HOW TO BEGIN
You have now obtained your story--in its bare outlines, at least. The
next question is, How are you to make a start? Well, that is an
important question, and it cannot be evaded.
Clarence Rook, in a waggish moment, said two things were necessary in
order to write a novel:
(1) _Writing Materials_,
(2) _A Month_;
but he seems to have thought that the month should be a month's
imprisonment for attempting such an indiscretion. In these pages,
however, we are serious folk, and having thanked Mr Rook for his
pleasantry, we return to the point before us.
First of all, What kind of a novel is yours to be? Historical? If so,
have you read all the authorities? Do you feel the throb of the life of
that period about which you are going to write? Are its chief personages
living beings in your imagination? and have you learned all the details
respecting customs, manners, language, and dress? If not, you are very
far from being ready to make a start, even though the "story" itself is
quite clear to you.
Our great historical novelists devour libraries before they sit down to
write. One would like to know how many books Dr Conan Doyle digested
before he published "The Refugees," and Stanley Weyman before he brought
out his "A Gentleman of France." Do not be carried away with the
alluring idea that it is easy to take up historical subjects because the
characters are there to hand, and the "story" practically "made."
Directly you make the attempt, you will find out your mistake. Write
about the life you know best--the life of the present day. You will then
avoid the necessity of keeping everything in chronological
perspective--a necessity which an open-air preacher, whom I heard last
week, quite forgot when he said that the sailors shouted down the
hatchway to the sleeping Prophet of Nineveh: "Jonah! We're sinking! Come
and help us with the pumps!"
No; before you begin, have a clear idea of what you are going to do. The
type of your story will in many cases decide the kind of treatment
required; but it may be well, nevertheless, to say a few words about the
various kinds of novels that are written nowadays, and the differences
that separate them one from another.
There is the _Realistic_ novel, of which Mr Maugham's "Liza of Lambeth"
and Mr Morrison's "A Child of the Jago" may be taken as recent examples.
These authors attempt to picture life as it is; they sink their own
personalities, and endeavour to write a literal account of the
"personalities" of other people. Very often they succeed, but absolute
realism is impossible unless a man has no objection to appearing in a
Police Court. In this type of fiction, plot, action, and inter-play of
characters are not important: the main purpose is a sort of literary
biograph; life in action, without comment or underlying philosophy, and
minus the pre-eminent factor of art.
Then there is the novel of _Manners_. The customs of life, the social
peculiarities of certain groups of men and women, the humours and moral
qualities of life--these are the chief features in the novel of manners.
As a form of fiction it is earlier than the realistic novel, but both
are alike in having little or no concern with plot and character
development.
Next comes the novel of _Incident_. Here the stress is placed upon
particular events--what led up to them and the consequences that
followed--hence the structure of the narrative, and the powers of
movement and suspense are important factors in achieving success.
A _Romance_ is in a very important sense a novel of incident, but the
"incident" is specialised in character, and usually deals with the
passionate and fundamental powers of man--hate, jealousy, revenge, and
scenes of violence. Or it may be "incident" which has to do with life in
other worlds as imagined by the writer, and occasionally takes on the
style of the supernatural.
Lastly, there is the _Dramatic_ novel, where the chief feature is the
influence of event on character, and of characters on each other.
Now, to which class is your projected novel to belong? In fiction you
must walk by sight and not by faith. Never sit down to write believing
that although you can't see the finish of your story, it will come out
all right "in the end." It won't. You should know at the outset to which
type of fiction you are to devote your energies; how, otherwise, can you
observe the laws of art which govern its ideal being?
