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The "how to" Series
HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL
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| The "how to" Series |
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| I. HOW TO DEAL WITH |
| YOUR BANKER |
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| BY HENRY WARREN |
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| Author of "Banks and their Customers" |
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| _Third Edition._ |
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| _Crown 8vo, Cloth, 5s. 6d._ |
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| II. WHERE AND HOW TO |
| DINE IN PARIS |
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| BY ROWLAND STRONG |
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| _Fcap. 8vo, Cloth, Cover Designed, 2s. 6d._ |
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| III. HOW TO WRITE FOR |
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| BY "L600 A YEAR FROM IT" |
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| IV. HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR |
| BANKER |
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| BY HENRY WARREN |
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| _Crown 8vo, Cloth, 3s. 6d._ |
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| V. HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL: |
| |
| A Practical Guide to the Art |
| of Fiction. |
| |
| _Crown 8vo, Cloth, 3s. 6d._ |
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| VI. HOW TO INVEST AND |
| HOW TO SPECULATE |
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| BY C. H. THORPE |
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| _Crown 8vo, Cloth, 5s._ |
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| LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS |
| 9 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. |
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The "how to" Series
HOW TO WRITE A
NOVEL
A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE ART
OF FICTION
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS
9 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1901
PREFACE
This little book is one which so well explains itself that no
introductory word is needed; and I only venture to intrude a sentence or
two here with a view to explain the style in which I have conveyed my
ideas. I desired to be plain and practical, and therefore chose the
direct and epistolary form as being most suitable for the purpose in
hand.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE OBJECT IN VIEW
PAGE
An Inevitable Comparison 3
A Model Lesson in Novel-Writing 5
The Teachable and the Unteachable 9
CHAPTER II
A GOOD STORY TO TELL
Where do Novelists get their Stories from? 12
Is there a Deeper Question? 14
What about the Newspapers? 17
CHAPTER III
HOW TO BEGIN
Formation of the Plot 25
The Agonies and Joys of "Plot-Construction" 28
Care in the Use of Actual Events 31
The Natural History of a Plot 35
Sir Walter Besant on the Evolution of a Plot 40
Plot-Formation in Earnest 43
Characters first: Plot afterwards 45
The Natural Background 47
CHAPTER IV
CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERISATION
The Chief Character 50
How to Portray Character 52
Methods of Characterisation 55
The Trick of "Idiosyncrasies" 58
CHAPTER V
STUDIES IN LITERARY TECHNIQUE
Narrative Art 63
Movement 66
Aids to Description: The Point of View 67
Selecting the Main Features 70
Description by Suggestion 73
Facts to Remember 75
CHAPTER VI
STUDIES IN LITERARY TECHNIQUE--CONTINUED
Colour: Local and Otherwise 79
What about Dialect? 84
On Dialogue 86
Points in Conversation 91
"Atmosphere" 94
CHAPTER VII
PITFALLS
Items of General Knowledge 96
Specific Subjects 98
Topography and Geography 100
Scientific Facts 101
Grammar 103
CHAPTER VIII
THE SECRET OF STYLE
Communicable Elements 105
Incommunicable Elements 110
CHAPTER IX
HOW AUTHORS WORK
Quick and Slow 116
How many Words a Day? 119
Charles Reade and Anthony Trollope 122
The Mission of Fancy 127
Fancies of another Type 129
Some of our Younger Writers: Mr Zangwill, Mr Coulson
Kernahan, Mr Robert Barr, Mr H. G. Wells 132
Curious Methods 134
CHAPTER X
IS THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF NOVELS EXHAUSTED?
The Question Stated 138
"Change" not "Exhaustion" 142
Why we talk about Exhaustion 145
CHAPTER XI
THE NOVEL _v._ THE SHORT STORY
Practise the Short Story 154
Short Story Writers on their Art 159
CHAPTER XII
SUCCESS: AND SOME OF ITS MINOR CONDITIONS
The Truth about Success 164
Minor Conditions of Success 169
APPENDIX I
THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION. By Edgar Allan Poe 175
APPENDIX II
BOOKS WORTH READING 201
APPENDIX III
MAGAZINE ARTICLE ON WRITING FICTION 205
HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL
CHAPTER I
THE OBJECT IN VIEW
I am setting myself a task which some people would call very ambitious;
others would call it by a name not quite so polite; and a considerable
number would say it was positively absurd, accompanying their criticism
with derisive laughter. Having discussed the possibility of teaching the
art of writing fiction with a good many different kinds of people, I
know quite intimately the opinions which are likely to be expressed
about this little book; and although I do not intend to burden the
reader with an account of their respective merits, I do intend to make
my own position as clear as possible. First of all, I will examine the
results of a recent symposium on the general question.[1:A] When asked
as to the practicability of a School of Fiction, Messrs Robert Barr, G.
