On the art of writing fiction

by Unknown

IT may be said that all this art-study is unnecessary, that it is sufficient carefully to observe life and scenery, and then to write down all that the eye has noted, woven into the form of a story. This is not easy work, our very faculty of observation is qualified by our power of true mental vision; without mental vision, and the selecting power that belongs to it, the objects noted down, instead of forming a coherent and lifelike picture in the mind of a reader or listener, will produce a dry catalogue of persons and things, there will be a want of proportion and perspective, of efficient light and shade. “No one knows what he can do till he tries” is a very true saying which fits our case. Let persons without the literary faculty try to write off a description of the office or counting-house in which they work, of the room, whether it be study or drawing-room, in which they dwell, of the persons among whom they live, and they will see what the results of such attempts are from a literary standpoint.

Silas Marner

Many passages might be quoted to illustrate the vigour and distinctness with which this power of Vision manifests itself, and in a few words creates a picture which remains impressed on the mind of the reader, but I have not space for them. Here is one, however, which stands out by itself in intensity of distinctness and direct presentation.

Silas Marner, standing at his cottage door, has had a fit of unconsciousness, during which the child, little Eppie, has found her way into his hut.

“Turning towards the hearth, where the two logs had fallen apart, and sent forth only a red, uncertain glimmer, he seated himself in his fireside chair, and was stooping to push his logs together, when, to his blurred vision, it seemed as if there were gold on the floor in front of the hearth. Gold!—his own gold brought back to him as mysteriously as it had been taken away! He felt his heart begin to beat violently, and for a few moments he was unable to stretch out his hand and grasp the restored treasure. The heap of gold seemed to glow and get larger beneath his agitated gaze. He leaned forward at last, and stretched forth his hand; but instead of the hard coin with the familiar resisting outline, his fingers encountered soft, warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on his knees, and bent his head low to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child—a round, fair thing, with soft yellow rings all over its head.”

Let the reader try to picture this scene to himself, and then consider the marvellous power with which it is here brought before him, the intense power of Vision, and of Selection evinced not only by the points chosen for representation, but in the omitted details which an ungifted writer would have dragged into the foreground. The strange agitation of the lonely man is seen as vividly as the head of the little golden-haired intruder lying before the red, uncertain glimmer of the burning logs; this picture is more than an incident in the story, it is the key which lets us in and acquaints us with the unhappy weaver who till then had seemed outside our sympathies.

George Eliot

As we read her work, we know that unless this writer’s power of Vision had been of a high order, she could not have placed so many living pictures in our memories, pictures not of mere scenes, but bits of actual life, in which the rude passions, and also the gentler qualities of men and women, are set before us.

Mrs. Gaskell

I will mention yet another illustration of truth of Vision, rendered, because seen in a sudden flash, with so much vigour that it is difficult to believe it is not a record of human experience. The incident is too long to transcribe, but it occurs in the fourth chapter of the third volume of Sylvia’s Lovers, the scene in which Charlie Kinraid, Sylvia’s old lover, returns, and tells her that her husband has deceived her. There is a desperate simplicity in the pathos of the poor girl’s words, “I thought yo’ were dead”; and the vivid image of the shuddering, conscience-stricken husband is more moving than any elaborate description could have made it. It is truth; one seems to know that it was all seen and heard distinctly by the writer before a word of it was set down.