, SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING A WRITERS' AND STUDENTS' INTRODUCTION TO THE TECHNIQUE AND PRACTICAL COM- POSITION OF SHORT STORIES, INCLUDING AN ADAPTATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE STAGE PLOT TO SHORT STORY WRITING BY ROBERT WILSON NEAL, A.M. NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 WEST 32ND STREET LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, AND BOMBAY HUMPHREY MILFORD 1914 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED q N Copyright, 1914 BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PREBS AMERICAN BRANCH To My Wife FOREWORD WHAT is wanting in this book, critics, teachers, and students will all too readily discover without my help. Let me rather point out, then, what it is meant to do. First. It deals with short stories (contes) in the mak- ing. Therefore it is intended for the writer. And be- cause many of the readers most interested in such a book are beginners, it is intended in large part for the in- experienced. Yet it is intended for the advanced under- taker of story -telling too ; for no one can stake the border between elementary theory and expert application of it, and even the experienced writer may find surety and improved method in a study of technique. Yet the book is for the non-writer also for him who wishes in compact form a reasonably complete and concrete explanation of the short story and its nature. Second. The book does not profess to be scholarly certainly not to be scholarly in the academic sense. It has avoided the historical entirely ; it attempts no comparative studies in development and types, no evaluating estimates ; it is not a research volume, and the reader will seek through it from end to end without finding a single formal citation of authorities, the proof that the writer knows the conven- tional doctrine, dares not depart from it, and is ready with marshaled knowledge to protect himself from any who may accuse him of betraying the gentle trusting reader by novelty or new departure. Not that this book can pretend to either of these. At most (and even this it does not vii viii FOKEWOKD prof ess) , it adds a trifle of discussion at a place or two. But it does undertake to make its own approach and use its own plan in summarizing what is our present edge of the theory and technique of the short story. Third. The book is written, not from the critic*] from the practicing author's viewpoint from the stand- ing-ground and outlook of the man to whom the abstract theory, although interesting and valuable, is less interesting and valuable than the concrete management and application of it. It is written to meet the needs of the man who, for practical and utilitarian reasons no less than from ab- stract intellectual interest, desires to know the what, the how, and the why of the short story. I have written good, bad, and indifferent short stories, and hope to keep on writing; and this interest in the mechanics, the artisanry and art, the technique of the work, has caused me to treat the subject from the viewpoint of the active worker rather than from that of the esthetic theorist or the literary investigator. Throughout, I have been concerned to learn the governing rule, and then to state it in such form that my statement may make it available to other practitioners, especially to apprentice workers striving to extend their workman's knowledge and develop their artisan skill. (The author expects to publish soon a companion volume, To-day's Short Stories Analyzed, in which the practice of modern writers of short stories will be fully illustrated and exemplified.) Fourth. Most of the principles stated are drawn as much from reading and observation of the ordinary mill run of short fiction, in book collections and in magazines, for the last twenty years, as they are from the recognized authorities on short story writing. He who reads and runs FOREWORD ix away sometimes carries with him well-defined ideas that are usable another day ; and I have felt that such readers' observations and conclusions are as valuable in checking up the statements of the authorities, as the statements of the authorities are in checking up one's own observations and conclusions. I owe (as any one can see from this book) a great debt to some of these authorities especially to Pitkin, Albright, and Esenwein, if I must discriminate and I here acknowledge it, with gratitude. But even so I have endeavored to remain independent in reaching and stating my conclusions ; and in this I have been frequently aided by personal experience of success or failure in handling problems of like sort in my own writing. Fifth. The book attempts to define terms with especial precision ; with tedious over-precision, some may think. It tries, too, not to employ the same term with two meanings in any position where confusion may result. Probably it fails sometimes in this attempt to avoid ambiguity and confusion; but on the whole I trust that it succeeds enough to lessen for its readers the difficulties of this sort that occasionally I have met in my own reference to treatises upon fiction. Sixth. Plot being indispensable to the true short story, or conte, and the short story being in effect a narra- tive drama, the book undertakes to re-present the familiar theory of the stage play, but to present it adapted and applied to the nature and needs of the short story. This fact calls for mention only because so outright an applica- tion of formal stage plot theory to short story narration has not been made elsewhere not, at least, in English. A satisfactory treatment of the theory of the specialized short story (conte) plot has yet to be produced; but lacking x FOREWORD it, the student will find in a re-statement of the theory of stage plot like that given in this book, a helpful presenta- tion of essential principles. . . . Need of a specialized term by which to indicate the specialized form of short fiction sometimes awkwardly called the true short story, has long been felt. Professor Canby's suggestion of the term conte has not been bettered ; and as without undue violence to historical descent or .to strict meanings conte can be applied to this particular type of short prose fiction, I have ventured to employ it interchangeably with the term " short story," in order that students using this book may at least become familiar with this possible synonym. Those who complain of the fullness and, possibly, re- dundancy of the treatment given very simple matters, I would ask to remember that the book is largely for begin- ners in short story writing and readers of ordinary educa- tion seeking instruction or an increase in literary under- standing and appreciation, who can find these things in study of short story principles. Those who mislike the occasional discussion of remote or special problems, will please remind themselves that I am writing for persons also who have more than a tyro's interest in the technicalities of the subject. Those who blame me for omitting an explanation of narration itself, are referred to the numerous excellent treatises already in print upon the general principles of narrative writing, with the sug- gestion that even in writing about the short story, one must begin somewhere, assuming some preparation at least for study of the special type. And those who wonder why matters so important to literary art as style and FOREWORD xi esthetic qualities are not discussed, are told in the strict- est confidence, please that style and literary art are quite another story. A last word to those who scoff at " attempts to manu- facture writers." This book is written to guide and help persons who wish to write short stories. But it is not written with the belief that short story writing, or any other form of literary composition, can be taught. It cannot. Literature is art, and art is incommunicable. Theories of its methods and success can be inferred and explained; its practical technique can frequently be ex- plained and acquired. But neither theory nor technique makes art; the living spirit is not in them. Moreover, many a person who aspires to write lacks ability to achieve even technique. Books such as this are not written with any other belief. They can aid intellectual expansion; they can enable the competent to acquire technique; but more than this they cannot do unless the student bring to them an equipment of capacity, ability, and natural gift approaching talent or genius. Technique can produce well conceived, well planned, well constructed, and often salable stories, but it cannot produce living literature. Let no prospective student think otherwise. EGBERT W. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE (CONTE) . 1 I. Fiction Aims at the Interpretation of Life and the Di- version of the Reader, by Means of Concrete Presentation^ II. The Short Story, or Conte, Is a Type in Itself. III. The Short Story, or Conte, is a Drama in Narrative. * IV. The Plot of the Short Story, or Conte, Must Be Dramatic. V. The Short Story Requires Persons in Action in a Time of Crisis. VI. Singleness of Effect Is Necessary to the Short Story. VII. The Short Story, or Conte, May Aim at Different Kinds of Effect. VIII. Some Short Stories, or Contes, Emphasize Theme. IX. Some Short Stories Emphasize Plot. X. Some Short Stories Emphasize Character. XI. Some Short Stories (Contes) Emphasize Atmosphere. CHAPTER II. THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PLOT . .71 XII. The Short Story Plot Much Resembles That of the ^ One-Act Play. XIII. The Exposition Is the Introducing Part of the Plot. XIV. The Exciting Moment, or Inciting Impulse, Begins the Development. XV. The Rising Action Develops the Plot to Its Decisive Moment. XVI. The Falling Action Brings the Outcome and Close. CHAPTER III. THE COMPOSITIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE SHORT STORY 122 XVII. The Opening Seizes Interest, Introduces Action, Strikes the Keynote, and (Perhaps) Conveys Exposition. XVIII. The Purposes of the Opening Can Be Served by Various Kinds of Beginning. xiii xiv TABLE OP CONTENTS PAGE XIX. In the Body of the Story, the Chief Constructional Problem Is That of Sequence. XX. The Ending, if Separate from the Climactic Moment, Exists Merely to Supplement and Close the Narrative. XXI. A Preliminary Scheme of Important Compositional Facts Will Help the Author. CHAPTER IV. OTHER PROBLEMS OF FICTION -WRITING . .178 XXII. Observance of Certain "Unities" Prevents Dis- persal of Effect. % XXIII. Decision upon Plot and Selection of Developing Material Must Be Determined by the Author's Detailed Familiarity with the Facts Involved. XXIV. Characterization Involves the Presenting of Human Traits, Class Attributes, and Personal Traits and Mannerisms. XXV. " Character " Implies an Original Conception of a Person Having Definite Individuality; Its Traits Being Portrayed by Description, An- alysis, Psychological Narration, and Especially Act and Speech. XXVI. Dialogue Lightens the Narrative, Contributes to Exposition and Intensification, Furthers Ac- , tion, and Characterizes. XXVII. The Main Practical Problems of Dialogue Are, How to Make Sure of Essential Truthfulness and Produce Verisimilitude. AFTERWORD. THE QUESTION ANSWERED . . . .249 CHAPTER I THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE, OR OONTE I. FICTION AIMS AT THE INTERPRETATION OF LIFE AND THE DIVERSION OF THE READER, BY MEANS OF CON- CRETE PRESENTATION 1. When we ask, what is the purpose of fiction? we find that a complete answer must include two assertions. True, in many discussions concerning fiction, its structure, its methods, and the like, sometimes one of these asser- tions, sometimes the other, is disregarded. But a complete understanding one that is philosophically sound never- theless cannot be had without including both in the answer. 2. These two purposes of fiction when fiction is typical and at its best, are: A. To interpret human life, and B. To interest (amuse, divert, entertain) the reader. " Interpret " must here be understood to mean, produce in the reader a clearer understanding of or a sense of having experienced human life. But much good fiction is pro- duced in which emphasis is laid mainly and even solely on entertainment. This does not, however, mean that such fiction is without interpretive value. 3. We must understand, however, that this interpretive aim is not an immediate, but rather an ultimate and sub- g, SIIOET STOEIES IN THE MAKING conscious aim. The author is, at the moment of writing, not engaged expressly in producing an interpretation, but in giving a clear account of certain persons and acts as he sees them. Yet as a serious man, given to observing and pondering life, he feels himself responsible for a sincere, accurate report. Such an author would not be satisfied with his work unless, under all its artistry, wit, humor, incident, plot, and amusement, there were to be found a definite view of existence; and though he may not aim first of all directly at interpreting humanity, yet in the end this often is his great purpose. 4. With the best writers, this need of showing forth mankind " as in itself it truly is," constitutes the great and often the all-sufficient compulsion to writing. His very nature compels the true fiction-writer to interpret life. Nevertheless, much diverting or merely entertaining fiction is written in which the emphasis is laid on the amusement, not on the interpretation. But with the steady advancement made by the reading public in the appreciation of technique and the power to comprehend human motives, even the writer who aims only to amuse must in our day base his tale upon conceptions that are true to the world as clear-sighted men know it to be. The best fiction of its very nature does and must have both these aims. Interest and interpretation are so combined by the best art that no one but persons of limited mentality or education can fail to profit from and appreciate each of the twain. 5. Fiction, we have said, must interpret life. But to interpret life, it must first present life. Frequently in- deed, more frequently than many authors realize this is all it needs to do to interpret life. A true, vivid, stirring THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 3 presentation is enough to compel us to sense, think about, and understand more fully this human world. Seeking the shortest expression of the purpose of fiction, we there- fore may say that fiction aims to present life. Now let us see how fiction may effect this presentation. 6. To present life, fiction must embody some truth or truths of human life ; for only truths, only abstract con- clusions, more or less completely perceived and appreci- ated, make up what we call our understanding of life. But in dealing with these truths, fiction does not much discuss them, expound them, or argue about them. Neither does it seek to deal with them as abstract truths at all. On the contrary, it seeks to avoid, not only the abstract form of the truth, but also the explanatory methods essen- tial in dealing with truths as abstract thoughts. It prefers instead to show forth concrete facts in concrete forms, letting the abstract truth that underlies these facts be expressed in the facts themselves. That is, -fiction seeks as its final result to embody, or body forth, some truth or truths of human life, but seeks to bring about this re- sult in a particular way; namely, by embodying, or bodying* forth, in concrete form specific and concrete facts wherein the truths of life are exemplified. We must, however, note this: Fiction does not necessarily begin its presentation with these truths in mind; that they are found in the work of the good artist, he could not help if he would, for they are embodied there as a result of that process of concrete presentation which fiction must employ. Fiction has, as its immediate purpose, to body forth, not truths, but concrete facts, of human life. 7. What " concrete " means a few illustrations will show. Anger is one of the facts of human life an 4 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING unpleasant truth in our existence. Yet no one ever saw, tasted, smelt, touched, or heard anger ; he merely has seen and heard manifestations of it. Anger as we know it is an abstraction. But a scowl, a blow, a curse these are concrete things that manifest anger. Again, charity does not take on a concrete form until some individual act of charity is done a shilling passed to a ragged beggar, or a wearied laborer given a lift in our automobile. Such acts are concrete manifestations of a thing which is merely an idea bearing the name " charity." 8. So is the great engine in the ship's depths a concrete embodiment of power, as is likewise the stroke of a hammer that drives in a nail. Affectionate devotion is concretely embodied in the acts of Mr. Peggotty, wander- ing throughout southern Europe in search of his wayward Little Em'ly. It is embodied equally as much in a wife's act when she writes a letter of forgiveness to the husband who has wronged her. 9. In short, by ff concrete " we here mean an individual instance; for in such an instance, we can always discover bodied forth, or manifested, a truth of human nature and life. Moreover (although this fact is not necessary to our essential understanding of the term), the concrete mani- festation always comes to us embodied in acts or facts that in part at least we can perceive by means of our physical senses. Only, in fiction we are not in the presence of the actual fact ; the fact is presented to us, not in actuality, but in an imagined form, by means of words. 10. This presence of imagined instead of actual fact is vital to fiction; for the very term " fiction " carries the idea of things made up by the mind. Fiction deals, not with pure fact, which is only something actual, but with THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 5 imagined fact conceived to embody truth; and truth, though not actual, is something better than actual that is, real. Actual fact can let us realize it now be less true than fiction. A few years ago, a community near New York was shocked by the act of a father who burned his children's tender hands with match flames as a means of " teaching' 7 them. The report was true; he did just that. But what he did was terribly untrue to human life. The truth of human life is, that most parents love their children and undergo suffering and death to save the' little ones. This is a reality of parental nature, a truth of life, not a mere fact, which may be quite untrue to life. The less effective forms of fiction are those that come closer to actual fact; they present truths which are of a less general nature, and hence are more nearly like actual facts and less like universal principles. Melodrama, for illus- tration, imagines what might happen sometimes, but is unlike the general course of life ; it deals with the excep- tional fact, not the general truth. 11. We can now sum up in a final statement the aim of fiction. Fiction deals with the truths of human life; it aims to present these truths embodied in concrete forms, or instances; and it deals with imagined facts, not with the actual. We say therefore that the aim of fiction is, to present some truth or truths of human life manifested con- cretely in a body of imagined fact. 12. Before we close this section, however, a few words will be worth while about imagination. Imagination is the power or operation of the mind that builds up new conceptions, ideas, or pictures out of those already in its possession that is, out of experience. Experience is made up of all the knowledge physical, mental, moral, spiritual 6 SHORT STOKIES IN THE MAKING that has come to us in any way, by any means, at any time. 13. There are three degrees of imagination. The most ordinary imagination is that which merely reproduces in its possessor's mind a body of imagined fact entirely simi- lar to the actual fact from which the imagination has drawn its originals. It does little more than reproduce in the mind incidents and scenes already experienced. Evi- dently this degree of imagination (if imagination indeed it be) is not much better than good memory. It is re- productive imagination, or imaginative memory. 14. The second degree of imagination does more than merely reproduce a sort of combined memory-picture of past experiences. Drawing on memory as all imagina- tion must it nevertheless selects, rejects, recombines, and remodels until the body of facts that it produces is a new one. From past experiences, it rebuilds a new structure, using the old materials as a skilled builder might, who, selecting choice materials from many old buildings, put up a new edifice perhaps surpassing any of the old. This selective and constructive degree of imagination we term constructive imagination. 