PITFALLS
Items of General Knowledge
I propose to show in this chapter that a literary artist can never
afford to despise details. He may have genius enough to write a
first-rate novel, and sell it rapidly in spite of real blemishes, but if
a work of art is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well. No writer
is any the better for slovenly inaccuracy. Take the details of everyday
life. Do you suppose you are infallible in these commonplace things? If
so, be undeceived at once. It is simply marvellous with what ease a
mistake will creep into your narrative. Even Mr Zangwill once made a
hansom cab door to open with a handle from the inside, and the mistake
appeared in six editions, escaping the reviewers, and was quietly
altered by the author in the seventh. There is nothing particularly
serious about an error of this kind; but at the same time, where truth
to fact is so simple a matter, why not give the fact as it is?
Trivialities may not interfere with the power of the story, but they
often attach an ugliness, or a smack of the ridiculous, which cannot but
hinder, to some extent, the beauty of otherwise good work. Mistakes such
as that just referred to, arise, in most instances, out of the passion
and feeling in which the novelist advances his narrative. The detail
connected with the opening of the hansom door (doors) was nothing to Mr
Zangwill, compared to the person who opened it. I should advise you,
therefore, to master all the necessary _minutiae_ of travelling, if your
hero and heroine are going abroad; of city life if you take them to
the theatre for amusement--in fact, of every environment in which
imagination may place them. Then, when all your work is done, read what
has been written with the microscopic eyes of a Flaubert.
Specific Subjects
For instance, the plot suggested in the previous chapters deals with
Judaism. Now, if you don't know Jewish life through and through, it is
the height of foolishness to attempt to write a novel about it. (The
same remark applies to Roman Catholicism.) You will find it necessary to
study the Bible and Hebrew history; and when you have mastered the
literature of the subject and caught its spirit, you will turn your
attention to the sacred people as they exist to-day--their isolation,
their wealth, their synagogues, and their psychological peculiarities.
Does this seem to be too big a programme? Well, if you are to present a
living and truthful picture of the Jewess and her surroundings, you can
only succeed by going through such a programme; whereas, if you skip the
hard preparatory work you will bungle in the use of Hebrew terms, and
when you make the Rabbi drop the scroll through absent-mindedness, you
will very likely say that "the congregation looked on half-amused and
half-wondering." Just visit a synagogue when the Rabbi happens to drop
the scroll. The congregation would be "horribly shocked." The same law
applies whatever be your subject. If you intend to follow a prevailing
fashion and depict slum life, you will have to spend a good deal of time
in those unpleasant regions, not only to know them in their outward
aspects, but to know them in their inward and human features. Even then
something important may escape you, with the result that you fall into
error, and the expert enjoys a quiet giggle at your expense; but you
will have some consolation in the thought that you spared no pains in
the diligent work of preparation.
Perhaps your novel will take the reader into aristocratic circles. Pray
do not make the attempt if you are not thoroughly acquainted with the
manners and customs of such circles. Ignorance will surely betray you,
and in describing a dinner, or an "At Home," you will raise derisive
laughter by suggesting the details of a most impossible meal, or spoil
your heroine by making her guilty of atrocious etiquette. The remedy is
close at hand: _know your subject_.
Topography and Geography
Watch your topography and geography. Have you never read novels where
the characters are made to walk miles of country in as many minutes? In
fairy tales we rather like these extraordinary creatures--their
startling performances have a charm we should be sorry to part with. But
in the higher world of fiction, where ideal things should appear as real
as possible, we decidedly object to miraculous journeys, especially, as
in most instances, it is plainly a mistake in calculation on the part of
the writer. Of course the writer is occasionally placed in an awkward
position. A dramatic episode is about to take place, or, more correctly,
the author wishes it to take place, but the characters have been
dispersed about the map, and time and distance conspire against the
author's purpose. It is madness to "blur" the positions and "risk" the
reader's acuteness, but it is almost equally unfortunate to fail in
observing the difficulty, and write on in blissful ignorance of the fact
that nature's laws have been set at defiance. The drawing of a map, as
before suggested, will obviate all these troubles.
Should you depict a lover's scene in India, take care not to describe it
as occurring in "beautiful twilight." It is quite possible to know that
darkness follows sunset, and yet to forget it in the moment of writing;
but a good writer is never caught "napping" in these matters. If you
don't know India, choose Cairo, about which, after half-a-dozen
lengthened visits, you can speak with certainty.
Scientific Facts
What a nuisance the weather is to many novelists. Some triumph over
their difficulties; a few contribute to our amusement. The meteorology
of fiction would be a fascinating study. In second-rate productions, it
is astonishing to witness the ease with which the weather is ordered
about. The writer makes it rain when he thinks the incidents of a
downpour will enliven the narrative, forgetting that the movement of the
story, as previously stated, requires a blue sky and a shining sun; or
he contrives to have the wind blowing in two or three directions at
once. The sun and the moon require careful manipulation. At the
beginning of a novel, the room of an invalid is said to have a window
looking directly towards the east; but at the end of the book when the
invalid dies, the author, wishing to make him depart this life in a
flood of glory, suffuses this eastern-windowed room with "the red glare
of the setting sun." The detail may appear unimportant, but it is not
so, and a few hours devoted to notes on these minor points would save
all the unpleasantness and ridicule which such mistakes too frequently
bring. The reviewer loves to descant on the "peculiar cosmology and
physical science of the volume before us."
The moon is most unfortunate. Mrs Humphry Ward confesses that she never
knows when to make the moon rise, and obtains Miss Ward's assistance in
all astronomical references. This is, of course, a pleasant
exaggeration, but it shows that no venture should be made in science
without being perfectly sure of your ground.
Grammar
Grammar is the most dangerous of all pitfalls. Suppose you read your
novel through, and check each sentence. After weary toil you are ready
to offer a prize of one guinea to the man who can show you a mistake.
When the full list of errors is drawn up by an expert grammarian, you
are glad that offer was not made, for your guineas would have been going
too quickly. In everyday conversation you speak as other people
do--having a special hatred of painful accuracy, otherwise called
pedantry; and as you frequently hear the phrase: "Those sort of people
are never nice," it does not strike you as being incorrect when you
read it in your proof-sheets. Or somebody refers to a theatrical
performance, and regretting his inability to be present, says, "I should
like to have gone, but could not." So often is the phrase used in daily
speech, that its sound (when you read your book aloud) does not suggest
anything erroneous. And yet if you wish your reader to know that you are
a good grammarian, you will not be ashamed to revise your grammar and
say, "I should have liked to go, but could not." These are simple
instances: there are hundreds more.
Reviewing all that has been said in this chapter, the one conclusion is
that the novelist must be a man of knowledge; he must know the English
language from base to summit; and whatever references he makes to
science, art, history, theology, or any other subject, he should have
what is expected of writers in these specific departments--accuracy.