Short Story-Writing: An Art or a Trade?

by N. Bryllion Fagin

16. There is only one ending that my story can have. It may be happy or unhappy or merely logical. Every problem imposes its own solution. I can dictate no dénouement, for the characters involved work out their own destiny acceptable to them or to the inevitability of their problem.

17. I believe that if I am myself I am original. My life is different from the life of any one else. Manufacturing startling or spectacular originality is impossible. There is only one theme at bottom of all stories and that is Life. It is only the way I look at it which you do not know.

18. Finally I believe that each artist after all works in his own way. My way may be as good as the ways of other writers and will surely suit my moods and my thoughts better. Each of us in his own way merely tries to state and to clarify the tragedy and comedy, the ugliness and the beauty of the things he knows and lives and feels.

19. The short story is but another medium for the expression of my reaction to the business of living. I refuse to be a clown entertaining the gallery.

20. If I depart from this credo and write what commercial policy may dictate rather than my artistic self I shall not be afraid to acknowledge the inferior character of the product rather than label it as literature. My conscience is no coward, even in defeat.

The End

INDEX

• Addison, Joseph, [115].
• Ade, George, [9].
• Admirable Crichton, The, [77].
• Aeschylus, [109].
• American Magazine, The, [70], [71].
• Anderson, Sherwood, [16], [17], [79], [81], [128], [129]; The Other Woman, [81].
• Atheist’s Mass, An, [85], [86].
• Balzac, Honoré, de, [85], [86], [118]; An Atheist’s Mass, [85], [86].
• Barnes, Djuna, [17].
• Barrie, J. M., [77].
• Bates, Arlo, [2].
• Beyond the Horizon, [64].
• Bierce, Ambrose, [9].
• Brandes, Georg, [87].
• Brooks, Van Wyck, [73].
• Brown, Alice, [17].
• Butler, Ellis Parker, [8].
• Cabell, James Branch, [17], [79]; The Wedding Jest, [111].
• Clay, Bertha M., [79].
• Chambers, Robert W., [9].
• Chatterton, Thomas, [6].
• Chekhov, Anton, [13], [26], [74], [99]; Ward No. 6, [33].
• Chester, George Randolph, [33].
• Chwang-Tse, [22], [23].
• Cohen, Octavus Roy, [16].
• Conrad, Joseph, [27], [103], [119]; Youth, [27], [110].
• Crane, Frank, [34], [71], [87].
• D’Annunzio, Gabrielle, [74].
• Davis, Richard Harding, [33].
• Daudet, Alphonse, [78].
• Dial, The, [69].
• Dickens, Charles, [51], [118].
• Dostoyevski, Fyodor, [74], [116].
• Dreiser, Theodore, [17], [34], [79], [82]; The Lost Phoebe, [34].
• Edwards, Jonathan, [85].
• Emerson, Ralph Waldo, [62].
• Esenwein, J. Berg, [127]; Writing the Photoplay, [58], [90]; Writing the Short Story, [127].
• Fall of the House of Usher, The, [14], [15].
• Flaubert, Gustave, [86]; Madame Bovary, [86].
• Four Million, The, [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40].
• Frank, Waldo, [8], [17].
• Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins, [33], [110]; The Revolt of Mother, [33], [110], [111].
• Gerould, Katharine Fullerton, [44].
• Glaspell, Susan, [17].
• Gorki, Maxim, [38], [74]; Her Lover, [38].
• Gourmont, Remy de, [120], [121]; Le Probleme du Style, [120], [121].
• Griffith, David Wark, [105], [106].
• Hall, Holworthy, [16].
• Hamsun, Knut, [5].
• Hardy, Thomas, [64].
• Harper’s Magazine, [69].
