“Drat Timkins, but if it must be Timkins, what has he to say on book building?”
“Have a story and tell it, use simple language and be consistent, and above all make your characters stand out. That’s his gospel. No matter how you do it, make each character announce himself in the first sentence he utters; and maintain it no matter if your character is like nothing on the earth above, and talks a dialect that never was uttered by tongue of man, make him say, ‘It is I, Jacques, who says it.’ ”
“Jack has, as always, the right idea,” said Uncle.
“Oh you men!” said Auntie.
“In painting and sculpture it is the same. The great masters, both with the brush and the chisel, formed lines out of proportion and introduced figures in impossible positions, but they told their story, they reached their aim. So with letters.”
“And then out West we have the animal fakers. Lord! how the men of the wilds do hate those fellows who hear the dear beasts talk like Sunday teachers.”
“They make lots of money,” suggested Uncle, ever practical.
“So they do, and so do the chaps who manufacture quack medicines.”
I won’t write any more of this dialogue; I’m tired and it is all really much the same. I really wonder more and more as the days go by, why I bother over Mr. Bang. I suppose I give him more space than Uncle for two reasons; one, because he says more; secondly, because his aggressive manner impresses itself upon me. I dislike the man exceedingly.
But what he said about writing, I have taken to heart. Let me analyze my diary to date. Of characters I have Mumsie first. Then Uncle and Mr. Bang—one the same character as the other, only more so. I’ll leave Uncle out of it as a character, and hold out Mr. Bang. Then there’s Mrs. Mount. She is a character certainly. And then I believe I am a character too.