The invention of situations and plots can hardly be a matter of
class-room instruction. If stories come to one, it is well. Study of the
detailed means of making them living for the reader will then be worth
while. The student should be encouraged to invent plots of his own, but
as a simplification of this difficulty, to the end that some exercise in
the writing of a complete story may be had, plots of some successful
published stories are here given with suggestions regarding methods of
treatment.
I
Scene, a saloon where both men and women are drinking. One of
them, a girl, thinks she sees at the window the face of Christ
with his tender eyes. She leaves and will not permit the others
to go with her.
At a little distance she comes upon the stranger waiting for
her. He tells her that when she wakes it will be to a new life
and she will be his, bidding her go to a house he points out and
remain for the night. She obeys, and the man passes into the
shadow.
Introductory sentence in the original, giving the atmosphere of
the story: "This was the story the mystic told." Concluding
sentence in the original, connecting it with our sense of
unfathomable mysteries: "And this the listener gravely asked,
'One was chosen, the others left. Were the others less in need
of grace?'"
Divisions of the story. 1. Visualizing description of the saloon
and of the street outside through which the stranger passes.
2. Appearance of the face at the pane and its effect on the
young girl (_m_3_ "effect"). This is the difficult part of the
story, and the reader can be made to believe in it only through
sympathy with the girl's feeling.