Formation of the Plot
In one sense your plot is formed already--that is to say, the very idea
of your story involves a plot more or less distinct. As yet, however,
you do not see clearly how things are going to work out, and it is now
your business to settle the matter so far as it lies in your power to
do so. Now, a plot is not _made_; it is _a structural growth_. Suppose
you wish to present a domestic scene in which the folly of high temper
is to be proved. Is not the plot concealed in the idea? Certainly. Hence
you perhaps place a man and his wife at breakfast. They begin to talk
amiably, then become quarrelsome, and finally fall into loving
agreement. Or you light upon a more original plan of bringing out your
point; but in any case, the plot evolves itself step by step. Wilkie
Collins has left some interesting gossip behind him with reference to
"The Woman in White": "My first proceeding is to get my central
idea--the pivot on which the story turns. The central idea in 'The Woman
in White' is the idea of a conspiracy in private life, in which
circumstances are so handled as to rob a woman of her identity, by
confounding her with another woman sufficiently like her in personal
appearance to answer the wicked purpose. The destruction of her identity
represents a first division of her story; the recovery of her identity
marks a second division. My central idea next suggests some of my chief
characters.
"A clever devil must conduct the conspiracy. Male devil or female devil?
The sort of wickedness wanted seems to be a man's wickedness. Perhaps a
foreign man. Count Fosco faintly shows himself to me before I know his
name. I let him wait, and begin to think about the two women. They must
be both innocent, and both interesting. Lady Glyde dawns on me as one of
the innocent victims. I try to discover the other--and fail. I try what
a walk will do for me--and fail. I devote the evening to a new
effort--and fail. Experience tells me to take no more trouble about it,
and leave that other woman to come of her own accord. The next morning
before I have been awake in my bed for more than ten minutes, my
perverse brains set to work without consulting me. Poor Anne Catherick
comes into the room, and says 'Try me.'
"I have now got an idea, and three of my characters. What is there to do
now? My next proceeding is to begin building up the story. Here my
favourite three efforts must be encountered. First effort: To begin at
the beginning. Second effort: To keep the story always advancing,
without paying the smallest attention to the serial division in parts,
or to the book publications in volumes. Third effort: To decide on the
end. All this is done as my father used to paint his skies in his famous
sea-pictures--at one heat. As yet I do not enter into details; I merely
set up my landmarks. In doing this, the main situations of the story
present themselves in all sorts of new aspects. These discoveries lead
me nearer and nearer to finding the right end. The end being decided on,
I go back again to the beginning, and look at it with a new eye, and
fail to be satisfied with it."
The Agonies and Joys of "Plot-Construction"
"I have yielded to the worst temptation that besets a novelist--the
temptation to begin with a striking incident without counting the cost
in the shape of explanations that must and will follow. These pests of
fiction, to reader and writer alike, can only be eradicated in one way.
I have already mentioned the way--to begin at the beginning. In the case
of 'The Woman in White,' I get back, as I vainly believe, to the true
starting-point of the story. I am now at liberty to set the new novel
going, having, let me repeat, no more than an outline of story and
characters before me, and leaving the details in each case to the spur
of the moment. For a week, as well as I can remember, I work for the
best part of every day, but not as happily as usual. An unpleasant sense
of something wrong worries me. At the beginning of the second week a
disheartening discovery reveals itself. I have not found the right
beginning of 'The Woman in White' yet. The scene of my opening chapters
is in Cumberland. Miss Fairlie (afterwards Lady Glyde); Mr Fairlie, with
his irritable nerves and his art treasures; Miss Halcombe (discovered
suddenly, like Anne Catherick), are all waiting the arrival of the young
drawing-master, Walter Hartwright. No; this won't do. The person to be
first introduced is Anne Catherick. She must already be a familiar
figure to the reader when the reader accompanies me to Cumberland. This
is what must be done, but I don't see how to do it; no new idea comes to
me; I and my MS. have quarrelled, and don't speak to each other. One
evening I happen to read of a lunatic who has escaped from an asylum--a
paragraph of a few lines only in a newspaper. Instantly the idea comes
to me of Walter Hartwright's midnight meeting with Anne Catherick
escaped from the asylum. 'The Woman in White' begins again, and nobody
will ever be half as much interested in it now as I am. From that moment
I have done with my miseries. For the next six months the pen goes on.
