The choice and use of a subject is a thing apart. Here we enter a no-man's land "where all is possible and all unknown." Pretending to no special knowledge of this matter, I will, however, acknowledge myself a firm believer in the operation of subconscious processes that assist in the development of ideas. Once an idea takes root in the mind and has a fertile germ in it, it immediately begins to grow. And as the plant matures it thrusts its way through the crust teasingly from time to time, until finally it stands up in full bloom in the conscious mind. It is obviously difficult for anyone engaged in the creative arts to take himself as a subject for psychological analysis. For the mind's operation is a mystery. The origin of ideas belongs in the realm of the unfathomable. If it were not for arousing the ire of trained psychologists, there are a good many things that I could suggest from my own experience that hint of forces at work in all of us that lure us to a twilight borderland beyond which nothing is quite real but all is touched with mystery.
Nothing is more interesting than the manner in which the inevitable form in which a thing should be written is instantly evident when the idea itself—the device—becomes clear and definite. When I was a newspaper reporter and had got my facts on some assignment, I found myself visualizing the story as it would appear in print, even to the first sentence and the arrangement of paragraphs, on my way back to the office. There is, beyond question, a journalistic sense that enables one instantaneously to appraise material and determine its treatment. I have written almost everything from five-line news items, newspaper editorial, verse, history, essays and short stories to novels of various kinds, and I have always found that first instinctive sense of value and form a pretty safe guide.
When a short-story idea strikes me I draw a line like the flight of a rocket across a piece of paper and write across it a few words indicating the chief incidents of the story. The back of an envelope suffices for this; I never make elaborate notes even for a novel, trusting to the merry little imps in the subconscious cellar to keep me supplied with material. And they are wilful little devils, who are likely to go on a strike at times; but as nothing can be done to stimulate their efforts, it's the wiser plan to try to forget what it is you want to fashion and mold until, some day when you are watching a ball game or hearing a symphony or doing something else utterly unrelated to the particular idea that has tormented you, the whole thing stands there before your eyes quite as unexpectedly as though a magician had waved his wand and wrought a miracle you can't explain—and need not.
"The Third Man" struck me one day in a hotel room where, beside the telephone, was a tablet on which some scribbling of the last guest remained—a curious geometric cal figure roughly outlined all over the sheet. I had often noticed the habit men have—women seem less addicted to it—of marking with a pencil while the mind is engaged with something wholly alien. As I reflected upon this I found not only that I myself drew symbols or scrawled words when preoccupied, but that I constantly repeated the same signs and words. It occurred to me that a man might leave incriminating testimony by such idle pencilings. The idea having interested me for an hour, I forgot all about it until one day the whole story of "The Third Man" rose out of the subcellar and demanded to be written.
I employed in this story a character I have used frequently in short stories—a banker with an adventurous, quixotic strain and a sincere interest in helping the underdog. The idea of giving a dinner and placing at every plate a tablet and pencil and (no one being in the secret) waiting to see whether a certain man, never suspected of a murder, would not from habit draw a certain figure which the host had found on a scrap of paper at the scene of the crime, gives an opportunity for that suspensive interest which is essential to a mystery tale.
I may add that I never have found a device for a story, long or short, when I was consciously seeking it. Others no doubt have a very different experience, and they are luckier than those of us who are obliged to wait for the subconscious imps to throw up the trapdoor and disclose something. There are well-known instances of writers dreaming a plot, but only once have I been so favored. The thing looked quite splendid while I slept, but it dissolved so quickly at the moment of waking that I was unable to piece it together.
It may be of interest to the student of such matters that practically every idea that I have ever developed came to me at some place which I always identify with it. And further, when this has happened on the street or in some room of a house, I never revisit the place without an odd feeling—a curious, disturbing uneasiness. There is a street corner in my home town that I avoid, for there, I remember distinctly, the device for a story occurred to me. The story was, I may say, one of the most successful I ever wrote, and yet by some freakish and inexplicable association of ideas I don't like to pass that corner! I should add that neither the corner nor anything pertaining to it figured in the story or was in any way related to it.
So it will readily be seen that I am unlikely to be of service to students or beginners, for in very plain terms I must admit that I do not know how I do things. It is because the whole business is so enveloped in mystery that I enjoy writing and try to keep myself in a receptive state for those happy surprises, without which I should quickly find myself without material and seeking other occupation.
