystery or detective story can no longer follow the old formula invented by Poe and adopted by Gaboriau, Conan Doyle, etc. All life has grown quicker, the mind of the reader acts more quickly, our civilization is impatient at delays. In literature, and especially literature of this type, the reader will not wait for explanations. All explanations must be given to him in advance of the solution of the mystery.
“It became apparent upon a very careful study of the mystery story that something must be done to eliminate the obvious and to get rid of the delay in action and the detailed and tiresome explanation in the closing part. It occurred to me that these defects could be eliminated by folding together the arms of the Poe formula. Instead of giving the reader the mystery and then going over the same ground with the solution, the mystery and its solution might be given together. The developing of the mystery and the development toward the solution would go forward side by side; and when all the details of the mystery were uncovered the solution also would be uncovered and the end of the story arrived at. This is the plan which I followed in my later mystery-detective stories—the Uncle Abner series, Monsieur Jonquelle, and Walker of the Secret Service. This new formula, as will at once be seen, very markedly increases the rapidity of action in a story, holds the reader’s interest throughout, and eliminates any impression of moving at any time over ground previously covered.
“It requires a greater care and more careful technique, for every explanation which the reader must receive in order to understand either the mystery or the solution must be slipped into the story as it proceeds without any delay in its action. There can be no pause for explanation. Each explanation must be a natural sequence and a part of the action and movement. The reader must never be conscious that he is being delayed for an explanation, and the elements of explanation must be so subtly suggested that one receives them as he receives the details of a landscape in an adventure scene, without being conscious of it.
“In undertaking to build up a story on this modern formula, one must first have a germinal or inciting incident upon which the whole story may turn as upon a hinge. Out of this controlling incident, the writer must develop both the mystery and its solution and must present them side by side to the reader in the direct movement of the story to the end. When the mystery is finally explained, the story is ended. There can be no further word or paragraph; there can be no added explanation. If a sufficient explanation has not preceded this point, the story has failed. If the reader has been compelled to pause at any point in the story long enough to realize that he is receiving an explanation, the story has failed.
“But it will not be enough if the writer of the mystery-detective story is able cleverly to work out his story according to this formula. He must be able to give this type of story the same literary distinction that can be given to any type of story. To do this he has only to realize a few of the primary rules of all literary structure. He must remember that everything, every form of character, has a certain dignity. This dignity the writer must realize and respect. Flaubert told Maupassant that in order to be original he had only to look at the thing which he wished to describe long enough and with such care that he saw in it something which no one had seen in it before. That rule ought to be amended to require the writer to look at every character and every situation long enough and with sufficient care to realize the dignity in it—that element of distinction which it invariably possesses in some direction—and when he has grasped that, to respect and convey it in his story.
“It may as well be said that no one form of literary structure is superior to another. The story dealing with the life and action of our highest types does not in itself result in any better literature than the story dealing with the lowest or most abandoned types; nor are physical adventures to be graded below metaphysical adventures. The mystery-detective story may be structurally so excellent and its workmanship so good that it is the equal of any form of literature.