It is work, hard work; but the harder the better, for this excellent
reason: the work is its own exceeding great reward. As an example of the
gradual manner in which I reached the development of character, I may
return for a moment to Fosco. The making him fat was an afterthought;
his canaries and his white mice were found next; and, the most valuable
discovery of all, his admiration of Miss Halcombe, took its rise in a
conviction that he would not be true to nature unless there was some
weak point somewhere in his character."
Care in the Use of Actual Events
I do not apologise for the lengthiness of this quotation--it is so much
to the point, and is replete with instructive ideas. The beginner must
beware of following actual events too closely. There is a danger of
accepting actuality instead of literary possibility as the measure of
value. _Picturesque_ means fit to be put in a picture, and
_literatesque_ means fit to be put in a book. In making your plot,
therefore, be quite sure you have a subject with these said
possibilities in it, and that in developing them by an ordered and
cumulative series of events, you are following the wise rule laid down
by Aristotle: "Prefer an impossibility which seems probable, to a
probability which seems impossible."
Remember always that truth is stranger than fiction. Let facts,
newspaper items, things seen and heard, suggest as much as you please,
but never follow literally the literal event.
Then your plot must be original. I was amused some time ago by reading
the editorial notice to correspondents in an American paper. That editor
meant to save the time of his contributors as well as his own, and he
gave a list of the plots he did not want. The paper was one which
catered for young people. Here is a selection from the list:
1. A lost purse where the finder is tempted to keep it, but
finally rises to the emergency and returns it.
2. Heaping coals of fire(!)
3. Saving one's enemy from drowning.
4. Stories of cruel step-mothers.
5. Children praying, and having their prayers answered through
being overheard, etc., etc.
Mr Clarence Rook, to whom I have previously referred, says: "There are
several plots, four or five, at least. Here are some of the recipes for
them. You may rely on them to give thorough satisfaction. Thousands use
them daily, and having tried them once, use no other. Take a heroine.
The age of heroes is past, and this is the age of heroines. She must be
noble, high-souled. (Souls have been worn very high for the past few
seasons.) Her soul is too high for conventional morality. Mix her up
with some disgraceful situations, taking care to add the purest of
motives. Let her poison her mother and run away with a thoughtful
scavenger. When you are tired of her you can pitch her over Waterloo
Bridge."[33:A]
Over against this style of criticism I should like to place another
which comes from an academical source. Speaking of the plots of Hall
Caine's novels, Professor Saintsbury says that, "with the exception of
'The Scapegoat,' there is an extraordinary and almost heroic monotony of
plot. One might almost throw Mr Caine's plots into the form which is
used by comparative students of folk-lore to tabulate the various
versions of the same legends. Two close relations (if not brothers, at
least cousins) the relationship being sometimes legal, sometimes only
natural, fall in love with the same girl ('Shadow,' 'Hagar,' 'Bondman,'
'Manxman'); in 'The Deemster' the situation is slightly but not really
very different, the brother being jealous of the cousin's affection. In
almost all cases there is renunciation by one; in all, including 'The
Deemster,' one has, if both have not, to pay more or less heavy
penalties for the intended or unintended rivalry. Sometimes, as in 'The
Shadow of a Crime,' 'A Son of Hagar,' and 'The Bondman,' filial
relations are brought in to augment the strife of sentiment in the
individual. Sometimes ('Shadow,' 'Bondman,' and to some extent
'Manxman') the worsted and renouncing party is self-sacrificing more or
less all through; sometimes ('Hagar,' 'Deemster,') he is violent for a
time, and only at last repents. In two cases ('Deemster,' 'Manxman,')
the injured one, or the one who thinks he is injured, has a rival at his
mercy in sleep or disease, is tempted to take his life and forbears.
This might be worked out still further."[35:A]
No; you must be original or nothing at all. Of course your originality
may not be striking, but, at any rate, make your own plot, and let
others judge it. It is far better to do that than to copy others weakly.