15. Yet, superior as constructive imagination is to mere imaginative memory, it is nevertheless inferior to imagination of the third degree. Imagination of the third degree works as does constructive imagination, and it uses past experience. But it has a greater power than has con- structive imagination a power resulting from deeper in- sight, stronger sympathies, more catholic taste, keener and wider observation, stronger intelligence, stronger emotions, and whatever else contributes to artistic genius. Hence its material is not old material reworked, "but rather new THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 7 material, originally discovered and got out by the writer through his deeper insight and understanding, and handled in a way original with and possible to him alone. 16. The consequence is, that what it produces is not merely something put together, but something created something we are likely to call real, with the feeling that it springs direct from nature something convincing, true- seeming, alive, capable of making one feel it as if it were an actual, a primal fact, not merely an output of the mind. Such products of the imagination of genius are creations, 1 not constructions. This highest degree or power of imagi- nation we call creative imagination; and when it bodies forth a series of fact for us, we feel as if we stood in the presence of the truth of human life itself. 17. But no matter what be the degree of imagination possessed by the fiction-writer, the object of fiction is al- ways the same: to body forth concretely in imagined some truth or truths of human life. This does not mean that fiction ought always to be heavy or even serious. Few things could be worse for the beginner than to think so. Indeed, the quality of the writer's imagination will, if high, make his treatment even of trivial themes creative (consider many fairy stories) ; and on the other hand, a lack of creative power will result in dead writing, no mat- ter how serious and high the theme. While realizing, therefore, that fiction aims to body forth some truth of human life, the young writer should at the same time realize that this aim will be attained by him only after he has mastered the art and methods of fiction. Nor will it 1 Dickens created Sam Weller ; Thackeray created Becky Sharp and Colonel Newcome; Shakspere created the scenes of Ophelia's madness and Lear's passion; Mark Twain created Tom Sawyer. 8 SHOET STOEIES IN THE MAKING be attained even then unless he knows also the human heart and human life. He will best serve his ambition by developing his intellectual and spiritual gifts, by studying men and man, and by mastering his craft- by learning to see facts, to understand people, and to tell a story well. II. THE SHOET STORY, OE CONTE, is A TYPE IN ITSELF 1. By " short story " we do not nowadays mean any short piece of narrative fiction. The term has come to mean a particular kind of writing, having its own charac- teristics. Loosely, we speak of all the shorter pieces of fiction appearing in the magazines or in books as short stories. But in fact a large number of such writings be- long to some other class. They may be character sketches, tales, scenarios or outlines, novelets, anecdotes, episodes, incidents, or what not; but many of them are in no strict sense contes. 2. All these types of fiction are closely related in some way to the short story (conte) ; but they are not identical with it. They are worth writing ; they call for skill ; they have their own place in fiction ; practice in them aids one in writing the conte. But they lack, one and all, some- thing that the conte has, and consequently some of them are, and any of them may be, inferior to it both in final effectiveness and in artistic quality. The conte although perhaps it can never, being short, be absolutely as great as a great novel -at its best is at the present time the most finished, artistic, and closely wrought form of narra- tive fiction. It manifests a higher art and perfection of technique than the novel has attained, and it equals the best drama in constructional excellence. THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 9 3. Although the student cannot, before he has mastered the definition of the short story given in section III, com- pletely grasp the differences between this form and other types, these differences are here enumerated. They should be reviewed and studied by the student after he has learned what the conte is. (a) Character or other sketch. Lacks dramatic plot; lacks dramatic action ; may be descriptive, not narrative. When having dramatic plot and dramatic action, thor- oughly unified to produce a single predominant effect, it becomes a conte. (b) Tale. Lacks dramatic plot; may lack dramatic action; may leave the reader with several distinct and equally strong impressions, instead of the one impression that is the final result of the short story. Like the charac- ter sketch, passes over into the conte if given dramatic plot and action producing a single predominant impres- sion. (c) Scenario or outline. The scenario is merely a skeletonized outline of the action, plot, scenery, etc., of a play, a story, or a moving picture film. It gives the sub- stance merely, not the effect, and it may be concerned with any form of drama or narrative. Further, it may be so condensed that it is nothing more than a catalogue of essential personages, action, setting, and " business." (When it outlines merely plot and action, it is technically known as action-plot rather than as scenario.) (d) Novelet. Merely a short novel ; subject to the same looseness of structure, content, method, and treatment as the novel may and frequently does show (no similar looseness is permissible in the conte) . (e) Anecdote, episode, incident. Usually very brief, 10 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING and therefore do not permit development of dramatic plot ; often involve no more than a single isolated act or speech ; do not necessarily aim at single effect, although on account of their brevity they frequently produce it ; and frequently do not aim at dramatic effect. (f) Allegory, fable. From the narrative viewpoint the fable is little more than an anecdote, episode, or inci- dent, except that it frequently makes not men, but beasts, its persons. Allegory is a method of symbolic presentation, not a type of narrative. Therefore it should not be com- pared with or contrasted to the conte. The conte may be allegorical ; an allegory may be given the form of a conte. III. THE CONTE is A DRAMA IN NARRATIVE 1. The short story is a drama in narrative form. " Drama " is here used in a strict sense to mean a play, the plot of which is closely wrought. By " plot " we commonly mean a series of acts, events, or incidents that runs through a play or a story, giving it framework and carrying it on to its end. Plots may be loose, or they may be close-wrought; and the close-wrought plot may further be dramatic. 2. The loose plot is nothing more than a chance succes- sion of incidents, without necessary relation to one another or to the outcome of the story. If I say, " I have had a day of disappointments," and outline it thus: Burned toast at breakfast ; missed my usual train to the city ; lost a good customer; crushed my straw hat against a low beam; and found I had no cigars at home for an after- supper smoke I outline a loose plot. The series of inci- dents is wholly chance and accidental. Moreover, there is THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 11 no final, climactic act or situation to which all these prece- dent incidents have led up and which they make the natural or inevitable outcome. 3. Now let us turn this loose plot into a more closely- wrought plot; we accomplish this by introducing the re- lations of cause and effect. Waiting for new toast at breakfast causes me to miss my train; missing my train, I reach my office so late that my customer, disgusted, has gone, leaving word that he withdraws his trade; this worries me all day, and so takes up my mind on the way home that I do not notice the beam against which I smash my hat ; and stopping to get a new hat causes me to forget to buy cigars to take home; hence after supper I miss my accustomed smoke. 4. Evidently our plot has become more close-wrought, because each incident in the series leads up to and is the cause of the next. But even yet these incidents do not interweave and interlock ; they merely follow each other as single causes and effects, not as an interacting body of cause and effect. Moreover, the story is still without a climax ; it is a succession, but not a progression and ascent to a conclusive outcome. If the plot is to be close-wrought to the full, something must happen at the end that is more important and more impressive than anything that has gone before (or at least fully as impressive and important), and this something must be the direct and combined out- come of all the incidents together that have gone before, not merely the last event of a string of events, each of which is merely the cause of the next one in the chain. 5. Let us therefore make our plot still more close- wrought, and thus bring about this final achievement of artistic plotting. We will start again. Let us assume 12 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING that we mean to show through our story how ordinary, everyday events may create a tragic situation. The final event, or scene, will be the combined result of all the others taken together, and will be that in which the tragic situation is completely revealed. 6. Now for simplicity we will omit the incident of the cigars; and to prepare for the final situation, we will as- sume at the outset that I have been guilty of a murder, but have escaped capture and established myself prosper- ously in a respected business in this distant city. I am an irritable, quick-tempered man. The burned toast, the missed train, and the lost customer gradually rouse my anger. It is on the point of boiling over already; and when I strike the beam and crush my hat, it gets beyond control. I break into profanity. When a policeman cautions me, I swear at him. He arrests me. I am taken to the station and recognized. As I am led away to prison, I realize that I am going to the scaffold. 7. Step by step our plot has led forward, simply and naturally, to a point of crisis when, standing in the police station, I am recognized and realize my ruin. Incident has interlocked with incident, my character has affected my acts and my acts have reacted on events, until all together have produced a culminating situation that suddenly is perceived to be tragic. Not only do the incidents consti- tute a progression; they constitute an interwoven body of influences so closely related, every one with the others, that each is felt to have a part in the final outcome to be a part of the total motivation and result. Here manifestly we have a plot that can fairly be called close-wrought. THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 13 IV. THE PLOT OF THE CONTE MUST BE DRAMATIC 1. Now we come to the plot which is dramatic. A dra- matic plot is always a close-wrought plot ; it can never be (in the strictest sense) a loose plot. But it not only is a close-wrought plot ; it also is a close-wrought plot that de- pends upon and grows out of the traits of character of the persons involved In it, and in turn produces some after- effect in or upon these persons. What this means, a few illustrations may make clear. 2. Assume yet again that the appearance of burned toast is an incident of the plot. In dramatic plot, this in- cident must in some way grow out of something in my own character, and must also in some manifest way affect me or my future either establish my course in life more firmly, or change it, or confirm or alter my character, or leave me in some pleasant or unpleasant situation, or influence my fortunes for good or ill in short, in some way make itself felt as a determining element in my existence. 2 3. Now, how may the incident of the burned toast grow out of some trait of character in me? Suppose me to be a domineering sort of man, given to enforcing services from others regardless of circumstances. It is my way to demand help of the cook without considering her con- venience ; and I have shouted to her this morning for shav- ing water, then for clean towels, then for the shoe-brush. Knowing my disposition, she has hurried to wait on me, leaving the breakfast to its fate. Hence the charred toast. 2 The student is cautioned that this influence need not be felt in a serious direction. It may result in nothing more than making me ridiculous for the moment. Thus, in a humorous story, the mock-hero is made laughable. 14 SHOKT STORIES IN THE MAKING The burning of the toast is therefore the result in fact of this imperious element in my character; 3 and to this ex- tent the incident may be regarded as constituting part of a dramatic plot. 4. But the incident must not only spring from some ele- ment of character in me; it also must have some effect upon me, my character, or my after life. Again let us assume that I am ill-tempered. We will also assume that my wife and I have quarreled frequently, the consequence being that we are almost at the point of separation. The black- ened toast stirs my black temper; I fling some insult at her ; and because of it she refuses longer to live with me. Plainly my future will be different as a result of this in- cident. It may indeed be different in various ways or to various degrees. My wife may have been my good angel, and lacking her influence, I go to the dogs (character de- velopment). Or it may be that, deeply loving my wife, I am horrified at my own behavior, and thereafter live a different life, conquering my temper and transforming my ill disposition (another instance of character development). Or again (a weaker outcome), my wife may have been my banker ; so that withdrawal of her money deprives me of the capital necessary to carry through my industrial plans, and I go to pieces upon financial reefs. 5. If in any manner the incidents, growing out of some trait of character in me or in other persons of the story, thus affect me or the other persons, our future life or char- acter, they make the plot which they constitute a dramatic plot one in which character shapes event and incident, 9 Let the student observe that, by shifting the character emphasis, he can make the burning of the toast result from the weak or subservient character of the cook. THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 15 and event and incident react on person, character, or life. 6. What we have just been considering is known tech- nically as motivation making every act or result spring from a clearly perceivable and adequate cause in the nature of the person and the situation, and making every cause produce a logical consequence affecting the person, char- acter, or situation. A dramatic plot, therefore, may be described as one that is adequately motivated throughout it being always understood that character enters into mo- tive. We must not suppose, however, that the incidents or outcome of a dramatic plot must always be serious. Both may, on the contrary, be light, even within bounds frivo- lous ; and a plot can be farcical and burlesque, yet observe this principle of dramatic motiving, or motivation. V. THE SHORT STORY REQUIRES PERSONS IN ACTION IN A TIME OF CRISIS 1. Our understanding of the essential nature of the conte may be made clearer by stating the requirements of this form of fiction anew. The essence of the short story is this : persons in conclusive action, each according to his own character, in a time of crisis. To understand this crisis, we must perceive that it has grown out of incidents which these persons, each according to his own character, have helped to make, and that it will inevitably affect the present or the future of one or more of these same per- 4 Stories occasionally appear in which the dominant character is that of some one not introduced at all as a person acting in the story. For practical purposes, however, we may regard this, person as one of the persons of the story, 16 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING 2. For the moment, let us regard the idea of crisis as most important in this description, or definition. By this time we must have realized that, rightly understood plot before everything else is the essential element of the short story (conte). The consequence of this importance is, that the construction of the plot demands exceedingly careful procedure. Our plot must not only be close-wrought, it must be close-wrought according to the strict dramatic re- quirements of motivation; and we are now to see further, that this dramatic plot must virtually consist, not so much of a long series of incidents terminating in a climactic scene, incident, or situation, as of this climactic scene, inci- dent, or situation itself, with the preliminary incidents and complications of which it is the culmination, subordinated to it, or even suppressed when suppression be possible with- out rendering the climactic situation obscure or lessening the total impressiveness of the story. For the conte is , written to show forth character in conclusive action at some moment or in some period of crisis. 3. Hence the plot of the conte always tends to cover: (a) So much preliminary incident as and no more than may be necessary to make clear the essential aspects of the crisis with which it deals; and then (b) The situation, incident, character-play, or action that creates and constitutes the crisis. This situation, in- cident, character-play, or action it develops particularly, carrying it through a climax 5 to its logical conclusion.* See Sec. XV., on the Rising Action stage of the plot, and especially the paragraphs concerning decisive moment and climactic moment. 6 The conclusion must be merely logical,' it need not be (as some say it must) inevitable from the first. It becomes inevitable only at the decisive moment. THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE IT 4. This fact that the characters acting dramatically to a logical conclusion in a crisis are the main object of attention in the conte must be borne constantly in mind. In application, the principle permits a wide latitude ; in the hands of some writers, it may even seem to be disre- garded without interfering with the success of the story; but it is nevertheless fundamental, and examination will show no successful story in which it has not been respected. For the conte exists for the sake of an effect that cannot be produced except with the aid of conclusive action taking place in a time of crisis; whatever does not help to cause this action, or to create the critical situation or free it of obscurity, has no place in the plot development; 7 and mat- ters that help to rid the situation of obscurity, or to create the crisis, or to cause the action, belong in the plot, but belong there only in so far as they do actually thus con- tribute to the crisis. 5. Let us emphasize the fact that the short story tends to present only the incidents and elements of the crisis at its height, subordinating or suppressing all unessential pre- liminary matters. 8 How characteristic this method is of the short story (conte) as it is in fact of the short drama also is shown by the assertion of excellent critics that the true short story is produced only when the crisis alone ; 7 To say that it has no place in the development of the plot is not to say that it has no place in the story. It may have uses as an aid to characterization, theme emphasis, atmosphere creation, etc. So used, it does, however, contribute at least indirectly to the plot development. 8 The student is cautioned to bear in mind that we are now speaking of action, incident, and plot only. We shall see later that for its total effect a story may require the introduction of material that is not essential to the plot when considered by itself. 18 SHOET STORIES IN THE MAKING is presented. Kightly understood, the assertion is true; but without explanation it is likely to mislead. For the term " crisis " is ambiguous. In our discussion crisis re- fers to a critical situation of affairs at a certain time, and this time may "be either the briefest space of time or a long period. Sometimes, it is true, the plot permits the almost complete suppression of preliminary explanatory incident ; it is merely hinted at suggested through some speech or act belonging to the critical situation itself. Moreover, this suppression is characteristic of the theoretically ideal plot. But many things theoretically ideal are not practi- cally ideal, and the preliminary incident may be so in- wrought with the crisis that it will demand full narration. Thus, in De Maupassant's The Necklace we are carried by the preliminary plot-matter through a period of ten years, through all which time the grand climax, the height of the crisis, is preparing. Moreover, the climactic moment, the height of the crisis, occupies but a minute or so of time ; it is put before us in a single short speech, and of itself, without the preparation given by the preliminary matter, it would be forceless and artistically unintelligible. Throughout the story, the persons are acting in a time of crisis; the critical period, in truth, extends over ten years ; yet De Maupassant's story is as thoroughly a short story as any wherein all preliminary matter is suppressed and the climactic moment alone presented. A study of The Necklace will make this plain. (Incidentally, too, it will show the student that in stories of this type the plot is. likely to include several preliminary or preparatory cli- mactic points, each bringing nearer the grand climax or height of the main crisis.)^ THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 19 VI. SINGLENESS OF EFFECT is NECESSARY TO THE SHORT STORY 1. The artistic success of a conte, like that of the one- act play, is to be judged by the singleness of the effect or impression that it produces. An impression so strictly single is demanded of no other type of fiction except the play. Few novels or romances, even purpose novels, yet approach the conte in concentrated singleness of effect ; and in some respects such effectiveness is beyond attainment by the longer forms of fiction. In poetry, only the lyric can be compared with the conte with reference to concen- trated impression ; for the purpose of the lyric is, to con- vey to the hearer a single poignant emotion. The tale may produce several effects and still not fail of its purpose; Rip Van Winkle, for instance, at one point leaves the reader impressed with Rip's good-natured vagabondage, at another with the mystery of his adventure, at another with the pathos of his return. It has no single impression on which readers would at once agree. But the true short story (conte) must produce just such an effect. 2. To define " single effect " is less easy than to feel the singleness of the effect when it is present. No one can miss the one overwhelming effect in the situation here outlined : The scene is laid in the poorly-furnished room of an employee of the Paris Electric Light Company. In one corner is a little bed, on which the child of the workman and his patient wife lies very ill. The mother tells the father that the doctor, who has been to see the child a short while before, has said that the crisis will come in about three days.- 20 SHOKT STORIES IN THE MAKING The man tells his wife that he ought to go to a meeting of the labor union to which he belongs, as important matters are to be decided ; but says that he does not feel like going out, because of their baby's condition. His wife, however, urges him to do so. " Nothing can happen/' she reassures him, " because the doctor said three days." Meanwhile, their friend, Mme. Marchaud, will stay with the wife. The women sit and talk. Madame tries to pacify the wife's wrought-up feelings by telling her of the sickness of her own youngsters. Suddenly a sound is heard from the bed. The mother springs up, hurries to the bed, looks at her baby, and screams. The baby is strangling. The friend rushes for the doctor. " May I ask you to leave the room ? " he says to the mother. " You will only suffer, and your presence will disturb me. There is no reason to worry. The crisis has simply come earlier than I expected. It is better as it is. Just a slight operation I give you my word of honor that all will be well ! Go!" The mother leaves the room. Reaching for the single electric light that illuminates the room, the doctor moves it next to the bed and, taking out his instruments, begins hastily to sterilize them, Mme. Marchaud standing by his side ready to help him. Quickly he bends over the bed and makes an incision. Another. Then another. Suddenly darkness ! The lone light has gone out. " Great good God ! " he shouts wildly to the woman. " Why did you turn out the light ? " THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 21 " I didn't turn it out/' comes from the darkness. " Then quick, quick ! " literally screams the man. " On with it again ! " A pause. " But it won't light ! " from the woman. In the black room the doctor pulls at the switch; but the light will not come. The mother rushes in. At last it seems hours a candle is found. They light it with quivering fingers. They bend over the bed. Too late! The baby is dead. A noise. The sound of marchers is heard in the street below. It comes nearer ; it grows louder. They are sing- ing the Marseillaise. The door of the room bursts open and the husband, his face aflush with triumph, stands in the entrance. " Victory ! " he cries. " Victory ! We've won ! There's not an electric light burning in all Paris to- night!" 9 3. We feel this effect, but what is it? It is just one thing the shock of horrified sympathy for the man who, through the very victory over which he is triumphing, finds himself the means of his child's death. And here we have a good practical test for singleness of impression. It is this. A single effect is susceptible of statement in a single sentence, not unreasonably long, which itself fulfills the requirements of rhetorical unity. To state it still more simply : A sentence is the expression of a single, complete thought. If the effect of the story can be summarized in such a sentence, it may fairly be regarded as unified. We 9 From "Trained Nurses of the Thrill" (George Jean Nathan), Associated Sunday Magazine, May 25, 1913. By permission. 22 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING may further test the effect by condensing the plot into a sentence in the same way. If the plot can be stated in a single unified sentence, then the story, if well constructed, should itself be unified and result in a single effect. 4. While speaking of singleness of effect, we should consider the word " short " in the term " short story." Why short? Many contes contain only 1,000, 1,500, or 2,000 words (the shorter stories often lack in literary quality). But, on the other hand, stories as long as 8,000 and 10,000 words, and even more, are accepted by some editors. Indeed, fiction running to 40,000 words or more (10,000 or 15,000 words longer than some novelets, and only 20,000 words under the length of writings sometimes classified as novel) is properly deemed short story, pro- vided that it otherwise meets the requirements imposed on this form of writing. 5. The fact is, that the conte does not have to be notably short. Usually it is short, however, because it seeks the singleness of effect described above. Comparison with the drama is here useful again. We have already seen that the short story and the one-act play are especially near akin. We know, too, that even the most intense and closely- wrought drama is hard to watch for three hours; the tendency is, to keep the time down to two hours or there- about, because a longer time is likely to dull the spectators' impression. The play is planned to make its impression within the time for which the close attention of the specta- tors can be held. The one-act play ordinarily takes still less time than does the two- or three-act play, and it is found to produce a correspondingly more unified impression (not invariably a deeper impression, how- ever) . THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 23 6. In this fact we have also the reason for the shortness of the short story. It is planned to be " taken in " at a single sitting to be read through without interruption; to be grasped, understood, and felt as a whole. If the reading of it be interrupted, the impression, the " spell " of the narrative, is broken. The powerful effect of the conte depends in no small degree upon this fact : the narrative is not too long to be completed in one absorbed reading. 7. The wide range between the longest and the shortest contes commonly accepted by editors from 800 words to 8,000, 10,000, and occasionally 15,000 is to be accounted for by two things. First, many readers are not capable of concentrated attention and continued understanding beyond a few hundred words ; a story of 5,000 or 8,000 words is beyond their powers. Second, the adequate development of some plots, or the adequate presentation of the full story material, requires in some instances only 1,500, 2,000, or 2,500 words; in others, adequate presentation demands eight or ten times as many. The student should not be misled by any insistence upon the need of com- pression in the short story (and compression is needed) into thinking that absolute brevity, too, is essential. Adequate presentation is essential; brevity is not, provided that singleness of effect is preserved. And as a matter of fact, an educated reader can read a close-wrought story of 40,000 or 50,000 words at a sitting, and get from it its single dominant impression. But few single critical situa- tions involve an amount of essential facts so great as this for their adequate understanding and conclusion, or call for such amplified development as a means of producing their effect. 24 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING VII. THE CONTE MAY AIM AT DIFFERENT KINDS OF EFFECT 1. We have been insisting strongly upon the supreme importance of the plot. Lest that insistence result in a serious misapprehension, we must now insist also on a vital distinction. Plot is of supreme importance to the STRUCTURE AND OUTCOME of the story , but the plot may be of minor importance in producing the EFFECT of the story. 2. We will examine this assertion more closely. It depends on this fact: the conte involves two chief factors toward final effectiveness an outcome and an impression. The outcome belongs to plot only; the impression is the result of plot combined with various other elements, and these other elements may in their importance as IMPRES- SION-PRODUCERS quite overshadow plot. Let us make this still clearer by restating once more. 3. The plot is the logical summary of that body of incident and event which creates and constitutes the dramatic crisis. The essence of the short story is people acting dramatically in a time of crisis. In order to pro- duce a single crisis that shall be single and unified in effect, the plot must be close-wrought, single, and unified. But this crisis does not have to be itself the most im- portant thing in the story. It may exist either for its own sake, or merely for the sake of affording effective presentation of other impression-producing elements. But however this be, we shall ultimately perceive that underly- ing this total effect of the story, the most important ele- ment contributing to the outcome through which the effect must at least in part always be reached, are persons acting, each according to his character, in a crisis brought THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 25 about by a dramatic plot. Without persons, and without certain things done by these persons in the course of a crisis, there can be no outcome of the dramatic sort and therefore no short story (conte). 4. Now these persons, doing what they thus do in the surroundings and under the conditions determined by the dramatic crisis, may, according to the management of the story, thus produce in us any one of four predominant impressions; namely (a) Impress us with a theme (thematic story) ; (b) Impress us with the qualities of their own charac- ter (character story) ; (c) Impress us mainly with the incident and action of the plot (plot story) ; or (d) Impress us most distinctly with a feeling ; perhaps merely of the conditions and environment surrounding them, and of which they are a part, during the time in which they are in action, and perhaps of a deeper emo- tional or spiritual quality (subjective coloring) belonging to them and their deeds (atmosphere story). 5. We see, then, that the materials and essential elements of a story, gathering round and depending on the persons-in-action and governed by the plot, can be so managed as to produce stories of different classes ; and these classes can be discriminated one from another according to a clear, logical principle. Neither plot, nor substance or subject-matter, affords such a principle. Plot especially does not, for plot is essential in every conte. But in the effect produced by the different possible ways of managing the materials and elements (including the persons-in-action) which are found in the short story, we have a safe classification by which to distribute contes into 26 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING groups. According to this principle, every short story will fall into one or another of four classes, as the emphasis may be placed on one or another of its four elements; namely, (1) theme; (2) character; (3) plot, incident, and action; (4) atmosphere (total conditions and environ- ment; subjective coloring). VIII. SOME SHORT STORIES EMPHASIZE THEME 1. The conte that emphasizes theme is either among the easiest to write, or among the hardest. If it attempt nothing more than to present a " moral " that is, if it is nothing more than a piece of didactic writing in narrative form it is comparatively easy of composition ; it has only to announce its theme, or moral, group a set of incidents together that make the moral idea, or lesson, that it presents obvious to the reader, and so end. But the short story that does not aim at bald didacticism is a far different and more difficult achievement. 2. The baldly didactic narrative scarcely deserves the name story, for in desire to make its moral obvious, it is ready to sacrifice all the literary qualities. It amounts to little more than argumentation masquerading as narra- tion. But the literary story that concerns itself with the effective presentation of a theme is, on the other hand, thoroughly artistic. It strives for impression, not for conviction or conversion. Therefore it is careful to characterize, to find adequate motiving and true-seeming incident for its plot, and to create a setting and environ- ment equal to their task of giving atmosphere. 3. Thus to work into a consistent artistic whole signifi- cant traits of character; true human motives resulting THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 27 in convincing acts that illustrate and develop the theme; and a coherent body of incident that likewise demonstrates a central thought; and withal to keep this central theme itself clear, prominent, and dominant this demands great power of imaginative conception and high skill in literary construction. We will therefore drop out of consideration the merely didactic narrative and, in further mention of the thematic story, understand that it is the true short story emphasizing theme to which we refer. 4. The thematic conte, so limited, may be either a pur- pose or a problem story, or a pure-theme story (see par. 13). The PURPOSE story is the literary parallel of the un- literary didactic narrative. It differs from the didactic narrative by giving adequate attention to those elements of fictional material which we found the didactic narrative neglecting: character, atmosphere, and well-motived plot. It establishes its theme by means of an impression depend- ing upon artistic method. Character, plot, incident, and at- mosphere are used to emphasize the theme, and the theme is emphasized in order that the reader may be persuaded to espouse some theory or belief. The purpose story aims at conversion, it is true ; but it aims at conversion through artistic effect. 5. We must observe here that excellent authorities main- tain the impossibility of an effective purpose short story. They urge that conversion cannot be the aim of the conte ; that the presentation of arguments is not consistent with lit- erary effect ; that short stories do not afford scope or room for marshaling facts and debating a proposition ; and that any theme about which there is a division of opinion is unsuited to the short story, because the short story must immediately appeal to each of its many classes of readers. 28 SHOKT STORIES IN THE MAKING 6. Now it is true that no great number of true contes aim at convincing or converting the reader, and that those which have this aim often fail in it. But one reason for these facts is, the difficulty of constructing an artistic purpose story one that does not drop into the merely didactic class; and perhaps another is, the feeling which writers have brought about b$ commercial necessity that stories seriously attacking a disputed theme will have less chance of a market with editors. That such stories will sell less readily is true, not because the conte cannot be a purpose story, but because editors are fearful of offending readers who may not agree with the theme advanced, and of wearying that not inconsiderable class whose mental energies faint in presence of any effort greater than that necessary to wrestle with the impressive moral truth of " See the man ! " and " This is a cat." 7. But inherent reason there is none why a narrative built upon a dramatic plot and producing a single effect should not aim, through this effect, to persuade or convert the reader to a definite theory or belief. That such short fiction is influential is indicated by the little whirlwinds of discussion that occasionally arise over stories thus ad- vocating a cause by embodying its appeal in the impres- sion created by well-managed narrative. Only the editors who get the letters of approval and protest know how impressive such an appeal may be. 10 10 American drama has in recent years supplied some interesting examples of purpose plays naturally analogous to purpose short stories. Study of The Lure and The Fight, each presented in New York City at the beginning of the season of 1913-14, will be suggestive. So will consideration of their fate, illustrative of the grotesque unwillingness of certain classes of people to let either drama or literature offer an interpretation of life by presenting it THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 29 8. We are therefore compelled to conclude that the short story may be written " with a purpose/' but that the artistic success of the story so written will depend mostly upon the literary gift and skill of the author. If he. present his theme artistically embodied in concrete facts that are truly significant of human nature and life, so managed that they produce a single, dramatic effect, we as different from what it conventionally is supposed to be. The attacks upon these plays will give the writer an idea of the re- ception likely to be met at any time by problem or purpose stories; although, to be sure, a story -may escape much of the promi- nence that a play has which becomes the subject of public discus- sion. Probably the writer's conclusions will not be much changed by considering what" explains but does not alter the situation; namely, that the fate of the plays mentioned seems to have been largely the result of a newspaper raid carried on by editors and reporters with the zest which most people feel when they have got hold of " a good thing " and have succeeded in persuading their conscience that it is their duty to make the most of it. Having observed the methods of several such campaigns that, for instance, against Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession the present writer cannot convince himself that they represent any " popular uprising " until the " revolt " has been stirred up. An admirer of New York City journalism, he nevertheless feels that the methods employed in some of these instances are a reproach to the profession. The news " stories " and the headlines over them were alike " editorial " and " colored " in character full of expressions of opinion and inflammatory in tone; yet the highest ideal of good newspaper work is that of giving the facts, and giving them uncolored. However, that (whether sincerely or insincerely) the papers thus at times descend to sensationalism, and that their power is sufficient to stir up prejudice that neutralizes the artist's aim and wrecks his reasonable expectation of earnings, puts the author face to face with a serious personal problem. Shall he present life as he sees it, running the risk of vilification and probably business ruin, or shall he conventionalize and popularize his work, consenting to take the artistic " Easiest Way " ? 30 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING have no right to quarrel with him because the facts thus presented carry a logical corollary that convinces us. 9. Unlike the purpose story, the PROBLEM story does not try to convince the reader that its solution of the problem is the right solution; it endeavors merely to lay before him a clear proposal of the problem involved by the situa- tion, whatever that be. To understand " problem/' we must, however, consider the term " crisis." 