Manville Fenn, M. Betham Edwards, Arthur Morrison, G. B. Burgin, C. J.
C. Hyne, and "Mr" John Oliver Hobbes declared against it; Miss Mary L.
Pendered and Miss Clementina Black--with certain reservations--spoke in
favour of such an institution. True, these names do not include all
representatives of the high places in Fiction, but they are quite
respectable enough for my purpose. It will be seen that the vote is
adverse to the object I have in view. Why? Well, here are a few reasons.
Mr Morrison affirms that writing as a trade is far too pleasant an idea;
John Oliver Hobbes is of opinion that it is impossible to teach anyone
how to produce a work of imagination; and Mr G. B. Burgin asserts that
genius is its own teacher--a remark characterised by unwitting modesty.
Now, with the spirit of these convictions I am not disposed to quarrel.
This is an age which imagines that everything can be crammed into the
limits of an academical curriculum; and there are actually some people
who would not hesitate to endow a chair of "Ideas and Imagination." We
need to be reminded occasionally that there are incommunicable elements
in all art.
An Inevitable Comparison
But the question arises: If there be an art of literature, why cannot
its principles be taught and practised as well as those of any other
art? We have schools of Painting, Sculpture, and Music--why not a school
of Fiction? Let it be supposed that a would-be artist has conceived a
brilliant idea which he is anxious to embody in literature or put on a
canvas. In order to do so, he must observe certain well-established
rules which we may call the grammar of art: for just as in literature a
man may express beautiful ideas in ungrammatical language, and without
any sense of relationship or development, so may the same ideas be put
in a picture, and yet the art be of the crudest. Now, in what way will
our would-be artist become acquainted with those rules? The answer is
simple. If his genius had been of the first order he would have known
them intuitively: the society of men and women, of great books and fine
pictures, would have provided sufficient stimuli to bring forth the best
productions of his mind. Thus Shakespeare was never taught the
principles of dramatic art; Bach had an instinctive appreciation of the
laws of harmony; and Turner had the same insight into laws of painting.
These were artists of the front rank: they simply looked--and
understood.
But if his powers belonged to the order which is called _talent_, he
would have to do one of two things: either stumble upon these rules one
by one and learn them by experience--or be taught them in their true
order by others, in which case an Institute of Literary Art would
already exist in an embryonic stage. Why should it not be developed into
a matured school? Is it that the dignity of genius forbids it, or that
pupilage is half a disgrace? True genius never shuns the marks of the
learner. Even Shakespeare grew in the understanding of art and in his
power of handling its elements. Professor Dowden says: "In the 'Two
Gentlemen of Verona,' Porteus, the fickle, is set over against
Valentine the faithful; Sylvia, the bright and intellectual, is set over
against Julia, the ardent and tender; Launce, the humorist, is set over
against Speed, the wit. This indicates a certain want of confidence on
the part of the poet; he fears the weight of too much liberty. He cannot
yet feel that his structure is secure without a mechanism to support the
structure. He endeavours to attain unity of effect less by the
inspiration of a common life than by the disposition of parts. In the
early plays structure determines function; in the later plays
organisation is preceded by life."[5:A]
A Model Lesson in Novel-Writing
When certain grumpy folk ask: "How do you propose to draw up your
lessons on 'The way to find Local Colour'; 'Plotting'; 'How to manage a
Love-Scene,' and so forth?" it is expected that a writer like myself
will be greatly disconcerted. Not at all. It so happens that a
distinguished critic, now deceased, once delivered himself on the
possibility of teaching literary art, and I propose to quote a paragraph
or two from his article. "The morning finds the master in his working
arm-chair; and seated about the room which is generally the study, but
is now the studio, are some half-dozen pupils. The subject for the hour
is narrative-construction, and the master holds in his hand a small MS.
which, as he slowly reads it aloud, proves to be a somewhat elaborate
synopsis of the story of one of his own published or projected novels.