Originality and sincerity are pretty much the same thing, as Carlyle
observed; and if you want a stimulating essay on the subject, read
Lewes' "Principles of Success in Literature," a book, by the way, which
you ought to master thoroughly.
The Natural History of a Plot
I have quoted already from Wilkie Collins as to the growth of plot from
its embryo stages, but that need not deter us from taking an imaginary
example. Let us suppose that you have been possessed for some time with
the idea of treating the great facts of race and religion as a theme for
a novel. After casting about for a suitable illustration, you finally
decide that a Jewish girl, with strictly orthodox parentage, shall fall
in love with a youth of Gentile blood, and Roman Catholic in religion.
That is the bare idea. You can see at once how many dramatic
possibilities it presents; for the passion of love in each case is
pitted against the forces of religious prejudice; and all the powers of
racial exclusiveness are brought into full play. Now, what is the first
thing to do? Well, for you as a beginner, it is to decide _how the story
shall end_. Why? Because everything depends on that. If you intend them
to have a short flirtation, your course of procedure will be very
different to that which must inevitably follow if you intend to make
them marry. In the first case, you will have to provide for the stern
and unalterable facts of race and religion; in the second, for the
possibility of their being overcome. To illustrate further, let me
suppose that the Jewess and the Gentile youth are ultimately to marry.
How will this affect your choice of characters? It will compel you to
choose a Jewess who, although brought up in the orthodox fashion, has
enough ability and education to appreciate life and thought outside her
own immediate circle, and you must invent facts to account for these
things, even though she still worships at the synagogue. On the other
hand, the Gentile Catholic must be a man of liberal tendencies, or he
would never think twice about the Jewess with the possibility of
marrying her. He may persuade himself that he is a good Catholic, but
you are bound to prepare your readers for actions which, to say the
least, are not normal in men of such religious profession.
The choice of your secondary characters is also determined by the end in
view. Because your story has to do with Jews and Catholics, that is no
reason why your pages should be full of Jews and priests. You want just
as many other people, in addition to your hero and heroine, as are
necessary to bring about the _denouement_: not one more, not one less.
Now, the end in view is to make these young people triumph over their
race and their religion; and over and above the difficulties they have
between themselves, there are difficulties placed by other people. By
whom? Here is a chance for your inventiveness. I would suggest as a
beginning that you create parents for the girl and for the man--orthodox
in each case, and unyielding to the last degree. Give them a name, and
put them down on your list. Money is likely to figure in a narrative of
this kind, and you might arrange for the opportune entrance of an uncle
on the girl's side, who threatens to alter his will (at present made in
her interest) if she encourages the advances of her Gentile lover. On
the man's side, the priest, of course, will have something to say, and
you will be compelled to make a place for him.
In this way your characters will grow to their complete number, and I
should advise you to draw up a list of them, and opposite each one write
a few notes describing the part they will have to play. One word on
nomenclature. There is a mystic suitability--at any rate in
novels--between a name and a character. To call your marvellous heroine
"Annie" is to hoist a signal of distress, unless you have a unique power
of characterisation; and to speak of your hero as "William" is to
handicap his movements from the start. I am not pleading for fancy
names, but just for that distinctiveness in choice which the artistic
sense decides is fitting.
To return. The end in view will also shape the course of _events_.
Instead of arranging that these are to be a series of psychological
skirmishes between two people the poles asunder (as would be the case if
their relations were superficial), you have to arrange for events where
the characters are in dead earnest. Then, too, in order to relieve the
tense nature of the narrative, it will be necessary to provide for
happenings which, though not exactly humorous, are still light enough to
distract the attention from the severer aspects of the story. Further,
the natural background should be selected with an eye to the main issue,
and each event should have that cumulative effect which ultimately leads
the reader on to the climax.
Of course, it is possible to take a quite different _denouement_ to the
one here considered. You might make the pair desperately in love, but
foiled by some disaster near the end. In this case, as in the other,
the narrative will, or ought to, change its perspective accordingly.