• Harte, Bret, [103].
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel, [65].
• Hearn, Lafcadio, [11].
• Hecht, Ben, [17].
• Her Lover, [38].
• Hergesheimer, Joseph, [5], [8]; Java Head, [23].
• Howells, William Dean, [15]; Great Modern American Stories, [34].
• Hugo, Victor, [119].
• Hungry Hearts, [34].
• Hurst, Fannie, [5].
• In the Moonlight, [33], [111].
• Irving, Washington, [116].
• James, Henry, [116].
• Java Head, [23].
• Jessup, Alexander, [44].
• John Ferguson, [64].
• Johnston, William, [35], [41], [42].
• Kelland, Clarence Budington, [33].
• Kipling, Rudyard, [4], [26], [103], [126]; Without Benefit of Clergy, [33].
• Kling, Joseph, [32].
• Kuprin, Ivan, [118].
• Lawrence, D. H., [74].
• Leeds, Arthur, [56].
• Lewisohn, Ludwig, [23], [24].
• Literary Digest, The, [105].
• Little Review, The, [16], [69], [81].
• London, Jack, [4], [7], [8], [9], [41], [103], [114], [115], [118]; Martin Eden, [4].
• Lost Phoebe, The, [34].
• McCardell, Roy L., [55].
• Macdonald, George, [116].
• Madame Bovary, [86].
• Maeterlink, Maurice, [74].
• Malthus, [114].
• Marden, Orison Swett, [34].
• Markheim, [14], [15].
• Martin Eden, [4].
• Masefield, John, [4].
• Mason, Walt, [34].
• Mather, Cotton, [85].
• Matthews, Brander, [33].
• Maupassant, Guy de, [14], [15], [26], [33], [103], [109], [111], [130]; Solitude, [14], [15]; In the Moonlight, [33], [111].
• Mencken, H. L., [47].
• Nation, The, [24], [112], [113], [128].
• New Success, The, [69].
• O’Brien, Edward J., [15]; Best Short Stories of 1920, [81], [97]; Best Short Stories of 1919, [97].
• O. Henry, [9], [22], [26], [29], [30], [31], [32], [35], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [60], [116], [135]; The Four Million, [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40].
• Our America, [8].
• Our Short Story Writers, [9], [39].
• Pagan, The, [16], [32].
• Passing of King Arthur, The, [6].
• Patee, Fred Lewis, [44].
• People’s Favorite Magazine, [87].
• Poe, Edgar Allan, [14], [15], [26], [42], [74], [102], [116]; The Fall of the House of Usher, [14], [15].
• Pollock, Channing, [51].
• Porter, William Sidney (See [“O. Henry”]).
• Probleme du Style, Le, [121].
• Revolt of Mother, The, [33], [110], [111].
• Rinehart, Mary Roberts, [33].
• Robbins, E. M., [54].
• Sandburg, Carl, [118].
• Sapho, [78].
• Saturday Evening Post, The, [69], [71].
• Seven Arts, The, [7], [84].
• Shakespeare, [60], [116].
• Smart Set, The, [69].
• Solitude, [14], [15].
• Spingarn, Joel Elias, [83].
• Steele, Richard, [115].
• Stevenson, Robert Louis, [14], [26]; Markheim, [14], [15].
• Tagore, Rabindranath, [124].
• Tatler, The, [115].
• Times, The New York, [45].
• Triumph of the Egg, The, [129].
• Twain, Mark, [7], [41].
• Van Doren, Carl, [112], [113].
• Villon, François, [6].
• Walter, Eugene, [60].
• Ward No. 6, [33].
• Warner, Charles Dudley, [120].
• Wedding Jest, The, [111].
• Wells, H. G., [99].
• Whitman, Walt, [82], [99].
• Williams, Blanche Colton, [9], [39].
• Winesburg, Ohio, [129].
• Without Benefit of Clergy, [33].
• Witwer, H. C., [8], [65].
• Writer’s Monthly, The, [56], [71].
• Writing the Photoplay, [58], [90].
• Writing the Short Story, [127].
• Yezierska, Anzia, [34]; Hungry Hearts, [34].
• Youth, [27], [110].
• Zola, Emile, [74].

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Our America, by Waldo Frank.