The reading over, students are free to state objections, or to ask
questions. One remarks that the _denouement_ is brought about by a mere
accident, and therefore seems to lack the inevitableness which, the
master has always taught, is essential to organic unity. The criticism
is recognised as intelligent, but the master shows that the accident has
not the purely fortuitous character which renders it obnoxious to the
general objection. While it is technically an accident, it is in reality
hardly accidental, but an occurrence which fits naturally into an
opening provided by a given set of circumstances, the circumstances
having been brought about by a course of action which is vitally
characteristic of the person whose fate is involved. Then the master
himself will ask a question. 'The students,' he says, 'will have noticed
that a character who takes no important part in the action until the
story is more than half told, makes an insignificant and unnoticeable
appearance in a very early chapter, where he seems a purposeless and
irrelevant intrusion.' They have paper before them, and he gives them
twenty minutes in which to state their opinion as to whether this
premature appearance is, or is not, justified by the canons of narrative
art, giving, of course, the reasons upon which that opinion has been
formed. The papers are handed in to be reported upon next morning, and
the lesson is at an end."[7:A]
This is James Ashcroft Noble's idea of handling a theme in fiction; one
of a large and varied number. To me it is a feasible plan emanating from
a man who was the sanest of literary advisers. If it be objected that Mr
Noble was only a critic and not a novelist, perhaps a word from Sir
Walter Besant may add the needful element of authority. "I can conceive
of a lecturer dissecting a work, or a series of works, showing how the
thing sprang first from a central figure in a central group; how there
arose about this group, scenery, the setting of the fable; how the
atmosphere became presently charged with the presence of mankind, other
characters attaching themselves to the group; how situations, scenes,
conversations, led up little by little to the full development of this
central idea. I can also conceive of a School of Fiction in which the
students should be made to practise observation, description, dialogue,
and dramatic effects. The student, in fact, would be taught how to use
his tools." A reading-class for the artistic study of great writers
could not be other than helpful. One lesson might be devoted to the way
in which the best authors foreshadowed crises and important turns in
events. An example may be found in "Julius Caesar," where, in the second
scene, the soothsayer says:
"Beware the Ides of March!"
--a solitary voice in strange contrast with those by whom he is
surrounded, and preparing us for the dark deed upon which the play is
based. Or the text-book might be a modern novel--Hardy's "Well-Beloved"
for instance--a work full of delicate literary craftsmanship. The storm
which overtook Pierston and Miss Bencomb is prepared for--first by the
conversation of two men who pass them on the road, and one of whom
casually remarks that the weather seems likely to change; then Pierston
himself observes "the evening--louring"; finally, and most suddenly, the
rain descends in perfect fury.
The Teachable and the Unteachable
I hope my position is now beginning to be tolerably clear to the reader.
I address myself to the man or woman of talent--those people who have
writing ability, but who need instruction in the manipulation of
characters, the formation of plots, and a host of other points with
which I shall deal hereafter. As to what is teachable, and not
teachable, in writing novels, perhaps I may be permitted to use a close
analogy. Style, _per se_, is absolutely unteachable simply because it is
the man himself; you cannot teach _personality_. Can Dickens, Thackeray,
and George Meredith be reduced to an academic schedule? Never. Every
soul of man is an individual entity and cannot be reproduced. But
although style is incommunicable, the writing of easy, graceful English
can be taught in any class-room--that is to say, the structure of
sentences and paragraphs, the logical sequence of thought, and the
secret of forceful expression are capable of exact scientific treatment.
In like manner, although no school could turn out novelists to order--a
supply of Stevensons annually, and a brace of Hardys every two
years--there is yet enough common material in all art-work to be mapped
out in a course of lessons. I shall show that the two great requisites
of novel-writing are (1) a good story to tell, and (2) ability to tell
it effectively. Briefly stated, my position is this: no teaching can
produce "good stories to tell," but it can increase the power of "the
telling," and change it from crude and ineffective methods to those
which reach the apex of developed art. Of course there are dangers to
be avoided, and the chief of them is that mechanical correctness, "so
praiseworthy and so intolerable," as Lowell says in his essay on
Lessing. But this need not be an insurmountable difficulty. A truly
educated man never labours to speak correctly; being educated,
grammatical language follows as a necessary consequence. The same is
true of the artist: when he has learned the secrets of literature, he
puts away all thoughts of rule and law--nay, in time, his very ideas
assume artistic form.
FOOTNOTES:
[1:A] _The New Century Review_, vol. i.
[5:A] "Shakespeare: His Mind and Art," p. 61.
[7:A] Article in _The New Age_.