Sir Walter Besant on the Evolution of a Plot
In order to illustrate the subject still further, I quote the
following:--
"Consider--say, a diamond robbery. Very well: then, first of all, it
must be a robbery committed under exceptional and mysterious conditions,
otherwise there would be no interest in it. Also, you will perceive that
the robbery must be a big and important thing--no little shoplifting
business. Next, the person robbed must not be a mere diamond merchant,
but a person whose loss will interest the reader, say, one to whom the
robbery is all-important. She shall be, say, a vulgar woman with an
overweening pride in her jewels, and, of course, without the money to
replace them if they are lost. They must be so valuable as to be worn
only on extraordinary occasions, and too valuable to be kept at home.
They must be consigned to the care of a jeweller who has strong rooms.
You observe that the story is now growing. You have got the preliminary
germ. How can the strong room be entered and robbed? Well, it cannot.
That expedient will not do. Can the diamonds be taken from the lady
while she is wearing them? That would have done in the days of the
gallant Claude Duval, but it will not do now. Might the house be broken
into by a burglar on a night when a lady had worn them and returned? But
she would not rest with such a great property in the house unprotected.
They must be taken back to their guardian the same night. Thus the only
vulnerable point in the care of the diamonds seems their carriage to and
from their guardian. They must be stolen between the jeweller's and the
owner's house. Then by whom? The robbery must somehow be connected with
the hero of the love story--that is indispensable; he must be innocent
of all complicity in it--that is equally indispensable; he must
preserve our respect; he will have to be somehow a victim: how is that
to be managed?
"The story is getting on in earnest. . . . The only way--or the best
way--seems, on consideration, to make the lover be the person who is
entrusted with the carriage of this precious package of jewels to and
from their owner's house. This, however, is not a very distinguished
_role_ to play; it wants a very skilled hand to interest us in a
jeweller's assistant. . . . We must therefore give this young man an
exceptional position. Force of circumstances, perhaps, has compelled him
to accept the situation which he holds. He need not, again, be a
shopman; he may be a confidential _employe_, holding a position of great
trust; and he may be a young man with ambitions outside the narrow
circle of his work.
"The girl to whom he is engaged must be lovable to begin with; she must
be of the same station in life as her lover--that is to say, of the
middle class, and preferably of the professional class. As to her home
circle, that must be distinctive and interesting."[43:A]
I need not quote any further for my present purpose, which is to show
mental procedure in plot-formation; but the whole article is full of
sound teaching on this and other points.
Plot-Formation in Earnest
You have now obtained your characters, and a general outline of the
events their actions will compass. What comes next? A carefully
written-out statement of the story from the beginning to the end; that
is the next step. This story should contain just as much as you would
give in outlining the plot to a friend in the course of conversation. It
would briefly detail the characters and circumstances of the hero and
heroine, and the events which led to their first meeting each other. You
would then describe the ripening of their friendship, and the gradual
growth of social hostility to the idea of a projected union. The
psychological transformations, the domestic infelicities, the racial
animosities--these will find suitable expression in word and action. At
last the season of cruel suspense is over, and the pair have arrived at
their great decision. Elaborate preventive plans are arranged to
frustrate their purpose, and there is much excitement lest they should
succeed; but when all have done their best, the two are happily wedded
and the story is ended.
The exercise of writing out a plain, unvarnished statement of what you
are going to do is one that will enable you to see whether your story
has balance or not, and it will most certainly test its power to
interest; for if in its bald form there is real _story_ in it, you may
well believe that when properly written it will possess the true
fascination of fiction.
Now, a plot is much like a drama, and should have a beginning, a middle,
and an end; answering roughly to premiss, argument, and conclusion.
