=29.= The suggestions that follow are phrased to cover the matter of
visualization, but they touch upon general principles which are of wider
application. It has seemed more convenient at this point to give them
this specific treatment.
=30. Author's Purpose should be Concealed.=--An attempt to bring about a
visualization or any other artistic effect in the mind of the reader is
foredoomed to failure when in any way the writer's purpose too evidently
betrays itself as such. Too much in the way of direct statement or
predication is one indication of such purpose, and is therefore more or
less ineffectual. For effective visualization some sort of preparation
of the mood or sympathies of the reader is generally required. This,
however, should be concealed, being accomplished through suggestion, as
is the visualization itself.
=31. Unity in Visualization.=--A visualization should be so managed as
to bring the whole picture, or nearly all of it, into the mind at once.
It is partly because it does not do this that the method by details is
not generally effective. A string of incomplete images passing through
the mind, each one taking the place of the preceding and effacing it, is
not artistically satisfying. It is possible to retain such separate
images and at the end bring them together in a complete picture, but
this will require effort on the part of the reader; and it is
fundamentally important in all writing to reduce the conscious attention
and effort of the reader to the lowest point. Only extreme literary art
can so nullify this effort in effect as to make description by detail
pleasurable, if of any length. Description by detail is, perhaps, more
admissible in writing having a meditative tone than in any other,
except, of course, technical description.
=32. Fine Writing.=--Fine writing is especially to be avoided in
visualization, since the tone of artificiality is immediately
destructive of the reader's confidence in the sincerity of the writer.
It betrays the author's purpose of producing an effect. The appearance
of truth free from any semblance of over-statement is a first requisite.
=33.= In any visualization harmony of detail is of prime importance.
Even in describing something actually seen it will sometimes be
necessary to leave out items really present, but not of a kind to
contribute to the general effect. The saying that "Truth is stranger
than fiction" should read that fiction may not be as strange as truth.
Harmony of mood is important, as well as harmony of detail, in the thing
described. If the picture is a quiet one, exclamatory excitement on the
part of the writer, however affecting the scene may be supposed to be,
will prevent its becoming real to the reader. These things are, then, to
be borne in mind with regard to the elements of a visualization: the
details presented must be so far true to common knowledge and
experience as to gain ready belief, they must have unity in fact and in
effect, and they must also be sufficiently individual to appeal to the
mind with something of the sense of novelty.