Rolland, Romain, [28], [192].
Romance, [182].
Romanticism, [182], [199].
Scarlet Letter, The, [29], [32], [92], [182], [203], [204].
Scott, Sir Walter, [52], [88].
Sea-Wolf, The, [71], [75], [76].
Selection, [22].
Self-culture, [24].
Sense and Sensibility, [182].
Senses, employment in description, [117], [120], [121].
Seriousness, [31].
Setting, [152].
Setting, description of, [118].
Sex, [33].
Shakespeare, William, [157].
Ship That Found Herself, The, [198].
Short story, [18], [38], [43], [87], [193].
Definition, [165].
Two types, [166].
Dramatic short story, [166].
Atmospheric short story, [166].
Origins, [167].
Unity and singleness of effect, [168].
General technique, [172].
Characterization, [172].
Interest and simplicity, [176].
Complexity, [177].
Coherence, [179].
Compression, [181].
Significance of matter, [205].
Simplicity, [188].
Simplicity of plot for short story, [176].
Sincerity, [31].
Situation (see [Plot]).
Situation and dialogue, [128].
Social question, [26].
Speech, [105].
Potency, [124].
Mechanical distribution, [125].
Naturalness, [126].
Direction, [126].
Dialect, [127].
Situation, [128].
Resources to meet demands of situation, [130].
Style, [132].
Verbs of utterance, [133].
Speech for its own sake, [134].
Creative process, [135].
Spelling in dialogue, [143].
Stage, conventions of, [170].
Stevenson, Robert Louis, [13], [39], [44], [52], [53], [55], [56], [82], [89], [90], [93], [96], [99], [110], [137], [139], [144], [145], [149], [153], [155], [158], [161], [162], [169], [174], [179], [182], [188], [191], [192], [200].
Story types, [165], [166].
Conception and execution, [37].
Utility to know types, [38].
Novel and romance, [38].
Short story, [38].
The three types, [39].
Emphasis, [39].
Three elements of story, [39].
Character, [40].
Incident, [42].
Atmosphere, [45].
Other types, [46].
Short Story and compression, [44].
Story, distinguished from tale, [49].
Story, ways to create, [39].
Style, [82], [90], [97], [137].
Suppression, [101].
Suspense, [100], [101].
Sympathy, [88], [148], [149].
Tale, [39], [43], [49], [165], [207].
Tanglewood Tales, [93].
Tarkington, Booth, [71].
T. B., [76].
Technique, natural approach to, [16].
Technique, object of, [51].
Thackeray, William Makepeace, [28], [54], [58], [187], [191], [192].
Thematic story, [40].
Theory of fiction
Story and tale, [197].
Realism the method, [199].
Realism the artistic dogma, [199].
Short story, [200].
Interest, [201].
Power of real problems of life, [203].
Test of merit, [204].
Aim of executive artistry, [206].
Verisimilitude, [207].
Significance of plot, [208].
Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, The, [62].
Thrawn Janet, [158].
Toilers of the Sea, The, [52].
Tolstoi, Leo, [192], [195].
Tom Jones, [28], [192].
Tone, [82], [132].
Tragedy, [157].
Transition, [103], [104], [105].
Trollope, Anthony, [182].
Turgenieff, Ivan, [146].
Ugliness, [89].
Unities, dramatic, [168].
Unity of short story, [201].
Vanity Fair, [54], [58], [187].
Verisimilitude, [84], [92], [106], [107], [115], [118], [119], [120], [123], [143], [207].
Verne, Jules, [204].
Victorian novelists, [191].
Viewpoint, [86], [116].
Virginians, The, [191], [192].
Vividness, [98], [101], [110], [114], [119].
V. V.'s Eyes, [134].
War and Peace, [192].
Warden, The, [182].
Weir of Hermiston, [91].
Wells, H. G., [204].
Wit, in dialogue, [127].
Without Benefit of Clergy, [44], [68], [120].
Worth of matter, [33].
Writer of fiction.
Critical faculty, [22].
Cultivation of genius, [23].
Observation and information, [24].
Open-mindedness, [25].
Attitude toward life, [25].
Prejudice and provincialism, [26].
Social question, [26].
Reading, [26].
Imagination, [29].
Wuthering Heights, [94].
FOOTNOTES:
[A] One might expand here on the distinction that in the story stressing character it is the particular persons who interest the reader, while in the story of plot his interest centers in the events, and the people of the story are followed less as individuals than as the human focal points whereon the events take effect. Such fine analysis is tempting, but of little use, for any story is a compact unity of the three elements.
[B] Polti, in "The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations," uses the word "situation" in a sense practically inclusive of plot. Plot is a word so abused that it even might be advisable to abandon it in discussion in favor of situation. The latter suggests more nearly the requisite idea of persons keyed for struggle. In particular, plot carries too many connotations of mere complication, which is not one of its essential qualities.
[C] In discussing the principles of construction it is obviously impossible to illustrate the text by quotation, for just construction could be shown only by reprinting an entire story. The reader must supplement what is said here by independent analytical reading. The only fortunate thing about the situation is that the matters which can be adequately illustrated by brief quotations—such as vividness in narrating—are chiefly matters of execution and least subject to profitable objective study.
[D] This story is a particularly instructive instance of how much the secondary events are within the writer's control, and also of how much depends on their just selection and ordering. The twin plot themes of the book are the struggle of man with man and the struggle of man with nature; they are developed almost entirely without aid from the superficially main events of the story, Maud's coming aboard the schooner and what follows. That is precisely the artistic defect of the work.
[E] The three fundamental plot themes are man's struggle with nature, man's struggle with man, and man's struggle with himself. The human element is inherently a part of any plot.
[F] It would be difficult to overstate how much of its appeal such a story as Fannie Hurst's "T. B.," reprinted in "The Best Short Stories of 1915," owes to its author's careful development of the personality of Sara Juke. Yet the story is not strictly a character story. In less competent hands the bare story would have been nothing; as it is, it is a fiction of real worth and significance.
[G] I will note here a matter suggested rather than stated by the general discussion, which is intended to be practical rather than philosophical. Narration must be in the first or third person, but the two fundamental types are personal and impersonal narration, and the line between them is not drawn by the pronouns I and he. Truly, when the story is told in the first person, the writer adopts the personal viewpoint of the narrating character, but when the writer chooses to write in the third person he also adopts the personal viewpoint of the character of whose soul he assumes knowledge, if he does so as to the soul of only one. This is the case, with a shifting personal viewpoint, when the writer assumes knowledge of the minds and souls of several characters, but not of all. Assuming knowledge of the soul of a character necessarily involves looking at the world through his eyes. It results that the only real impersonal viewpoint is to write in the third person and either to renounce all knowledge of motives or to assume knowledge of all events and the spirits of all the characters, when the reader will gain the impression of an impersonal relator rather than of a shifting personal viewpoint. The point is of no great importance, but realization of it may be of some slight service. In particular, if the story is told in the third person, but from the viewpoint of a single major character, universal knowledge of events cannot be assumed.