10. The conte requires a crisis. Crisis exists when the character of the persons and the nature of the incidents are such that a conflict of interests, desires, or duties is brought ahout that is, when the plot has developed what is called a complication. If the person decides or acts in one way, a certain set of consequences will follow; if he decides or acts in another way, an altogether different and probably quite opposite set of consequences will follow; and it is immaterial whether at the moment of his de- ciding or acting he know that he is doing something to bring on such consequences, or not. The critical moment, now, is that in which he makes the decision or performs the decisive act. (This is not necessarily the moment of supreme impression, i.e., the climactic height.) 11. Now the purpose story and the problem story (like all other short stories, or contes) have each a crisis, which technically is ended with the decisive moment. Moreover, each presents a problem, some question of right or wrong, or better or worse, out of which its crisis grows. Still further, they center the interest on this problem; they lay it before us with the implied question, What is best to do in such a situation ? In which way ought this person to decide, or in which way will it be more fortunate for him to act ? THEORY or THE SHORT STORY TYPE 31 12. We now come to the difference between the purpose and the problem story. Having once laid its problem before us, the purpose story does one thing, the problem story another. The purpose story not only solves the problem, but solves it in the way that, it would persuade us, is the only true or right way. But the problem story either does not solve the problem at all (The Lady or the Tiger?), or it solves it so impartially as to convey no opinion of its own concerning the expediency or rightness of the solution. 13. In other words, the purpose story answers for us the question, What is best ? and intends this answer to satisfy and convince us. But the problem story (al- though of course it usually solves the complication of the plot) does not attempt at all, notwithstanding this solution, to answer the question, Which is right or what is best ? It aims only to lay the problem clearly before us, leaving us, uninfluenced by the plot outcome, to decide on the answer for ourselves. In such stories (we must be sure to remember) the outcome is an artistic or dramatic out- come, not an ethical inference; it works out the plot to one of its possible conclusions, but this conclusion does not answer, and is not meant to answer, the question of right or wrong, or better or worse. Notwithstanding the plot outcome, the problem is left with us still unanswered. 14. The third kind of thematic story we have not yet discussed. This we called the PURE-THEME STORY. In fact, however, purpose stories, problem stories, and all other contes of the thematic class, are pure-theme stories; for ~by theme we signify the central topic or proposition, the ultimate working-thought. 1 * If the writer's intention be 11 See paragraphs 19 and 20. 32 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING to convince and convert, he nevertheless must reach his end by dramatically developing his theme. If his inten- tion be to propound a problem, this very problem is the sum and substance of his theme. 15. But besides the two sorts already discussed there remain the great majority of thematic stories. In these, the author's immediate intention is neither to convert nor yet to propound problems as such. Instead, starting with some central thought or proposition, he strives to build this up and amplify it in a course of dramatic narrative, until he has transformed it from a bare logical proposition into a coherent body of action, character, and setting, making of it a portrayal which can leave but one main impression. By employing dramatic narrative, lie gradually enlarges on and develops his proposition until it reaches the reader as an impression, unified, whole, and artistic, realized through the imagination and emotions rather than through the reason or the intellect. This dramatic bodying forth of a proposition or a theme it is whether the theme be bodied forth solely for its own sake or with a purpose also to convince or to propound a problem that makes the thematic story effective; and it is emphasis laid especially upon the theme that produces the thematic story. 16. Before closing this section we should make note of one further fact about the theme. In one sense, every story has a theme. Yet many stories have no immediate theme ; their " theme " is an exceedingly general proposi- tion, perhaps even nebulous in its universality. 12 In 12 The theme is virtually the " masterplot " a conception, or rather a proposition, of so general a character that it can be bodied forth in a large number of distinct plots and stories. See plot germ, working-plot, etc. THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 33 stories of this kind, the working-plot is likely to be mis- taken by the careless thinker for the theme itself. But the plot is not the theme; it merely outlines the body of incident which, combined with character-portrayal and atmosphere, will body forth the theme. Concrete examples will enable us to realize the nature of the general, remote theme in contrast with the specific, prominent theme characteristic of the thematic story. 17. In " Nine Assists and Two Errors " (Charles E. Van Loan, Saturday Evening Post, May 31, 1913) the theme is: A winning personality overcomes prejudice and commands friendship. A thousand plots might be built up to present this theme. It is so general that, in a story of much incident, characterization, or atmosphere, it is likely to be overlooked entirely not a bad thing for artistic effect, provided only that the reader feel the theme, even though he is not consciously aware of it. And in fact some thought is required to determine the ultimate theme of this story. But its plot is easily stated. A young man, ambitious to be a baseball pitcher, but quite without ability, through his pleasing personality over- comes the prejudice of a manager, gets on the team, and actually persuades the " old man " to " throw " an unim- portant game in order to help him win his lady-love, an admirer of ball-players (a surprise element is introduced by making the lady-love the manager's daughter). The story is a character, atmosphere, and humor story, not a story of theme ; and only upon consideration can we deter- mine the underlying conception which the plot embodies. 18. But in " Nerve " (by William Slavins, Collier's, September 20, 1913) the theme is intentionally made prominent by the writer. In this story (which is taken 34 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING merely at random as an example) there is a philosophical introduction, mainly dialogue, wherein different views of the same question are presented ; and in the course of the dialogue the man who presently tells the story that exem- plifies the theme, says : " To my way o' thinkin' a man shows clean game when he does the thing that's hardest for him, whereas the same thing might be just like eatin' a meal to me." Here we have the theme stated in exact words thought out and shaped up for the reader's atten- tion before any element of the plot has been introduced. In fact, the introduction is no true part of the actual plot and story ; it is merely the author's device in this instance for making certain that the theme is emphasized so plainly that no reader, in the interest of the story itself, shall overlook it. 19. In the two stories here cited, we have therefore excellent though haphazardly chosen examples of extremes in theme importance. But the fact that in Mr. Van Loan's story we really do not need at all to know the theme, and yet with a little, thought can readily find it, illustrates this truth : Every conte embodies a theme, no matter how general or remote this theme may be; for no reasonable plot can be stated, based on the realities of life, that does not exemplify or contain in the concrete some truth of human existence. Were it otherwise, the story would be untrue. 20. The thematic story, we may here remark, is ex- ceedingly adaptable to purposes of direct interpretation. We have already noted that the best fiction does more than merely interest ; it contributes to the better comprehension of life itself. It brings before the reader, in coherent inter-relationships, motives, influences, deeds, ideals, char- THEORY OF THE SHOUT STORY TYPE 35 acter; and when he comprehends these relationships, lie comes into possession of a theory, a view, or a principle of human nature and its workings as the author conceives it to be. This conception on the part of the reader is identical (at least theoretically) with the conception on which the author built up his story; that is, with the theme itself. Therefore, the writer who wishes particularly to interpret life to give the reader an explanation and simplification of life as it appears under certain definite conditions has an effective means in the thematic story; for in the theme he summarizes his interpretation, and in the development of his story constantly emphasizes and illustrates this theme. 21. From these explanations, one important conclusion follows. Unless one is writing a thematic story, he need not worry about finding a theme with which to begin. // the plot be well built and the action truly motivated in character, they will inevitably embody a theme. The beginner, therefore, will do as the experienced writer often- est does: -first seek a plot, or at least the "germ" of a plot. When the plot idea, or germ, is discovered, it will develop into a story if rightly managed; and behind the story there will always be a theme. 22. Unless the presentation of an emphasized theme be the writer's main object (let us repeat), he need not worry about anything at first but the creation of a plot, with its developing material. True, he cannot build a plot without realizing that in it is embodied some central idea or proposition. But the gift of art is, to present things in the concrete; and its value is, that as it sees deeply and truly, that which it presents concretely is itself, by reason of this grasp and insight, an illustration 36 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING of or a commentary upon life or character. A clearly visioned, truly motived story, therefore, always contains some inevitably embodied theme ; fit matter for reflection. But it is reflection on the part of the reader. To him the writer had better leave the discovery and weighing of the theme, provided only that the story as the writer cre- ates it, incarnates this controlling conception in a body of coherent fact and action, true to human nature and to life. IX. SOME SHORT STORIES EMPHASIZE PLOT 1. We have already seen that the final effectiveness of the conte involves two chief factors: an outcome, and an impression. " Outcome " we are to understand somewhat narrowly. The incidents and action of the story bring- forth a final deed, incident, or situation the outcome; something done or happening that puts a close to the series in such a way as to be the conclusion of the whole matter the consequence and end of what precedes. 2. Some outcome is necessary to the conclusion of every short story, but this must not be thought to mean that the outcome itself is always the principal source of the im- pression. " Impression " indicates the sum total of the effect worked on the reader by the story aroused interest, stirred emotions, character appreciation, etc. united and merged in one definite, single, predominant effect. 13 In making this impression, theme, character, atmosphere, and plot have each a part; but in one type of conte, that which emphasizes plot, the plot of course is the leading impression-maker. In the plot story, the total effect must 18 Inasmuch as this effect is worked by stimulating fancy, imagina- tion, and emotion, the impression is predominantly emotional in nature. See Sec. XI., 14. THEOKY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 37 mainly depend on the two plot parts ; namely, the incidents and action that produce the outcome, and the final situation and outcome itself. 3. The plot story therefore must have much quick action, stirring incident, adventure, surprise, mystery; [ complicated situations, romantic situations, etc. Not that all of these are likely to be found in any one story, but that every one of them is likely to supply the material for a plot story or to constitute an important element in its effectiveness. 4. For the sake of simplicity we may include all of these characteristics, and any others belonging to the plot story as such, in three categories. We shall then see that the plot story is a story in which the effect is produced through (a) lively action, (b) abundant incident, and (c) abundant actfvity. Eoughly defined, an incident is one of the single coherent events included in the story as being either essential to the action or as otherwise clearly contrib- uting to the total effect. Action is the combination and advance of incident and events toward a definite outcome in accordance with the scheme provided by the plot. Activity is the behavior, acts, deeds, and " business " (stage meaning) of the persons singly or together. Quick action, abundant incident, and much activity, are the characteris- tics of the plot story. 14 5. Classification of plot stories into sub-groups is diffi- cult. We may, however, further indicate the nature of 14 Somewhat more loosely, " action " carries the idea of " all that's doing " or " whatever is doing.'* It then indicates all that we have classified separately above. A story may include several groups of incident ; incident groups may then be termed " events," the term " incident " being reserved for the single coherent event of smaller compass, 38 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING the plot story by mentioning various sub-types, provided that we do not regard these sub-types as clearly delimited and mutually exclusive. With this understanding, we may say that plot stories fall into two classes. They are either stories of ingenious complication or else stories of lively action. In the one case, the interest lies in the ingenuity of fancy, incident, entanglement, and solution. In the other, it lies in the excitement of the rapid move- ment, the quick passing from deed to deed, incident to incident, and event to event, up through a stirring climax to a stirring outcome. Usually, of course, rapid action and ingenious plot-complication go together. 6. In stories of the ingenious-plot type, the attention is held, not primarily by the persons who act, nor by the surroundings or atmosphere in which the action takes place, nor by the theme embodied in the story; first and mainly it is held by the body of incident itself. What interests the reader is, the single incidents and successive events as they are wrought together, one by one, and the situation or situations 15 brought about by these incidents as they succeed and combine with one another, and so draw on toward the grand climax. 6A. The more ingeniously these are wrought together, to arouse interest and yet to keep the outcome seemingly uncertain, the more concentrated will the reader be in 15 " Situation " indicates the state of affairs existing at any particular moment by reason of the development of the story up to that point; especially, the critical state of affairs existing at climactic moments in the progress of the action, usually those pro- duced by the culmination of a definite stage ("movement") of plot development. In the theater, for instance, the curtain is not allowed to fall except when a " situation " has been developed to bring it down, thus marking the close of a scene or an act. THEORY OF THE SHOKT STORY TYPE 39 his pursuit of the plot to its conclusion. For it is the skill indeed the ingenuity with which detail is woven in with detail and incident with incident, moving steadily toward an outcome the more eagerly anticipated because its nature cannot be accurately guessed it is this that gives the ingenious-plot story its fascination. 7. Various kinds of story are of the ingenious-plot type. The " surprise-plot " story is a good example. In this, the plot is skillfully shaped to lead the reader into anticipating a certain outcome, or to keep him from guessing the outcome that is intended; then at the last and always suddenly if the best effect is attained an un- expected outcome leaves him gasping with surprise. The surprise-plot story, well done, unquestionably is effective ; and occasionally an editor is found who regards it as the chief among short stories, if not indeed the only sort worth printing. But this is an extreme opinion. Even the ingenious-plot conte can exist without a surprise out- come ; and a large amount of exceedingly valuable material could not be utilized at all by the short story if it had to be presented through a surprise plot. Imagine the render- ing by surprise outcome of such a tragic procession of events as that of Mrs. Wharton's Ethan Frome! Yet Ethan Frome testing by ultimate standards is worth dozens of the ordinary surprise-plot story. 16 19 The purpose of this book being the explanation of the method, or constructional principles, of the conte, the author has but seldom introduced comment depending upon those larger esthetic principles by which final worth in literature must be estimated. In other words, he has for the most part refrained from judgments in which an attempt is made to evaluate stories, types, forms, or points of view. The few exceptions will (he trusts) explain and justify themselves. 40 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING 8. Again, the surprise ending itself is subject to abuse as in stories made to end with a surprise that shocks the sensibilities, or does illogical violence to the sympathies of the reader, or to his liking for the personages of the story. Indeed, the surprise ending can quickly grow into tyranny over its employer, becoming an offensive and a fatal trick. When it has thus established domination over a writer, he will use it in place and out of place, emphasizing trivialities, subjecting his plots to mechanical and artificial manipulations, and at the end introducing impertinent incongruities to the exclusion of serious con- clusions. In a word, abuse of the surprise plot is easy, and may result in flippancy, artificiality, and a general cheapening of effect. 9. Mystery stories are another interesting and favorite sort of ingenious-plot story (the surprise ending is fre- \quent in them). As mystery stories we may classify all stories of which the chief purpose is, to solve some problem of explanation, means, or discovery. Such for example are detective stories; ghost stories and other tales of the weird, horrible, or occult, when the interest lies in the explanation, not the phenomena ; 1T and many stories of crime or vengeance. 10. Commonly, mystery stories assume a state of affairs such as seems well-nigh inexplicable, together with an apparently quite inadequate body of fact from which to solve the problem of explanation or discovery. From the facts thus assumed, with the discovery and introduction from time to time of additional facts, they proceed by 1T When the effect depends on merely the presence of mystery, not on the explanation of it, we have an atmosphere conte, not a plot conte. THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 41 reasoning (both inductive and deductive) through stages of advancement and renewed complication toward the final solution ; and at last, by a sudden decisive piece of logic usually accompanied with action bring forth the true con- clusion. The stages (" movements ") by which the denoue- ment, or final untangling, is approached, do not, however, always seem stages of progress. On the contrary, the facts, as the narrative proceeds, appear now to point to one con- clusion, now to another, and are all the time baffling; and their total effect prior to the completion of the disentan- gling is, to keep the reader excitedly puzzled about the out- come and eagerly interested to know it. 11. To the beginner, one caution must be emphatically given about the plot in the plot story. It must not be overcrowded with either incident or action. True, it will be complicated; but all plots are that. This means no more than that it includes some element that checks, or stops, or changes, the otherwise plain course of the action. Without such an obstacle, there could be no conflict, no crisis, no uncertainty about outcome and result. In the short story that emphasizes plot, the number of such com- plicating influences tends to increase rapidly. But at their most numerous, they must not be so many that they congest the story, cramp the action, interfere with the just development of characterization, or require a total amount of setting out of proportion to the other narrative elements. Nor must ancillary incident overflow either the plot it supplements or the other bounds of proportion. In other words, even the plot story must not be all plot and incident; there must be an adequate proportion of the other fiction elements. 