The Technique of Fiction Writing

by Robert Saunders Dowst

The story of character is concerned with the infinitely diverse traits of our common human nature as manifested by the people of a story. The single trait or few traits, rather than the totality of each person's nature, should be sought to be developed, for reasons that a moment's thought will render apparent. Character can be truly realized only by showing the person in characteristic actions and, unless the writer desires to extend his work to a great length, he can formulate no course of action which will illustrate a complete personality. In all its aspects, fiction is a matter of selection, and the writer of a story of character should concentrate his powers of description and exposition upon the traits of personality involved in the acts of the persons. The short story must present a relatively incomplete picture of each character's soul; the novel may approach each person from a number of angles; but even the novelist should consider whether he cannot give maximum reality and vivacity to his people by not attempting a too complete presentation of each.

If, then, the initial conception of a story involves or suggests true traits of character, it may be advisable to develop the story so as to throw into strong relief the quality or qualities involved. The possibility of the wisdom of such development becomes a probability if the traits are somewhat novel and not those possessed in common by all men to some extent, such as the capacity to love, to hate, to sacrifice self, ambition, the fear of death, and so forth.

It should be remembered that the hallmark of the true character story is its progression; the persons of the story grow stronger or weaker in their respective traits under the pressure of events. There is a climactic moment of indecision and suspense when it is doubtful whether the character will shape circumstances or circumstances the character. This distinguishing attribute of the character story is its essential quality as a story; the strict type is debarred from recourse to complication of incident to save it from being a mere sketch; change or progression in the characters is itself the story or plot element of the fiction. Realization of the fact will give the writer a firmer grasp on the truth that characters and events must be developed in strict concert and harmony. Anticipating later statement a trifle, let me say that portrayal of the actions of a character is portrayal of the character himself, so that his actions must be characteristic, or two elements of the story will be at cross purposes. In setting out to write a character story, the author deliberately chooses to emphasize character and to depend for interest on the spectacle of its evolution or degeneration. Since he is after all writing a story—though of one type—the author must devise some climactic series of incidents. But the character element is the preponderant strain of the fiction, and each successive incident should be chosen with an eye to that element, and its climactic value should inhere in its being climactic and progressive in relation to the trait of character sought to be developed.

This is all somewhat abstract, but the test is much easier to apply to a concrete story idea than it is to formulate in terms. If the idea consists of a tentative grouping of incidents which suggests an interesting phase of character in an interesting phase of development, the conception may be elaborated into the story which emphasizes character. On the other hand, if the initial idea is simply of a phase of character which can be adequately shown in progression by a series of incidents devised to that end, the same treatment is advisable. In each case it is possible that such treatment will give maximum effect to the conception.

The story of complication of incident interests primarily because of its plot, and not because of its people or the totality of its emotional effect.[A] It is more than a type of story; in a way it is really the archetype of all stories. An historical analysis will show the truth of the statement. First came the tale, a chain of incidents having no essential connection except that they all happened to the characters. Then came the story, a chain of incidents which are not fortuitous and accidental, but each essential to the whole design. And from the story have sprung such variations as the character story, which emphasizes the element of personality, and the story of atmosphere, which emphasizes the setting, spiritual or material. But the story of plot, which stresses the bare incident, is archetypal of all fiction in that interest centers in the story rather than in the persons or their environment. Perhaps the French conte, or brief dramatic narrative, is the strictest story type of all.

I have chosen to touch upon the character story first, rather than the more fundamental and inclusive story of plot, simply because the potential story of plot is easily recognizable, and my sole aim here is to state some of the tests which the writer may apply to his idea after conception to discover its true character, that he may know how to handle it. The germ of a plot can be distinguished at a glance, while the question of what a plot really is requires separate treatment.

If the writer would produce a strict short story, he cannot rest content with the apparent fact that his initial conception is the germ of a story plot, that being the case. The story of plot may be easy to recognize as a genre, but not all stories of plot are potential short stories. All plot germs are not susceptible of adequate development within the narrow limits of the short story. Ten thousand words is probably the extreme limit of the type as a commercial possibility, and, in a space so brief, if the chain of events is at all complicated or lengthy, it is impossible to bring out all its nuances and implications. Too many critics and writers seem to entertain the idea that the short story is the result of compression, but emphatically that is not true. The synopsis of previous chapters before an instalment of a serial novel is an example of compression, and a most repellent one. A short story is the result of its own inherent brevity. A naturally long story, it is true, may be shortened materially by mere rhetorical compression, but it cannot be rendered a short story thereby, for the short story develops its fewer incidents with as much rhetorical elaboration as the novel or romance develops its many happenings. The short story that is a short story—such as Kipling's "Without Benefit of Clergy," Stevenson's "Markheim," or Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher"—gives off no impression of verbal bareness. The short story is a literary form, with all the elaboration of expression that the term implies. Its brevity results from careful selection of the incidents to be set forth, and not from concise expression of an indiscriminate welter of incidents.

Undoubtedly the matter requires emphasis. Too much has been written and said as to the necessity of compression in short story writing. If what is meant is rhetorical compression, bare statement without verbal elaboration, no such necessity exists. What is necessary is care in making certain that the story is a short story, and care to relate nothing not essential to its development.

The French type of short story in general, and Maupassant's work in particular, are often cited to illustrate the need for compression. In the first place, the essential genius of the French language is such that in translations, to English or American apprehension, fully elaborated statement often seems somewhat bare. Moreover, I cannot admit that Maupassant's best work is equal in rounded artistry and appeal to that of others who have chosen to write less barely and mathematically. If compression means anything, it means squeezing something into less space than it would normally occupy, which is not artistry, but an attempt to do in execution the proper work of conception and construction, to devise a story which can be given adequate literary expression in a limited number of words.

A critical reading of almost any successful short story will disclose that the manner of its telling is as truly the source of its interest and appeal as is the novelty or human importance of the naked story idea. The difference between a recital of facts and a work of fiction is the difference between mere reporting and true literature. The writer who strives to compress in expression, instead of carefully selecting the matter for expression, deliberately rejects his only means to produce a sufficiently full and rounded presentment of the particular phase of life he seeks to depict. That means is to write with due elaboration, lest the phrasing seem stark and flat in comparison with the softly moulded contours of life itself. There are two elements in literature, the fact and the form; they are equally important and should be equally complete. When considering the fitness of a plot to serve as the skeleton for a short story, remember that in execution the thing must be written with due verbal elaboration, else it will be angular and unattractive, and that the idea of many incidents, people, or places cannot be so written in the space available. In execution, write adequately, and in conception and construction, select.