The Technique of Fiction Writing

by Robert Saunders Dowst

CHAPTER XI
ATMOSPHERE

Definition—General Atmospheric Value of Fiction—Tone of Story—Preparation of Reader for Climax—Examples—The Story of Atmosphere—Short Story—Setting—Slight Dramatic Value of Type.

Atmosphere—as the term is used by the writer of fiction—is a most indefinite word; it may be well to preface discussion of what it stands for by a definition. And in defining it is often conducive to clearness to state what a thing is not before stating what it is.

In the first place, atmosphere is not setting, although the setting of a story may aid in producing its atmosphere. The frozen wastes of a sub-arctic region or the man-made squalor of a slum may operate powerfully to produce on a reader of a story placed therein an impression of desolation or of misery, but that impression will derive from something other than the setting, and will merely be reinforced thereby. If a slum story is essentially cheerful and light-hearted in content, its reader will not be oppressed by the setting, however truthfully touched in, unless the writer deliberately makes his people seem miraculous in point of their capacity to avoid the contagion of their surroundings. The young girl in "The Dawn of a To-Morrow" is an instance of what is meant by the qualification.

Atmosphere is not setting, nor is it anything at all that is in a story. It is not the quality of the environment; it is not the general quality of the people or their acts; it is not the quality of the theme or plot. What is it? It is the general emotional impression made on a reader by the whole story. It is nothing that is in a story; it is the emotional effect produced by the story on a reader. Just as a scene, an event, or a person, unless very commonplace, will have some emotional effect on an observer, any story that is told so as to create the illusion of reality will have some emotional effect on a reader. As Stevenson said to Balfour: "I'll give you an example—'The Merry Men,' There I began with the feeling of one of those islands on the west coast of Scotland, and I gradually developed the story to express the sentiment with which the coast affected me."

A distinction should be noted here. "The Merry Men" is a strict story of atmosphere; its author, as he implicitly states, started with an emotional effect, or "sentiment," and devised only such persons and action as would deepen on a reader the emotional impression initiated in this case by the setting. But, as has been stated, any story told so as to create the illusion of reality will have some totality of emotional effect on a reader, apart from its specific emotional effects in various parts, unless the fiction is very commonplace. That is to say, the strict story of atmosphere, which has been touched on briefly in discussing story-types, subordinates its action and its people to its totality of emotional effect; in the normal story, whether it stresses personality or event, atmosphere, or totality of emotional effect on a reader, is a subordinate consideration, resulting from the necessity that an observer of persons and events be affected thereby in some general way. At least it is true that the writer of a story of complication of incident or of character cannot permit any consideration of atmosphere to interfere with the events in the first case or the persons in the other. Whatever totality of emotional effect may reside in his work will be inherent in the conception, as it would be inherent in such a spectacle for an observer, if the story should happen in actuality.

The sensible—because the most profitable—way for the writer of fiction to fit the matter of atmosphere into his general artistic philosophy is to disregard it entirely, except where it constitutes a primary consideration, that is, except in relation to the strict story of atmosphere. The reason for this cavalier treatment of the matter has been brought out. If any story is told so as to create the illusion of reality, some general emotional effect will be produced on its reader, will be inherent in the conception, as it would be inherent in the spectacle, if actual. It all comes down to this: by telling his story justly as a course of events involving real people in a definite environment, the writer will produce on a reader whatever totality of emotional effect is inherent in the conception. If there is no totality of emotional effect inherent therein the writer cannot produce it except by changing the whole conception and writing a different story. In the case of the strict story of atmosphere the writer's attitude is different. He sets out, not with a story, but with an emotional effect, and devises people and events and setting to produce it.

The point can be made clearer by more specific discussion. Assume that a writer has conceived a story with a definite plot, involving definite people, set in a New England village. Anybody who knows New England or has read Alice Brown or Mary E. Wilkins Freeman can testify that such a story, justly told, will have a definite and peculiar atmospheric value. But its atmosphere, its totality of emotional effect on a reader will be inherent in its setting and people, perhaps even in its events. The story itself will determine its atmosphere, which can be only the peculiar impression that a New England village, its people and their lives, produce on an observer. By choosing to write such a story, or by choosing to write any definite story, a writer debars himself from creating any atmosphere not involved in the story selected for writing. On the other hand, if a writer desires to put together a story of atmosphere, he starts with an emotional effect as the basic conception, and then casts about for a setting, people, and incidents that will produce such emotional effect. It all depends upon what the writer starts with. If he starts with an emotional effect, he may narrate any course of events, and draw any sort of people, and place the tale in any sort of setting, provided only that events, people, and setting be such as to produce the desired atmosphere or effect. But if the writer starts with a definite story, the only atmosphere he can create thereby is the atmosphere inherent in the conception.[P]

Though it is true that a writer may and should disregard the matter of atmosphere in writing a story which he has conceived as a definite course of events involving definite people, since any atmospheric possibilities of the fiction will be inherent in the conception and will be realized by telling it justly as to people, events, and setting, nevertheless a qualification must be stated. No story is conceived as definitely as it is written; the writer first grasps the plot or main situation, perhaps also the characters, and then expands the outline into a congruous presentation of a phase of life by filling in details as to environment, people, and events. This filling-in process may and should be performed partly at least before writing, but even if the writer postpones it until he is wrestling with the problem of execution, he must remember one thing. Any story has a general tone, largely determined by its climax or main situation. This tone or key of a story is not its atmosphere strictly, perhaps, but the dividing line between the two matters is very faint. The atmosphere of a story is its general emotional effect upon a reader, and its tone is very nearly the same thing, being the result of its writer's having justly performed his selective task by transcribing only such matters as harmonize with the main situation, tragic or comic. And a writer must regard the matter of the tone of a story in developing and writing it, if it is to have the significant simplicity and unity which alone can give the fiction maximum power and effect.