12, The reason for all this is very practical. The 42 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING conte must be short enough for reading at a single sitting ; excessive incident or action, with a due proportion of stag- ing and characterization, would extend the story beyond the time limit in which the necessary single effect can be attained. Since in the market few stories longer than 8,000 or at most 10,000 words find a welcome, the practi- cal inadvisability of including copious incident or requir- ing unstinted action is evident. But except for this, no limitations need be observed so long as the inci- dent and action continue to contribute to the single effect desired. 13. Turn now from the type of plot story in which in- genuity in construction and the creation and combining of incident is the leading characteristic, to the type in which action rather than ingenuity is emphasized. In the action type of plot story, the leading position probably is occupied by the adventure story. In company with this should be mentioned the stories that are built largely upon romantic elements other than adventure; for the two are difficultly separable. " Adventure " as just used has the older sense of physical adventure that involving physical courage and endeavor, daring in the face of bodily danger, and the like. Naturally the story of in- trigue (when active behavior instead of ingenious plot dominates it) associates itself with the story of adventure and romance. 14. The word " adventure " is however rapidly taking on a broader meaning, in which the merely physical con- notation is much less ; and this meaning is showing itself in recent literature, especially in fiction. We have had, for example, Adventures in Contentment (not cited, of course, as an example of fiction) ; and of late years fiction has THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 43 been rich in narratives that deal with industrial, business, and sociological emprise. To many of the incidents in such narratives, the term " adventure " is to be applied quite as justly as it was originally to the other kind of adventuring. These stories, we should note, have, however, a natural relationship with realism through dealing with matters that are so closely associated with ordinary life; hence they not infrequently develop a tendency to realistic treatment. The natural outcome is an effective if not a novel blending of romantic with realistic elements, produc- ing work of no little value in interpreting life in its daily aspects. But as the realistic elements increase, the plot naturally ceases to occupy so prominent a place; hence realistic stories of this sort (like most other realistic stories) soon pass out of the plot story class. X. SOME CONTES EMPHASIZE CHARACTER 1. " The proper study of mankind is man." This is the underlying conviction of all good literature and indeed of all art. Whatever else finds a place in fiction, finds its place there because in some way it is associated with man and the life he lives. Nature, for illustration, enters into fiction because it forms so much of man's environment, stirring his love of beauty, terrifying him by the relentless power it exerts, stimulating him to effort in order to con- quer and dominate it, exalting him to awe and reverence by its sublimity. Plot and incident find a place in fiction \' because they show men in action under the manifold im- I pulses and influences that shape human destiny. Theme is important in fiction because it supplies a means of sum- 44 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING marizing conclusions about man and his destiny, or of stating human problems in a suitable form for concrete observation, analysis, or demonstration. 2. Accordingly, whatever material yields itself to fiction is material found in man's relationships with the universe ; whatever mood or tone or method is employed in treating this material, is employed because it is a mood or tone or method that springs from these relationships. From the most serious novel to the lightest skit, the final concern of the writer and of the reader is man and his existence, seen, of course, in the character and behavior of individual men and women; for fiction, being a form of art, deals as we saw with concrete instances rather than with general con- ceptions. 3. These relations of man with the universe are three. iHe deals and struggles with, influences and is influenced [by, the physical world; deals and struggles with, in- ' fluences and is influenced by, other men ; and deals and struggles with, influences 18 and is influenced by, the moral and spiritual world the forces for good and evil that lie (or seem to lie) largely in himself. In all this dealing, struggling, and influencing, it is the character of the in- dividual that is principally involved. We may therefore say that character manifests itself (a) In the dealings of men with the physical world. (b) In the dealings of men with one another. *(c) In the dealings of men with their own moral or spiritual nature, and the forces that influence it. 4. When therefore the writer creates a story that em- phasizes character, and emphasizes it successfully, he creates a story that, in its appropriate class of light or 18 For instance, he establishes his own codes of morals, THEOKY OF THE SHOET STORY TYPE 45 serious, is exceedingly vital and worthy. For in a charac- ter we read, writ small and in a fragmentary monument, the nature and destiny of man. To the portrayal of sta- tionary character, and still more to the presentation of character in process of growth or deterioration, all the utility of plot, theme, and atmosphere, and of all other literary accessories of narration, may rightly be directed. Especially effective is a combination of characterization with theme emphasis ; for the theme embodies the central thought concerning life, and the characterization clothes on this thought with all the vraisemblance, all the true-seem- ing, of actual human life itself. 5. Yet the beginning writer should not be led to suppose that he ought to turn his prentice hand to the character story only. Quite the contrary is true. He should first accustom himself to the management of plot ; for in the.conte the most indispensable element is plot \ even when the plot is wholly subordinate. And although the tyro in writing may soon begin to practice on character sketching, and even on characterization in dramatic nar- rative, he must not expect in any sudden burst of develop- ment to blossom into the master's skill of character treat- ment. 6. There is too another - reason for delaying besides that of making thoroughly ready before attempting the work of characterization in dramatic narrative. It is this : although as a type the character story probably is superior to any other of the individual types of conte, it is not by any means a universal favorite. A lamentably large proportion of readers cannot (if the truth must be told) appreciate or even comprehend it ; it commands a more limited public, perhaps, than any other type commands, unless it be the 46 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING atmosphere story. This assertion, of course, will not al- ways hold of the best short stories ; but that is because the best short stories do not emphasize any one element at the expense of another, but emphasize proportionately theme, j)lot, atmosphere, and character; and they are, more- over, often so simple, so humari^ so " universal " in their appeal (as the cant phrase runs), that readers even of comparatively limited culture can enjoy them, even though unable to appreciate them. Saying this is but re-saying what is so well known already, that many of the true masterpieces of literature are within limits for all sorts and conditions of men. 4 7. And yet even the tyro, delaying in order to make sure preparation before attempting the character story, will have the character story always before him as part of his ideal. For the plot story that is also a character story is doubly excellent ; the atmosphere story that is also a character story is doubly excellent, and the theme story that is not also a character story is doubly in danger of failure even as a theme story. To study human nature, to study men and their ways, to observe the thousand-and-one manifestations through which the temperament and the human nature of every individual may reveal itself, to perceive the innumerable influences that affect men, shape their character, and help to determine their destiny, and to strive always and unceasingly to body forth in story form the facts learned in the course of this never-ceasing study this must always be the aspiration and aim of the true artist in fiction, unsubdued and unsubduable in him because it is the very essence and spirit of his genius. 8. We should now define clearly to ourselves WHAT THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 47 CHARACTER is. All animal creatures may be said to have character. That is, they have a set of fundamental or primary instincts, or natural tendencies or habits of re- action which have been developed by an age-long course of existence under particular conditions. These instincts, tendencies, and habits are common to all members of the family, and by virtue of them, all members of the family respond in the same way to the same stimuli and motives to action. 9. But in each individual, especially in the higher forms of life, these instinctive, nature-given tendencies have been more or less modified by particular influences affecting the individual only, whereby the moods and acts of this individual are caused to vary from the family or racial standard, or norm. To illustrate: All horses have the same primary, fundamental, or nature-given instincts and tendencies (we will not confuse ourselves by consider- ing how domestication has modified these as they exist in the wild horse). Yet, notwithstanding these identical in- stincts and characteristics, one horse is affectionate and another fierce; one is patient, another nervous and im- patient; one trustworthy, another treacherous, and so on. Even different colts of the same mare and sire may have notably variant characteristics. This basic nature in the - creature, modified or shaped into individual traits and tendencies, is the character of thai creature. It is manifested through the creature's behavior and con- duct. 10. We may pause here to remark that there is one immense difference between the behavior and conduct of mankind and that of other animals. The action of man. is reasoned; that of beasts is based upon no reflective 48 SHORT STOKIES IN THE MAKING foresight. This fact is what makes drama and fiction possible, for it is what makes possible motive and therefore conflict the conscious struggle between man and the physical world, between man and man, between man and his own spiritual nature. The uncertainty, the variety, the comedy, the tragedy, all the interest of human life, spring mainly from this ability of man to perceive and consider alternatives, to weigh consequences, to pick and choose or predetermine (or at least attempt to predeter- mine) results. Fiction is interesting largely because it thus shows us man employing or failing to employ this faculty of reflective foresight; and motivation and plot are possible only because there exists this reasoning faculty in man. 11. We return now to our consideration of character. Men as a genus, family, or class, have their dis- tinctive nature, their peculiar set of instincts, nature- bestowed tendencies, and habits and emotional reactions so long kept up that they have practically established them- selves as instincts. This is human nature the whole set of instincts, tendencies, emotions, and motives common to mankind. And human nature is the basis of human character. 12. But in character there is always a second element ; for character is the basic human nature shaped and modi- fied into individual traits and tendencies that are mani- fested in the conduct of the individual. This second element in human character we may say is temperament, the quality or disposition peculiar to the individual. This temperament, or temper of the individual (to adopt an Elizabethan term signifying quality as it results from a particular and successful admixture of ingredients), may THEORY OF THE SHORT S^ORY TYPE 49 be the consequence of any of an indefinite number of modifying influences. Thus, it depends often upon con- stitution, upon nervous organization, or upon physiological conditions. Congeniality of surroundings or of occupation affects it wholesomely. Indeed, its healthiness largely depends upon the proper gratification of individual tastes and appetites. It is also partly determined by the in- dividual's amount of will-power, enabling him to adapt himself to his surroundings; and intellectual or spiritual discipline, resulting from either education or experience, will always result in an increased control of environment by the individual, and thus by controlling one of the most important shaping influences indirectly determine tem- perament itself. 13. Again, habits affect temperament, whether they be developed through natural inclination or through con- straint. Years of study will unfit for active pursuits a man originally of the most active tendency. Teachers of composition afford another example. Required by their business to maintain constant watchfulness for small errors, they not infrequently find themselves developing querulousness and a tendency to petty fault-finding. How- ever, exhaustive enumeration of the influences that de- termine temperament is impossible; for anything and everything, even interplaying qualities of human nature itself, may react on the individual to modify into variant aspects the elemental traits and qualities of our common human nature, and thus determine temperament. 14. So much for the two constituents of human charac- ter. What then is character itself ? Character is the sum of the moral, intellectual, and physical instincts, tenden- cies, qualities, and habits of the individual, resulting from 50 SHOET P TORIES IN THE MAKING the union of human nature and temperament, and mani- festing itself in what he thinks and does. This manifesta- tion may be internal, appearing merely in the thoughts and imaginings of the man, or external, appearing in action his speech, acts, behavior, outward conduct. 15. For purposes of dramatic presentation, only ex- ternal manifestations of character are available. Pure psychological analysis, or narration of psychological ex- perience recounting the events in the march of conscious- ness, or picturing forth in its flow the so-called stream of consciousness is not dramatic. Hence it is expedient, even though arbitrary, to exclude fiction that is developed by this method from the class of the conte. This is not to say, however, that there are no true psychological short stories. The true psychological conte, however, is that in which the mental state and action are not narrated, de- scribed, or analyzed directly, but are instead made clear through the truly dramatic i.e., actional means of external manifestation. What is said and done in the course of the plot development reveals (but does not relate) what the person is thinking and feeling. The psychologi- cal story that presents these mental states otherwise than by this truly actional method of speech and act, possibly should be regarded as in fact a peculiar class. We may call it psychological description, or psychological narration, or name its product the psychological-analytical narrative, etc. ; we may even argue that there is a dramatic quality 19 The student of men in the mass will find various divisions and subdivisions between the race and the individual. Each of these will have its own distinctive characteristics those of nationality, for example. Each social rank, each profession, etc., has its peculiar class characteristics. It follows, therefore, that characterization must take note of individual, of class, and of race traits. THEORY OF THE SHOET STOEY TYPE 51 in many psychological situations or operations. But the fact remains, that psychological analysis does not present persons acting; and therefore it is doubtfully dramatic in the sense required by the short story. However (although it has seemed well to discuss the matter rather fully here) , the problem of presenting psychological phenomena is in truth more a problem how to portray a person during his passage through a psychological experience than it is a question of character and its manifestation. 16. We return therefore briefly to direct consideration of the short story that emphasizes character. The means whereby character can be dramatically presented in nar- rative will be discussed in some detail in a later chapter ; consequently we need here only repeat that speech and acts are the main, if not the sole, dependence of the author in showing forth to the reader through his imagina- tion the character of the persons of whom he is writing. I Therefore, in the story written to emphasize character, [ speech and- act will be prominent. They will not, however, be prominent for their own sake, or for the thrill they Imay be able to communicate through directly exciting the reader, as they are in the story that emphasizes plot. They twill be prominent because in and through them the reader beholds character; they are the index, the outward symbol, j the key, the manifestation, the effect of which character is ! the cause. And as the reader, in order to interpret them, must be able to translate the symbol into terms of the thing symbolized, to judge accurately what the cause is from seeing only its results, so the writer on his side must be able to translate character into suitable symbols (words and acts) ; to perceive what the true and natural results of any well-defined character, taken as the cause, would be, 52 SHOKT STOKIES IN THE MAKING and by depicting it through such results, or symbols, the acts and speech of the persons, make it apparent to the reader. 17. The first task, therefore, for the writer of character stories, is the conceiving of a consistent, and, of course, true-to-nature character for each person in his story. By consistent, we do not mean a character in which are no conflicting elements, but a character in which (whatever the elements of conflict) there is no self-contradiction. How far the conflict between character elements may go without rendering the character self-contradictory, is shown by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Perhaps we should be safer were we to say merely that the conception must not seem to be inconsistent, or self-contradictory that it shall stand the test of a sound plausibility based upon knowledge of man and men, and a strict observance of the possibilities of character as thus discovered. Charac- ters so conceived will be true to life, and will accordingly stand every test. We have, therefore, arrived at the point, to w r hich we shall always find ourselves returning, at which we must recognize the fundamental importance of observing men and the ways of men and the influences that determine these ways in other words, the importance of being familiar with character in detail. To write good fiction, one must know man and men, human nature and temperament ; and to know these, he must have been a close observer of men in their activities. 18. Moreover, this knowledge must be practical, not theoretical. This assertion needs to be emphasized. Many writers young writers of a scholarly turn especially think that if they read books and gain an understanding of the elements of human nature as these are revealed in THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 53 poetry, fiction, history, or the like, they have qualified themselves for their work as writers. They are wrong. The writer of drama and dramatic fiction narrative must know men. He must have seen human life living itself in the lives of many individual men. He must know men so well that the human nature and the temperament in every individual will distinctly separate themselves to his understanding. He must know not only the types of men, but the individual variations that occur within the type. He must know what are the type actions that go with the standard instincts and emotions but he must also know how these type actions are changed or modified in the individual. And all these things should be so familiar to him that, the moment he conceives a person of a certain type, he will be aware what that type of person will do in a given set of circumstances; and beyond that, what this one person he has conceived an individual having his own character, made up of human nature modified by temperament would do in the same set of circumstances ; for in the action of the individual will always be some degree of individuality, and the writer who knows men should from his knowledge realize instinctively what this individuality of conduct and speech will be. So intimate, so closely accurate, so extensive, so sure, should be the fiction writer's knowledge, not merely of man, but of men. He can never become perfect in it, yet he should never cease to perfect himself in it. And for this there is but one way that of meeting and dealing with men closely and constantly. 