There is no better training in plot-study than the reading of such a
book as Professor Moulton's "Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist," in
which the author, with rare critical skill, exhibits the construction of
plots that are an object of never-ceasing wonder. I will dare to
reiterate what I have said before. Take your stand at the end of the
story, and work it out backwards. For an excellent illustration see
Edgar Allan Poe's account of how he came to write "The Raven" (Appendix
I.). Perhaps you object to this kind of literary dissection? You think
it spoils the effect of a work of art to be too familiar with its
physiology? I do not grant these points; but even if they are true, that
is no reason why you yourself should be offended by the sight of ropes
and pulleys behind the scenes. No; work out the details from the end,
and not from the beginning. No character and no action should find a
place if it contributes nothing towards the _denouement_.
Characters first: Plot afterwards
It must not be supposed that a plot _always_ comes first in the
constructing of a novel. Very often the characters suggest themselves
long before the story is even vaguely outlined. Nor is there any reason
why such a story should be any worse because it did not originate in the
usual way. In fact, the probabilities are that it will be all the
better, on account of its stress upon character, and the reaction of
various characters on each other. I imagine "Jude the Obscure" grew in
this fashion. There is no very striking plot in the book; at any rate
not the plot we have in mind when we think of "The Moonstone." But if
plot means the inevitable evolution of certain men and women in given
circumstances, then there is plot of a high order. In the usual
acceptation of the term, however, "Jude the Obscure" is a novel of
character; and most probably Jude existed as a creature of imagination
months before it was ever thought he would go to Oxford, or have an
adventure with Sue. To many men, doubtless, there is far more
fascination in conceiving a group of characters in which there are two
or three supreme figures, and then setting to work to discover a
narrative which will give them the freest action, than in toiling over
the bare idea, the subsequent plot, followed by a series of actors and
actresses who work out the _denouement_. Should you belong to this
number, do not hesitate to act accordingly. Nothing wooden in style or
method finds a place in these pages, and since some of the finest
creations have arisen in the order indicated at the head of this
section, perhaps you are to be congratulated that the work before you
will be a living growth rather than a mechanical contrivance.
The Natural Background
Since your story will presumably be located somewhere on this planet,
the next thing to do is to obtain a thorough knowledge of the places
where your characters will display themselves. If the scenes are laid in
a district which you know by heart, you are not likely to go astray; but
more often than not, the scenes are largely imaginative, especially in
reference to smaller items such as roads, rivers, trees, and woods. The
best plan is to follow the example of Thomas Hardy, and draw a map--both
geographical and topographical--of the country and the towns in which
your hero and heroine, and subordinate characters, will appear for the
interest of the reader. That individual does not care to be puzzled with
semi-miraculous transmittances through space. I read a novel some time
ago, where on one page the heroine was busy shopping in London, and on
the next page was--an hour afterwards--quietly having tea with her
beloved somewhere in the Midlands. But the drawing of a map, and using
it closely, will not merely render such negative assistance as to avoid
mistakes of this kind, it will act positively as a stimulus to creative
suggestion. You can follow the lover's jealous rival along the road that
leads to the meeting-place with increased imaginative power. That
measure of realism which makes the ideal both possible and interesting
will come all the more easily, because the map aids you in following the
movements of your characters; in fact, if you take this second step
with serious resolution, it will go far to add that piquant something
which renders your story a series of life-like happenings. The result
will be equally beneficial to the reader. It may be a moot question as
to how far the map in Stevenson's "Treasure Island" deepens the interest
of those who read this exciting story, but in my humble opinion it adds
an actuality to the events which is most convincing. Mr Maurice Hewlett
has followed suit in his "Forest Lovers." I do not say _publish_ your
map, but _draw_ one and use it. A poor story accompanied by a good map
would be too ridiculous; so you had better give all your attention to
the narrative, and leave the publication of maps until later days.
FOOTNOTES:
[33:A] "Hints to Novelists," in _To-Day_, May 8, 1897.
[35:A] _Fortnightly Review_, vol. lvii. N.S. p. 187.
[43:A] Besant, "On the Writing of Novels," _Atalanta_, vol i. p. 372.