On the art of writing fiction

by Unknown

This is the sort of thing that often happens; that has happened in my experience scores of times. A boy, or girl—usually a girl—comes up with shy diffidence and much assumed modesty of demeanour to beg for just one word of encouragement—or discouragement—anent a roll of manuscript she holds in her timid hand. Is it any good at all? She knows it is very badly written; she is afraid she will only be laughed at; but still it would be so kind, so very kind, if I would just glance over it when I have a spare moment—oh, any moment will do; she is only ashamed of taking up my valuable time with her foolish attempts. All the time I can see she is on the tenterhooks of impatience, and that while half-alarmed by her own boldness, there is an underlying sense of having rushed into the battle-field in which laurels are to be won, and wherein a special wreath awaits her own fair brow.

The vanity of young writers

Perhaps the manuscript is really full of promise. With some alterations and amendments, with an idea worked out here, and a digression omitted there, with, in short, a general revision and re-casting of the whole, it would be worth while offering to the public through the medium of an editor or publisher. But when I proceed to point out all that is to be done, and when, thinking to please and encourage, I suggest, “Now, after you have gone carefully through the whole, and written it out afresh, bring it back, and we will see what can be done to get it into print,” I am amazed to find my young littérateur on the verge of tears! She doesn’t want to go all through “the horrid thing” again. She is “sick of the sight of it.” She is sure I don’t think she will ever write, or I “would never have said what I did!” It is impossible to describe the disgust with which she eyes the poor MS. her hands have reluctantly received from mine. I can scarcely believe those orbs which regarded me so beseechingly a few hours before, can be the same which now brim with sullen moisture. Possibly I am informed at this juncture that my young friend would never have thought of writing, and would never have supposed she could write, but for seeing what “rubbish” is accepted and put into print at the present time. She felt she could do at least as well as that, or that; and she is evidently surprised that I do not at once declare she could do a great deal better. Now, the awkward part of the business is, perchance, that I have seen—have fully recognised the fact that, could the ideal be raised, the effort would rise in proportion; but perceiving no desire on the part of my young writer to do better and worthier things than those she herself condemns, only to rival them and to attain their infinitesimal measure of success, I hardly know how to proceed. The case is hopeless. A hundred to one I never hear of any further literary aspirations from that quarter.

My young readers must of course understand that the above refers solely to a certain class of would-be writers, namely, to those who write in order to have written, in order to gratify secret vanity, and make contemporaries stare; neither from love of the thing for itself, nor because of the pressure of poverty—the two main causes of earnest literary effort.

The secret of success

Let me now, however, suppose that I have to deal with a young author in embryo of another sort, one who has real talent, combined with patience, perseverance, and modesty. George Eliot’s saying, that distinction in authorship is not to be won without “a patient renunciation of small desires”—(I quote from memory, but fancy those are the exact words)—has an acute meaning for those who have struggled in the contest. It is not enough to be possessed of the true yearning to give vent to the pent-up stores of imagination and observation within the breast; there must be a resolute turning aside from every hindrance, and a steadfast purpose to grudge neither time nor thought, nor strength nor opportunity, in perfecting the work which desire or necessity begot. This holds good of every species of authorship, but the warning is especially needed in the realms of fiction, because fiction (of a sort) is so easy to write; and it is most of all needed with the novel of “manners”—the novel which aims to depict our present generation, with all its habits, customs, whims, and foibles—because the novel of “manners” is the one apparently most within the reach of every ordinary writer.

And yet, if you will believe me, dear young girl, who might write and write well, if you would only take the pains, and not set your standard so terribly low, and not be thirsting to see your name in print, and hear what your companions have to say about it—if you will believe me, scamped work is absolutely fatal to the novel of “manners.”

Listen, and I will tell you why. When a messenger who has witnessed with his own eyes some terrible scene, dashes into the midst of an awe-struck circle, and pours forth the tale of woe with sobbing breath and bursting bombshells of words, who cares what those words are? Their meaning is enough. But at another time, when in cheerful, social intercourse, the same voice is raised to tell a quiet tale, or recount a simple reminiscence, the tone, the look by which the narration is accompanied, the phrases in which it is presented to the listening audience, are everything to its success. Thus, although a great scene in romance may be enormously heightened and accentuated by well-chosen language (as all famous romancists know), a novel which relies mainly for its interest on a well-constructed plot, or on a thrilling life of adventure, or on passionate inward contests (we have all of these and many more varieties at the present day), will be better able to dispense with the careful finish and polished style than the novel of “manners,” to which they are absolutely indispensable.

The perfection of art

The novel of “manners” reaches its highest perfection in the products of Thackeray and Jane Austen. I may be laughed at for naming these two together, but I know who would not have laughed—Lord Macaulay would not have laughed, neither would Sir Walter Scott, nor some more of the greatest of our literary critics. What I mean is that neither Thackeray nor Miss Austen have plots—in the accepted sense of the word—at all. They alike take a page of human life and place it beneath the microscope. We perceive all the creatures, large and small, wriggling about. We have no breathless interest to learn whither they will ultimately wriggle: we are simply content to study their movements and requirements—yet it is a study of the most absorbing kind.