19. To the writer of contes in which character is em- phasized, such extreme familiarity with men is indispen- sable. For since he must make the words and acts of each 54 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING person clearly spring from and reveal the character of the person, he must know, even to the littlest, the words that men use, the tones in which they speak them, the gestures they employ and the occasions on which they employ each, the decisions instinctive or reasoned to which they come, the way they behave while coming to them, and their manner of acting (each according to his own character) in accordance with their decisions. To make the character story convincing, all such things must be set down, and set down as they would be were the story a fact and not a fiction story, For if they are not set down as they would be in life, the reader will feel the incongruity, even if he cannot name it; and both story and character will disap- point him. Hence the chief study of the writer of charac- ter stories must be, how to set forth a varied body of speech and act that shall clearly reveal character, the character itself being consistent and true to life to human nature, to class-type, and to the individual. XL SOME CONTES EMPHASIZE ATMOSPHERE 1. Last of the four possible types of short story that are produced by laying emphasis especially upon a particular element, or factor, of fiction narrative, we name the type that emphasizes atmosphere. But in giving the atmos- phere story the last place, we are making it neither the least nor the greatest among these types. For the conte has its masterpieces of plot story, of theme story, of character story, and of atmosphere story ; and if we raise the question of comparative merit, we are likely to be forced, on consideration, to dodge it, answering that the greatest of short stories is not to be found in any one of THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 55 these special types as such, but in that conte which com- bines all these elements according to its needs, attaining its effect by a presentation of life through the artistic union of all the four. 2. Nevertheless, considering as we are for the present the emphasis of particular elements in individual stories, we must in fairness set down, that the atmosphere story is often tremendously effective. As some of the most wonderful of modern paintmgs are those that have caught the atmosphere of the desert, the plains, or the sea, so some of the most wonderful novels and contes of our day are those that have caught the atmosphere rather than the details of phases of life the spirit and essence of some environment in which life is lived significantly. 3. Of the four elements of fiction narrative that we are considering, theme, plot, character, and atmosphere- atmosphere is the hardest exactly to define; for it is not, like the others, reducible to a process, a formula, or a method, but is that more delicately impalpable thing, a subjective quality to be sensed or an emotional impression to be received. Therefore we can, before formulating^ definition, profitably consider the thing itself somewhat. 4. Atmosphere we may describe as the quality felt in a story or drama, through the impression created by setting, mood, character, action, theme, incident, persons, personal- ity (either that of the author or of the persons in the story), tone, and so on. Or we may call it the source of the total subjective impression left by the combined influence of all the elements, accompaniments, and surroundings of viewpoint, characters, action, and scene. The atmosphere of a story is the encompassing medium in which the nar- rative exists and moves. It is the psychological medium, 56 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING as the physical atmosphere, with all its attributes of light, warmth, translucence, rarity or density, color, stimulation or depression, clearness, heaviness, purity, etc., is the purely physical medium in which animal life exists and moves. Or it may be described as the sum total of environment, psychological and physical, as the habitat of an animal, with its peculiar set of physical, vegetable, geographic, climatic, animal, and animal-nature, condi- tions, constitutes the total of the environment of that animal. 5. Atmosphere is, then, the total psychological, emotional, or tonal environment wherein character and action present themselves subjectively to the reader, 20 to 20 The test of atmosphere is the presence of a quality in the narrative itself, permeative and intangible rather than explicit and loeable. Upon further analysis, we should find that this impression of atmosphere depends on either or both of two qualities: first, the quality of place, environment, and determining conditions; second, the quality of mood. The first gives a sense of the milieu and circumstances; the second gives a sense of the tone of the emotional quality and nature belonging to the story, its persons or events. Roughly, the one is material, physical, or social, the other immaterial and psychological the one perceived as external fact, the other as internal fact. But almost always they exist to- gether. The effect of either is always mainly emotional that is, subjective. Hence our discussion of atmosphere has not attempted to separate them. Let the student compare a mood story with a story of setting (realized best in the local-color story). Mrs. Wharton's Ethan Frome is pre-eminently a mood story; Harris Dickson's stories of negro life (Saturday Evening Post) are local color stories almost any of the " Old Reliable " series will serve, as will most of Bret Harte's California stories, Mrs. Freeman's stories of New England, etc. Yet all such stories will reveal that (except when the setting is described merely for objective interest), the introduc- tion of an element of milieu or conditioning circumstance affects mainly the mood of the reader, thus giving him the impression of subjective tone or coloring in the story. We " sense " the tone and THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 57 create which, every artistic element unites which is capable of producing through literary means the impression of a physical sensation or a perception of mood, or of moral, spiritual, ethical or esthetic quality, or tone, thereby pro- ducing a sense of subjective quality. To phrase the thought in yet another way, atmosphere is the consequence of bringing to bear upon the reader the full power of subjective impression exerted through any sort of literary or dramatic device: its purpose being, to put him into complete emotional understanding or rapport (responsive- ness and sympathy) with the various elements of the story. It thus enables him both to perceive the external quality and to feel the internal quality and spirit ac- curately and truly, because he feels not only the thing itself, but also the conditions and surroundings which are a part of it and of which it is a part. 6. From this preliminary description of atmosphere, let us now formulate a working definition. Atmosphere is that subjective quality in a story resulting from highly characteristic elements, or accompaniments, conditions, and surroundings, of the setting, persons, character traits, and action; by virtue of which the persons, incidents, character, and action are seen in a medium of natural and significant psychological, tonal, or emotional environment of which they are a necessary part and which is a necessary part of them. Condensing this, we may say that atmosphere is quality of a scene rather than perceive it merely. Stevenson's The Merry Men; Hamlin Garland's early western stories (as in Main Traveled Roads), Poe's Fall of the House of Usher these are merely a few of the stories that owe their subjective effect, or emotional impression, mainly to the combined influence of environ- mental and mood elements. For in successful writing, the two cannot be kept distinct. 58 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING that quality which produces its effect on the reader by means of a subjective coloring of any or all 21 of the elements of the story. Its impression is made almost en- tirely on the subjective sensibilities on the emotions and is made in either of two ways : first, by direct appeal, as when the material used itself is emotional and address is made outright to our subjective senses; second, by indirection, as when such aspects of objective matters are chosen for presentation as are associated with subjective experiences, these aspects being, therefore, sure to stimulate an emotional response even though doing so indirectly. 22 21 A scheme will help to show forth the fact, as follows: 1. Objective facts: setting, appearance of persons, costume, acts, deeds, incidents, etc. 2. Determining conditions: influences of time, place, associates, social and in- dustrial environment, education, etc., etc., such as affect character, behavior, deed, motive, etc. These may be either (a) objective (see 1 above) or (b) sub- jective (see 3 below). 3. Subjective facts: the relationships, in- fluences, and reactions that pre-emi- nently affect or belong to psychological experience the inner life. Therefore, we may have either objective atmosphere or subjective atmosphere that productive of mood or tone. Further, the story may be so written that its mood or tone will be the result of either (a) its own materials (complete detachment on the part of the author), or (b) the author's arbitrary selection of details to produce a particular mood or tone determined by himself (author's mood, or attitude). 22 From what has been said, the conclusion follows, that the term subjective coloring is a full descriptive synonym for atmosphere, and perhaps even a more accurate term. Subjective coloring will be found inherent - in, or can be given to THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 59 7. Among the elements that aid in creating atmosphere, setting is highly important. It is not to be confounded with atmosphere, although the terms are sometimes used synonymously ; neither is it equal to environment. By setting we really mean the physical surroundings what the stage manager would classify as scenery and properties. Setting is objective and can always be indicated by some direct method of description, although, of course, direct description is not necessarily preferable to other methods of presentation. Moreover, the mere introduction of description is not enough to give atmosphere, unless the setting and the description are themselves such as to be significant and produce the artistic effect desired. 8. Environment a larger term implies not only setting, but also all other surroundings and accompanying conditions; and, therefore, it may be psychological and non-objective. Well indicated, environment is an effective producer of atmosphere indeed, is perhaps the main de- pendence in most atmosphere stories. Among the elements entering into environment are time, place, occupation, moral and spiritual surroundings, and (in general) what- ever accompaniments of existence influence character and life. A. Time: Time may determine the atmosphere of a story. Thus, there may be stories with an atmosphere of war time or of peace ; of particular historical periods ; of Christmas, Memorial Day, or other holiday; an atmos- phere appropriate to the night, to daytime, to spring, summer, fall, or winter, to sowing time or harvest time, etc. B. Place: Place may determine the atmosphere of a story. Thus, there may be stories with an atmosphere 60 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING of the streets, the theater, the church, the home, the amusement-park, the city, the country, the tropics, the school, the sea, the veldt, the plains, the jungle, the air (aeronautical stories), etc. C. - Occupation: Occupation may determine the atmos- phere of a story. Thus, there may be stories with an atmosphere appropriate to medicine, journalism, the law, the ministry; to the life of the day-laborer, the iron- worker, the weaver or mill-hand, the fisherman, the soldier or marine, the professor, the housewife, the speculator, the gambler, the prostitute, the nurse, the clerk, etc. D. Other Conditions: Besides the influences such as have already been mentioned, almost innumerable items or elements of environment exist that contribute to the im- pression of atmosphere. Such for instance are illness in the household; educational influences; religious surround- ings; the character of associates; poverty, manners, personal tastes and habits ; dress ; eating ; in brief, what- ever can be responsible wholly or in part for the mood, tone, or other quality essential in the life itself that is portrayed. The introduction of such items as material for narration can be so affected that it will cause the persons, incidents, and action to be seen in an encompassing medium of consistent, natural, significant psychological environment ; the story will, in all its parts, give evidence of the close observation, adequate comprehension, and full power of sympathetic presentation without which it will be deficient in that indispensable quality, subjective coloring. 9. By way of concrete illustration, assume now that several clergymen are gathered in a vestry room to discuss a religious crisis. If the material be well handled, the THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 61 atmosphere will be an atmosphere of deep religious earnest- ness, with clerical and personal manners seen in a setting of church surroundings. Now, enter to the clergymen an ex-pugilist, converted in a mission chapel but retaining all the mannerisms produced by his breeding in the slums. In the proceedings that follow, he is prominent; and inevitably his appearance, personality, speech, and be- havior modify the previous atmosphere. It may be more human; it certainly will be less clerical and churchly. Further suppose that the worldly daughter of the rector, a society girl, now comes into the action. She modifies the atmosphere anew; her dress, her manners, her personality and ideals, are all felt, subtly but surely, in a changed quality in the situation. They suggest other influences in life than earnestness and religion, another outlook on life an outlook foreign to the clergymen's and equally foreign to the crudely earnest pugilist's. Or let us assume a hos- pital ward, with nurses attending to their duties, and a pickle-faced martyr to her conception of duty haranguing on the subject of his soul an unfortunate nephew, occupa- tionally a ball-player, laid up in one of the beds. Merely to suggest such a combination of time, place, persons, and character, gives an impression of atmosphere an atmos- phere individual and distinct. Then suddenly remove the maiden lady and in her place substitute a member of the invalid's team, airy, jovial, confident, and hearty. Presto ! the atmosphere is vitally changed. 10. Or again, let us assume a tenement house in the city. The halls reek with the smell of cabbage, corned beef, and onion. Doors stand indecorously ajar, display- ing glimpses of disordered rooms, scattered garments, old brooms, boxes, slouchy women, and dirty shouting chil- 62 SHOKT STORIES IN THE MAKING dren. Is not here an atmosphere of shiftlessness or in- competence? But add now some laughter and broad repartee. An impression of the element of irresponsible happiness supersedes the previous impression of shift- lessness. Then let the rent-collector and an officer ap- pear, with dispossess writs against one of the tenants; laughter gives way to grief, and neighborly merriment to neighborly sympathy. Yet again, suppose the author to conceive a story of village life, in which the selfish per- sistence of one man in keepiiig pigs produces unsanitary conditions from which an epidemic starts, causing the death of several neighbors' children. The author, tak- ing this theme seriously, turns out a story the atmosphere of which is heavy with selfishness and tragedy. And then suppose that he conceives his theme lightly instead of tragically, constructing a story in which neighborhood pigs, neighborhood rows, and simon-pure human nature supply a farcical narrative. The atmosphere is now quite changed. In these two instances, it is the author's viewpoint that determined what the atmosphere and therefore the subjective effect on the reader would be. Illustration could be continued indefinitely, but the fact is already manifest. Anything whatever that, whether by outright assertion or by reactive suggestion, serves to produce a subjective impression, to create the illusion of psychological quality, is atmosphere material. 11. Atmosphere, we said, is hard to define. The at- mosphere story is hard to write successfully. It is the work of the highly skilled ; for atmosphere is the fine flavor of literary and dramatic ingredients blended by a master. A writer may be able to develop a theme, construct and manage a plot, and portray a character successfully, and THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 63 yet fall short of attaining true, or natural, or satisfying atmosphere. 12. For atmosphere is the product of high artistic gift rather than of immediate effort. Before there can be atmosphere there must be sharp and deep insight, catholic sympathy, and almost universal observation'; and these must be accompanied by great powers of accurate literary expression. Without this observation, this knowledge of one's material in all its aspects, this under- standing and sympathy, or without the literary gift that enables one to give to others, through words, a realization of things as they have revealed themselves to him, without these, there can be no fine exhalation of the inner nature of personality, surroundings, incident, and action into the illuminating, clarifying, softening, individual- izing, naturalizing, humanizing quality that we term atmosphere. 13. Of which comment, the moral is this: Before attacking the atmosphere story, master theme, plot, and / characterization; learn nature, human nature, and men; acquire the habit of observing with all the minute care of the scientist and all the sympathetic understanding of the artist ; and develop a master's skill in exact words. When this has been done when you can report the thing as in itself it really is you will not have to strive for atmosphere. The atmosphere will create itself for you, secured surely and accurately through the truthfulness of your report. 14. The student may feel some confusion about the relationship between atmosphere, as here defined, and the emotional appeal, frequently spoken of in discussions of fiction. The terms merely name different aspects of the 64: SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING same thing. Atmosphere is a quality possessed by and permeating the story, and inherent in its parts and ma- terials. Then, having atmosphere, it has emotional ap- peal is able to set up in the reader a subjective, or emo- tional, response to its own subjective, or emotional, qual- ity. The one is cause; the other is effect. As we have noted, any and every element of the narrative may and usually does have, in some degree, subjective coloring, or emotional quality. It follows that every part and portion of the narrative may have emotional appeal (sub- jective stimulus). One well-chosen word, expressing a clearly-sensed feeling of the author for some inherent quality or mood of the situation, the person, the charac- ter, the scene, the environment, the act, may tinge or dye all the story with this same quality or mood. Emo- tional appeal (or subjective stimulus), therefore, depends upon subjective coloring, i.e., atmosphere; and atmosphere depends upon the fineness of sense with which the writer feels the manifold qualities of his materials and the ef- fectiveness with which he is able to translate these quali- ties into the words with which he reports the story. 15. Ultimately, then, atmosphere and subjective effect depend upon the author first, upon the fineness, the sympathy, the comprehending power of his understanding and interpreting imagination, enabling him to put himself in every situation and in the place of every person in every situation, sensing deeply and truly the essential qualities inherent in them ; and second, upon his well- considered selection of the particular qualities to be em- phasized and intensified for the purposes of the story. We shall see (XVIII. 3) that the story may be told from either of three main angles of view as if it were nar- THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 65 rated by (a) an actor in it, (b) an observer merely, or (c) a person completely dissociated from its events in every way and that the author cannot get far in plan- ning his story until he has decided which of these angles of view he will adopt for his narration. We must now note also that his attitude of sympathy and emotion as well as his angle of narration will mightily affect the quality discernible in his story. It determines the in- herent quality by determining the particular aspects of the materials which he shall select and the particular qualities in these aspects that he shall, by means of his treatment and expression, intensify and make dominant in the narrative. He may elect to be sentimental in at- titude; in which case he will select incidents, settings, acts, character traits, speeches, and situations, that are predominantly sentimental. He may elect to be pathetic ; in which case it will be the quality of pathos that he will seek in his selection of materials and his manner of treat- ment and expression. Or he may elect to intensify pathos into tragedy, or to assume a humorous 23 attitude ; his choice of materials, of treatment, and of expression always varying according to the requirements, of this attitude. 16. The attitude, therefore, or subjective point of view, assumed by the author toward his story, is what determines its emotional appeal, or subjective quality; 28 The effect of the conte always tending to be in the main emotional, humor is suitable to it, but wit less so; wit being less emotional than intellectual in quality. The guises in which humor appear are: (a) permeative dispersed throughout the story, re- gardless of its particular form or type; (b) comedy; (c) farce comedy; (d) burlesque. The presence of wit in dominating quantity tends to produce rather comedy of satire and irony than comedy of humor. 66 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING and it determines this by determining the selection of materials to be incorporated in the story as a means of provoking in the reader a subjective response to the feeling of the author of putting him into a subjective attitude corresponding to that assumed by the author. A word more, then, may be worth while about the means available for communicating this feeling, and provoking this attitude. The sense of the subjective coloring, of the emotional quality, is communicated, first, by the ma- terials themselves, and second, by the language chosen with which to report them. The two means are of course always co-workers. But in the work of the inexperienced and the artificial writer, too much dependence on words and too little upon materials are often found; they de- pend on words, not facts, for effect. Yet the words can produce their effect only when they are fully adapted to the thought and emotion only when they adequately and truly report the facts to express which they have been as- sembled. Hence words merely, unbacked by feeling, are futile. The subjective quality must exist in the materials before words can be chosen fitly to embody, express, and communicate it. Yet the number of writers who depend on words instead of materials for subjective effect, is legion. 17. The selection of materials, therefore, wherein the subjective quality is inherent of materials that are sig- nificant of subjective quality and mood is imperative. This selection well made, the adapting of the language to the material may call for either of two procedures : cutting down the number of words, or increasing the number of words, i.e., using more words with a view to the full com- munication of a sense of the subjective quality. Words THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 67 are to be increased when the fads themselves, less fully reported, will not sufficiently or certainly carry the effect of emotional quality. The author then employs epithets, descriptive phrases, and other quality- or mood-suggest- ing expressions either denotative or connotative in order that an adequate sense of the particular subjective quality may be aroused in the reader. Words are so used in the sentence, " Her vestal mannerisms and her too knowledgeable manner, as if she were overripe from mani- fold experiences of the world. . . ." 18. On the other hand, some facts and situations are so great and fundamental as to imply, without comment or addition, the quality or mood inherent in them. They make their emotional appeal simply, directly, and un- aided. The power and adequacy of the simple assertion, " Jesus wept," has been noted endlessly as an example. In dealing with such self-interpreting facts and situa- tions, the superb economy of speech often characteristic of the Bible is advisable. To be sure, every situation is a new situation, and therefore a rule unto itself; but no situation that is intrinsically emotional calls for much verbal exploitation. Such situations are those that most depend upon the primal, basic instincts and emotions of man; whereas those that depend upon less universal facts for their subjective quality may need interpretation. When, therefore, subjective effects are involved that de- pend upon acquired emotions, ideals, or points of view, 24 fuller characterization is necessary; for the quality of these is at once more diverse and less familiar to general 24 Such emotions, ideals, and points of view, for instance, as result from education; trom sophistication; from economic and social status; from the refining influences of culture, etc. 68 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING experience. Comparatively few words (for instance) are likely to be needed in conveying the emotional quality of a scene in which father and mother stand by the death- bed of their first-born; the situation carries and com- municates its own emotion. But writers have not un- happily expended pages in bodying forth the feelings of Penrod the grammar-school boy in some of the juvenile crises of life. The less obvious, the less familiar to general experience, the less an outcome of universal fact, the subjective quality is, the more likely it is to require fuller word-portrayal; the more it depends on universal fact, the more familiar it is to general experience, the less it will require multiplication of words to procure it comprehension and provoke response. 19. With some more general explanation, we can now close this part of our discussion. As the story must have emotional, or subjective, quality, and as the quality pre- sented must be true, the author must, to produce the es- sential subjective coloring, have himself felt and com- prehended the feeling that he attempts to embody in his story. The more deeply and widely he has felt, therefore, the more will he be able to find in life, and to reproduce in his work, the essential elements of emotion. To have lived, to have loved, to have laughed, to have wept, and through accumulated experience to have ripened this seems the logical preparation for the highest effectiveness in creating stories that will have emotional appeal especially so in stories dealing with the more serious aspects of life. True, the exuberant, fancy and spirits of youth make up to some extent for unripeness and in- experience but not when the deepest meanings of exist- ence are to be interpreted. Youthfulness of spirit need THEORY OF THE SHORT STORY TYPE 69 not end with the early years of manhood; rightly con- served, emotion strengthens and intensifies itself, not thins and perishes; and he can best portray life who through maturity of thought and feeling through long experience has most perfected his knowledge of life. 20. But experience may produce, not ripeness, but that false maturity, sophistication. Better the green but vital imagination of youth than the mature but sophis- ticated indifference and cynicism of years. For deep, spontaneous, and natural emotion is not to be felt in sophistication. Neither is the sophistication belonging to a class, society, or age, to be permitted to pass its conven- tions and attitudes off in the place of true emotion. These things abound in subjective quality material, but are jiever to be mistaken for or presented as true emotion, and the author must preserve an attitude toward them that will result in showing them forth for what they are, not for the things they falsely assume to be. Before the deep as well as true emotion can be portrayed, the accidental must be stripped away, 25 and when persons who have be- come sophisticated, over-refined, or corrupted to a false conception of men and life, when such persons are to be presented as feeling true emotion, they must first be brought back ruthlessly to their primitive human nature. This can be accomplished only by subjecting them to the humanizing influence of events that strike with brutal primal directness at the roots of their pride, pretense, 25 In such cases, the value of the " foil " the character or situa- tion that offsets and contrasts with another is great. The effect of presenting sham, convention, and pinchbeck emotion in contrast with the true emotion, is often tremendous. Consider the Maid of Orleans, in her sincerity and devout unselfishness a foil to all the court of France, and of England also. 70 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING prejudice, ignorance, and self-complacency. And to be able thus to discriminate between the true and the false, between perverted and fundamental human character, the I author must devoutly have preserved himself from false culture, false refinement, false pride, and false wisdom which is sophistication and black ignorance. To see and to understand all things in all men this must be his aim and achievement. 21. Yet truth compels the acknowledgment that an t emotional appeal is sometimes made at least with tem- porary success by artificial stimuli, not by the legiti- mate method of reporting with accuracy the thing together with its natural accompaniment of subjective quality. It is possible to heap up pitiful details excessively to portray emotion where none is present to play on the feelings falsely to get a burst of tears or a burst of laughter under " false pretenses." Bad practice, this, bad art, and bad artistic morals, the only temptation to which will perhaps be, the chance to sell to editors whose readers have a perverted taste and small artistic judgment. Whether r tis better thus to sell, perchance to thrive, or to withstand the darts and slings of editorial rejections, keeping thereby one's artistic self-respect that is the question. Let him who writes solve it, remembering that such editors do not represent all the market for literary wares; remembering, too, that the conscience too long accustomed to light behavior presently loses much of its sense of differences. Literary creativeness may fly out of the window when literary charlatanism comes in at the door. CHAPTER II THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PLOT XII. THE SHOET STORY PLOT MUCH RESEMBLES THAT OF THE ONE-ACT PLAY 1. The conte is a one-act play narrated, not acted. On the whole, this is so nearly true that we can take the play, especially the one-act play, as a guide to most of the short story principles that are dramatic, not narrative, in their essentials. The principles of dramatic plot are especially available. If not all of them can be appro- priated bodily by short stojy^ art, those that cannot be ap- propriated can nevertheless be profitably studied by it. 2. What then ar^ the essentials of a dramatic plot ? They are : A. Persons acting. B. Persons acting in accordance with, or else (under the stress of conflict and situation) contrary to their previous character. C. Things happening or done (acts and incidents), these things constituting an interlocking series ending in a conclusive outcome. D. The things that are done resulting from the char- acter of the persons plus the situation (the sense of the word here is both general and specific). E. These things reacting on the persons in some such way as to seem likely to affect their future (especially 71 72 SHOKT STORIES IN THE MAKING as determined by their character. This will be shown in the outcome, in which the character will be seen either to persist unchanged after passage through a crisis, or else to have been altered in some respect as the result of pass- ing through the crisis). F. A set of conditions or influences, whether the re- sult of character or of circumstances, that affect the per- sons and are in opposition some to the others ; this con- trary pull or push of influences rendering the outcome uncertain and thereby constituting the complication in the plot, this in turn creating the conflict and consequently the crisis. 3. Again, regarding the plot as an interlocking series of events culminating in a definite outcome, we shall find in it these fundamental elements, or constructional materials: A. . Motive, motivation : The reason, or causes, of the things happening or done. These causes will lie in char- acter, or in the circumstances, or (usually) in character and the circumstances reacting on each other. B. Action: The things that happen or are done acts and incidents (see Sec. IX, 4) proceeding toward the outcome. C. Outcome: The fulfillment, or issue of the action under the influence of the motivating causes. 1 4. Every plot must have a beginning, a middle, and an end; that is, the matters that precipitate the action, the progress and development of the action and situation, and the conclusive outcome of the action as this action is in- 1 The technical term catastrophe is so often associated merely with tragedy and tragic outcome that it becomes confusing when used to designate outcomes that are not tragic. Denouement likewise is confusing and ambiguous. Therefore, the simpler term outcome is employed. THEOKY AND PRACTICE OF THE PLOT 73 fluenced by the attendant circumstances. The beginning is that portion of the plot-facts which makes plain to us enough of the character traits and circumstances in- volved to enable us to understand the action. The end- ing is that part which brings the outcome and its conse- quences. The middle includes all the plot-facts not be- longing to the beginning or the end the main course of action, the main body of incident and event, the main part of the characterization, and (usually) the main portion of the atmosphere effects. 5. At this point we should make note of the difference between the order of events and incidents in the plot, as the plot is conceived to support the action and outcome (that is, as an abstract, or outline, of motivating causes and events), and the order of events and incidents as they may present themselves in the completed drama or , story. In the plot abstract, everything must come in the natural order cause before effect and motive before deed. Unless this order were followed, logical plotting would not be possible. But in the play or story that is built on the plot so conceived, this order is subject to free manipula- tion. The deed may be shown before its motive is re- vealed, the effect become apparent before its cause. This is here equivalent to saying that the opening of a play or story does not of necessity contain the material that actually constitutes the beginning of the plot, and that other variations also of the natural sequence may occur. This fact is mentioned at this time merely that the student shall not be left to think that the beginning of the story necessarily is identical in content with the be- ginning of the plot. Let us therefore return to con- sideration of the plot. 74 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING 6. Technically, the plot consists of several divisions, representing stages of progress, namely: A. The EXPOSITION, or stage of introductory explana- tion. This ends with the exciting moment, or inciting impulse the moment at which the complicating influences first appear and the conflict begins to reveal itself. B. 'The RISING ACTION, or critical period. This begins with the inciting impulse, or moment, and continues, often by successive stages of increasing power or intensity, to the decisive moment. This point that at which the out- come is, by the progress of events, made now sure should when possible coincide with the so-called grand climax, height, or climactic moment. The climactic mo- ment, as usually defined, is the moment when the sus- pense is greatest, and therefore the interest most tense ; it is frequently, though confusingly, termed the climax. But in truth the decisive moment, not the so-called height or grand climax, marks the end of the development and the beginning of the falling action; for this moment is that at which one certain outcome at last is made sure by the combined effect of events already past. Evidently, therefore, the most skillful plotting will be that in which the decisive moment, or height of the plot, likewise is the climactic moment, or height of the action the point, that is, of greatest suspense and tensest interest. This does not, however, always happen; the height of the plot may not coincide with the height of the action, and therefore the grand climax may precede or follow the decisive mo- ment. It is more likely to follow than to precede. 2 2 In tragedy, the decisive moment is also known as the tragic moment. With the decisive moment (when recognized immediately), "anticipatory delay" begins; this continues until the outcome is THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PLOT 75 C. The FALLING ACTION. This part is that which fol- lows the decisive moment. It can be regarded as the beginning and approach of the end. Frequent names for it are denouement, untangling, or resolution of the plot. We shall, however, be accurate enough and more com- prehensible if we call it merely that part which carries us on, as rapidly as may be, from the decisive moment to the outcome. It may contain the climactic situation ; but when it does so, the interest of this situation will not in- frequently be found to depend on intensifying influences other than those of the bare plot. D. The OUTCOME (also called by some denouement or catastrophe}. In modern plotting, the tendency is more and more to telescope falling action and denouement into outcome, ending the action as quickly as possible after the decisive moment and the grand climax. Indeed, in the cottte and the short play, " falling action " is often scarcely to be found. Instead, the decisive moment and the moment of grand climax practically include the out- come, or at least bring it immediately after them. Conclu- sions following the outcome are no longer found. 7. For a good many pages now our attention will be occupied by discussion of plotting and the plot. In con- sidering this discussion, the student should bear in mind this caution : the word " plot " may and often does cover everything from a bare statement of the central thought, theme, or germ-idea of the plot, up to the completed story embodying the plot in its final and most finished form. reached. Within it comes often a point of " final suspense," at which the outcome, before assured, seems again to hang in the balance. Jn fact, the anticipatory delay may include a number of points of balanced suspense. f ft SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING Perhaps this ~will be clearer if we say that the plot may present itself in various degrees of fullness. These de- grees of amplitude, or stages of amplification, may be listed roughly as follows: A. Plot germ (or " master plot"). A more or less general conception, or thought ; the first undeveloped form of an idea out of which may grow a true plot. In effect, it is a theme ; and if the figure of speech be continued, we can say that the first stage of development from the plot germ produces the plot embryo (see B here following) ; the material is no longer in plasmic form, but has been organized and limited enough to have its own distinct form and characteristics, and its own natural tendency to grow or develop in a certain definite direction. That is, the plot germ turned into a plot embryo produces the working-plot. The embryo is more commonly the first form in which the plot occurs to the writer's mind. (See Hawthorne's notebooks for many examples of germ and embryo.) V B. Working-plot, or plot embryo. In the working-plot, the germ thought has been developed enough so that it affords a clear epitome, or miniature, of the full plot as it will be when developed. It is the complete plot com- pacted into the fewest possible words. The working-plot represents the first stage in the evolution that is enough advanced to present the plot definitely as a whole, al- though only in miniature. 0. Plot abstract or synopsis. The plot abstract gives us the working-plot enlarged into a skeletonized summary of the leading incidents and action. In the plot abstract the writer provides for the solution of all his serious problems of motivation. THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PLOT 77 D. Scenario. A plot abstract amplified further, and rearranged to bring incidents, scenes, etc., into the order they will have in the completed story. Here the writer must adjust anything he finds amiss in the previous moti- vation; provide for the auxiliary and supplemental in- cident and situation and for any atmosphere materials not involved in his motivation of incident, action, and charac- ter; and in general, reconstruct and amplify until he has a very definite forecast of the story in its completed form. The scenario may be regarded as a thoroughgoing ab- stract of the story in its completed form. A scenario confined solely to plot elements (amplified synopsis) is known as an action-plot. E. Fulfilled plot. This is merely the amplified scenario, or completed story. 8. The evolution of a plot, therefore, begins with the plot embryo (or the germ). Plot abstract and scenario represent the workman's devices for managing and subjecting his materials to his purpose. The fulfilled plot, or completed story, represents his skill as a workman in handling his materials and employing the devices of his trade, plus his innate literary ability. In reading the discussion that follows, the student will be helped by keeping these distinctions in mind, although the refer- ences are usually to plot abstract, and action-plot the most important stages of plot construction. 9. Examples of plot germ, working-plot, and plot ab- stract are here given: (1) Germ: Dishonorable conduct on the part of a son who lacks a sense of honor may crush a highly hon- orable father. (2) Working-plot, or embryo (the germ idea developed 78 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING into a more concrete conception) : Billings, lacking a sense of honor, by mispresenting facts induces his father to become surety on a bond for construction work that Billings fails to complete; and his father, scrupulously discharging the obligation, is ruined. [Another: Bill- ings, lacking a sense of honor, basely betrays an innocent girl, and his disgraceful conduct breaks his father's heart.] (3) Plot abstract: Billings, an unscrupulous man, is a contractor, and bids upon an important piece of con- struction. To make certain of winning, he names too low a price and specifies terms obscurely under which he expects to " catch " the employing firm and recoup himself. But this firm is doubtful of him, and requires an iron-clad bond, which he cannot procure. In despera- tion he deceives his father about the facts and gets his signature to the bond. But Billings has to perform his contract under a competent and incorruptible inspector, and is therefore unable to work the tricks by which he expected to make his profits ; so that he finds himself with- out funds to complete the work and is ruined. His father, refusing to take advantage of technical defenses against his responsibility, sacrifices his own fortune in meeting his obligations under- /the bond, and is completely ruined. (4) Action-plot: This again would amplify the plot abstract, working out in detail the general action indi- cated in the abstract, and making any transpositions or inversions that seem desirable in the order of events. (5) Scenario: Would be the action-plot with the addition of the other necessary elements of the story in- dicated in compact form. THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PLOT 79 XIII. THE EXPOSITION is THE INTRODUCING PART OF THE PLOT 1. Every plot has an outcome. This implies that there has, in the course of the action, been either a change or an imminent likelihood of change, from one state of things to another; the change either took place, or else it was averted. This in turn implies that, to understand this change and the manner in which it came about or was averted, we must know what the state of things was at the time when the action began. The purpose of the exposition in plot is^ to make known this state of affairs from which there is to be a change, or in which (after a period of struggle or critical uncertainty) change is to be averted. That is, the function of the exposition is, to \ make the story clear by putting before us the facts that belong to the beginning of the plot. 2. No one should take the term " exposition " to mean what is known technically in rhetoric as exposition, or infer that exposition, in the rhetorical sense, is the means finally to be employed in making the situation clear out of which the action has its rise. Formal exposition has no prominent part in any stage of dramatic or narrative writing. This part of the plot is expository only in the sense that through it is clearly explained the beginning state of affairs. But even in the plot abstract, its methods are not the methods of rhetorical exposition, and like the completed story, it depends, even in its condensed form, mainly on narration, dramatic action, and description. Certainly when the time comes to embody the intro- ductory facts of the exposition in the story itself, they are to be presented as far as possible through the words SO SHORT STOKIES IN THE MAKING and deeds of persons belonging to the story, and not through any formal explanation. 3. In the exposition, great compression and economy of detail are to be observed. By economy of detail is meant the introduction of no more facts than are neces- sary to serve the purpose. This implies the careful in- spection of all the pertinent facts, to determine which are most serviceable and which can be set aside. For some facts will prove unnecessary, either because they indicate matters that are already sufficiently shown, or because they indicate matters that are not essential to a clear following of the story. The principle of economy of detail is important throughout narration, but it is es- pecially important in the exposition. For the exposition does not exist for its own sake, but merely as an aid to the understanding an introduction to and initiation of the action; and its usefulness and interest cease as soon as it has brought the reader to the point where he can begin to follow the movement of the plot for himself. 4. In the fulfilled plot, or completed story, distribu- tion of the detail closely follows economy of detail in importance. By distribution we refer to the gradual in- troduction of preliminary information as the narration proceeds. That all the information ultimately demanded by adequate exposition be introduced immediately when the story begins, is not necessary. The best results are likely to come from distributing this information through the story, some here and some there, as circumstances permit or demand. Nevertheless, in general principle, it should come as early as possible. Here it is necessary again to distinguish the order of the facts in the com- pleted story from their order in the plot abstract, In THEORY AND PRACTICE or THE PLOT 81 the plot abstract, the facts necessary to the exposition of course come at the first, and it is not until we begin the amplification of the plot abstract into scenario form that we face the problems of distribution. 5. As the information constituting the exposition can be presented in various ways, such a distribution is more easy than it would be otherwise. The information can be given in direct statement by the author ; it can be em- bodied in descriptive passages; it can be presented in the course of conversation between persons in the: story; and it can be suggested by acts and incidents forming part of the action itself. Therefore, when he has the expository information clearly in mind, the writer finds many opportunities of distributing it, as needed, through the narrative. That this method, when it is practicable, is the better, is obvious. An exhaustive outline of the situa- tion as a whole (whether this outline be introduced at the opening of the story or injected later on) is usually more mechanical and less pleasing than is an exposition skillfully scattered in inconspicuous places through the narrative. The distributed exposition does not attract attention to itself as such, but merges itself in the more important development of the story as a whole; nor does it interrupt or delay the action as the undistributed ex* position nearly always does. The explanation is realized without being perceived, and it so becomes more homoger neously a part of the plot itself. 6. We well may emphasize the superiority of the dis* tributed exposition in bringing on the action more promptly. So far as narrative or dramatic interest is concerned, the story does not really begin until the de* velopment, or " movement/' of the plot begins; all before 82 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING this is nothing but prelude and make-ready. To hold back the reader longer than is necessary from the course of events in which his interest will find its source if he be- come interested at all, is poor artistry. To bring him as quickly as possible to the real stuff and business of the story is the aim of the skilled artist. A large proportion of the most successful stories open therefore with some- thing vital to the plot itself, leaving the expository matter for introduction later on. Frequently the necessary ex- position can be embodied naturally in the early speeches of the persons. This method is especially dramatic and effective. That by thus distributing this information the writer can usually clear the way for an immediate plunge into the business of the story itself, is sufficient evidence of the value of the distributed exposition. 7. Yet the general superiority of the distributed ex- position does not imply that the distributed exposition is always to be preferred. A massed exposition may be better in particular instances. The nature of the ma- terial to be handled, the purpose of the author in telling the story, the mood or tone which he decides upon for the narrative, and the method of development which he adopts any of these may make the massed exposition prefer- able or necessary. An illustration is afforded by one type of structure in the contrast story, namely, that in which the effect aimed at is produced by the difference between conditions as they are at the beginning of the story and as they are at the time of the outcome. True, distribu- tion of the expository matter may prove as advantageous in the contrast story as in any other kind, for the intro- duction of the successive portions serves constantly to renew the suggestion of contrast. But the writer may THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PLOT 83 prefer to set off the contrasted facts in two distinct groups, one balancing the other. He then unhesitatingly employs the massed exposition. 8. Somewhat of this type is Eichard Harding Davis's " A Question of Latitude " (in Once Upon a Time, Scrib- ner). In this story, the influence of tropical African life is shown upon the morals and tastes of a Boston gentle- man. The larger part of the story is consumed in making evident the nature, the savage brutality and vileness of barbarian tropical existence; against which portrayal is balanced that part of the story in which the Boston gen- tleman is seen succumbing to these debasing influences. If we wish, we may object that part of this exposition is not exposition at all, but development, intensification, and atmosphere creation. Even so, however, the utility and effect of the massed exposition when used fitly can be plainly seen in Mr. Davis's story. 9. A review of these considerations reveals the fol- lowing chief facts about exposition as a plot factor : First, it is essential to an understanding of the outcome in all instances except those in which character, motive, and action completely explain themselves without preliminary exposition (that is, it gives us the beginnings). Second, the greatest compression and economy of detail are neces- sary in presenting the exposition, for the sole justification of the exposition is its service in making clear the story proper, and it must not usurp space or interest. Third, severe testing of all the information admitted is necessary, to avoid the introduction of matter that is impertinent or redundant. Fourth, in the fulfilled plot, distribution of expository matter through the story is usually preferable, because this enables the writer to enter quickly on the &4 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING action of the story itself, and causes the exposition to merge more homogeneously in the narration; but the question of preferring the distributed to the massed ex- position must be answered by considering the nature of the material, the general plan of presentation, and the purpose of the writer. Finally, the test of a good exposi- tion is, sufficient but not superfluous explanation of con- ditions, especially at the beginning of the action, and thorough merging of this material into the story itself. 10. A list of the matters, some or all of which must be known in order to follow the plot understandingly, would be useful, but detailed enumeration is impossible. No one can foresee all the combinations open to the writer when his imagination begins to deal with the limitless mass of material at his command. Some suggestions, nevertheless, are given. It will be noticed that all the items in such a list will be peculiar items that is, they will name details peculiar to the one particular plot, theme, character, or atmosphere. Such matters as are common to all situations or are naturally assumed because they are characteristic accompaniments of the situation developed by the story, call for no explanation. Information that is general property needs no exposition. 11. Expository information that the writer may need to mention includes: A. Particular character traits that affect the plot (e.g., that a man is a woman-hater ; that a perfectly honest wife has the habit of flirting, etc.). B. Particular situations that affect the plot (e.g., that a broker is bankrupt, although his wife does not suspect it; that the maid is in love with the master; that the convict is an innocent man ; that the girl has inclosed the THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PLOT 85 wrong letters in writing to her two lovers at the same time, etc.). C. Names of the persons, with or without further in- formation at the moment (but at least a swift characteriz- ing touch is desirable). D. Occupation or station in life (is the hero a black- smith, a lawyer, a book-keeper? rich or poor? etc.). E. Personal facts peculiarities, mannerisms, age, tastes, etc., as far as these things are necessary to the characterization or important to the action, theme, or atmosphere. F. Time, place, setting, and other elements of environ- ment. G. Any other items necessary to the comprehension of motive, complication, character, theme, action, atmosphere, situation, outcome, or to the final effect. XIV. THE EXCITING MOMENT, OR INCITING IMPULSE, BEGINS THE DEVELOPMENT 1. The exposition represents the status quo, the exist- ing state of things, at the beginning of the action. 3 The moment this existing state of affairs, this status quo, is threatened with change, that moment the action the movement, or development of the plot begins. Something has happened or been done that threatens to produce, or actually produces, change ; 4 matters are not as they were ; a new condition or influence has thrust itself in, and this 8 The reader is cautioned to remember that the order of events in the plot abstract may not be their order in the completed story. We may now assume ourselves to be dealing with the action-plot. 4 This something we may call the generating circumstance. 86 SHORT STORIES IN THE MAKING new element must either be overcome and got rid of, or else must be accepted and permitted to work its natural results. . 2, From this moment, therefore, a struggle will be going on light or serious, tragic or humorous between this new influence and things as they were. Presently this contest will rise, through a period of climax, to a moment of crisis ; then it will reach an outcome ; and with this the story ends. Until this influence appeared, there was no complication, no uncertainty, no question of out- come. In the colloquial phrase, " everything was perfectly simple," quite plain. But the appearance of the compli- cating, or opposing, or change-threatening influence, the complication, brought on uncertainty, debate, struggle that is, the conflict. 3. Now the moment at which the status quo in which affairs were shown to us by the exposition, was brought to an end by the appearance of this complication, is known as the exciting moment; and the complicating influence, no matter what it be, is known as the inciting or exciting force or impulse. Evidently no action, and therefore no dra- matic effect, is possible before the inciting force is intro- duced. When the exciting impulse shows itself again using the popular phrase things begin to move ; and witli the beginning of movement in the plot begins the true development of the story. 4. We may now ask, what sort of thing can supply this inciting force, thus complicating a simple situation and commencing a conflict ? Theoretically, anything which in the experience of man has shown itself able to produce change in his affairs, either directly or indirectly, immediately or remotely, is available as a means of THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PLOT 87 complication. But technical, artistic, and practical conr siderations limit this range of choice of complicating influence. 5. It is desirable, for instance, that the conflict seem to spring from causjxsjhgj,^^ inevitable, and that the complicating facts fit the situation, agreeing with the persons, their character, their environment. That is, it must be natural and congruous. This is especially necessary for the generating circumstance. If either this, or the complication it introduces, be merely accidental, it is likely to seem improbable. If it be evidently manufact- ured, or be something " lugged in " or forced into the situation, it will seem artificial and untrue. To illustrate : It is not common for girls in the ranks of ordinary life to meet young noblemen; therefore when Annie, the daughter of the shoestore man, engaged to John the young, thriving, but, of course, bourgeois grocer, meets the prince of Schwindlermgut, who immediately begins to crowd John in the rivalry for her hand, we feel that the complica- tion is unnatural and forced. As a consequence, all the story seems untrue. But if instead of its being a prince who attracts Annie, it is Mike, the young plumber and hardware dealer, we do not have to gulp very hard to swallow the complication. Things like that do happen; they are natural ; and there is no incongruity about them such as there is in the courtship of a common and com- monplace girl by a prince. 6. Accidental complication is of two sorts: those com-\ plications arising from the ordinary chances and mis- chances of existence, and those arising from accident in the stronger sense of the term a happening that is unusual and extreme. Extreme accident is illustrated by the 88 SHOET STORIES IN THE MAKING following: The wife of a paper manufacturer, happening to pick up, when visiting his mill, a sheet of paper from the waste about to be ground up for new pulp, finds it to be a love letter written to her, but never mailed, by her husband's trusted friend. By this she is led to fall in love with this friend. Now such a discovery as that of the letter is possible, but so extremely accidental as to seem improbable. Only the remotest chance is involved; and if we accept the rest of the story, we can do so only by agreeing with ourselves to overlook the improbability that underlies the motivation at the outset. And this is hard to do; for the complication is vital to the story, and the generating circumstance must be convincing. It must seem natural and true to life. The inciting impulse and ; generating circumstance must seem more than merely adequate to produce the result that follows; they must seem true to the prevailing (not the exceptional) facts of human experience. 7. The other sort of accident is that which constitutes the class of merely ordinary haps and mishaps the kind common to everyday experience, occurring all the year round. Such occurrences seem probable rather than im- probable, they commonly bring no particularly significant consequences, and we instinctively class them with the ordinary events of existence; they soon cease to have meaning or distinction for us. Hence they are likely, when introduced as the inciting force or motivation, or the generating circumstance, to seem inadequate or to fail in impressiveness. This is why complications introduced by such accidents as sprained ankles, swimming mishaps, capsized boats, broken legs, runaways, fires, railway wrecks, sudden illnesses, an