is sufficiently obvious, it is enough to mention it. The general rule
for Narration is: In writing history select details with reference to
their significance and their truth; in fiction with reference to their
significance and their probability. In every case, significance is an
essential quality. It is so easy to confound minuteness with subtlety;
to suppose that to be finical is to be true; to assume that to be
exact is to be effective; that more than one gifted author has come
to grief and has wasted his powers through these errors. The measure
of subtlety, of truth, and of effectiveness, is the relative value as
measured by the central idea of the composition.
The order of events in a narrative depends chiefly upon the principle
of cause and effect. Since every cause produces its effect, it
follows that the sequence of incidents will generally be practically
chronological. Where there are a number of threads involved and the
plot is complicated, a good deal of ingenuity is often required to keep
things clear, and to secure at the same time a continuous progression
in the narrative. This is a problem with which the historian has almost
always to deal, and upon his cleverness in solving it depends much of
his success. The only rule to be given is that the writer shall have
a careful and definite plan. In a simple tale it is often possible to
depend upon the knowledge of the end to be reached, and to trust to
one’s instinct for the rest. With an intricate theme this will not do.
If one is driving a mild-mannered horse in a light wagon, it is usually
enough to know the general direction, since it is possible from time
to time to stop to inquire the way; in running a complicated system of
railway trains the same method would be madness.
One matter involved in this question of the order of incidents is that
of where and how a story shall begin. Often it is wise to commence
with a striking incident or situation, and it is rare that a story can
be effectively begun without there being more or less which must be
told of what has gone before the actual tale. Much care is needed in
managing this. It is one of the simplest devices, and it remains one of
the most effective which have been devised, to have all explanations of
this sort made to some personage in the tale instead of to the reader
directly. If a story start with the striking appearance of the hero in
some extraordinary situation, it is much more effective and pleasing
to have the spectators, those who in the narrative are represented as
seeing him, ask and obtain information in regard to his past and to the
events which brought him to this place or situation, than it is for the
author in a deliberate manner to set out to inform the reader.
Never presume on the reader’s patience and indulgence. The “gentle
reader” of old-fashioned literature does not exist now, if indeed he
ever existed. The modern reader is far more ready to be bored than to
be interested, and all devices for persuading and holding his attention
must be carefully attended to.
* * * * *
Of essential importance in story-telling is movement. This is an
advantage in other forms of composition, but indispensable in
Narration. There can be no sense of unity, no continuity of interest,
unless there is a constant sense of progression. A story can no more
stand still than can life. When the incidents cease to carry the reader
forward, it is as if the heart stopped beating. Each incident in a
narrative, as in existence, must stand in relation to what comes before
it of effect to cause, and to what follows it of cause to effect. It
is necessary to make the reader feel that he is ever going forward,
now slowly and now swiftly, according to the exigencies of the tale.
Contrast, variety, relative importance, have all to be considered. When
the reader is eager to reach some culmination, when he is excited in
regard to some crisis in the narrative, it is often wise to condense
days into a sentence, hours into a phrase. Again, there are times when
it is important to prepare the mind for a situation, to go slowly in
order that an effect be produced by the cumulative force of trifles.
No hard-and-fast rule can be given to govern this progression. The
technical means by which swiftness or deliberation are secured are
simple and easily learned. The whole matter is pretty well covered
by the statement that many words and minute details retard movement,
while few words and a suppression of particulars give rapidity. When
to employ these means the writer must learn from the study of the
work of the masters, from the careful consideration of what result he
wishes to insure, and above all by a close examination of the manner
in which effects are produced in real life. Naturally, the movement is
swifter as the tale nears its conclusion, and in passages which deal
with exciting and intense emotions. Illustrations are hardly possible
in limited space, but the climax of any masterpiece may serve as an
example.
Description and dialogue must be subordinate to the movement of a
story, as they must be subordinate to the general purpose. Speaking
broadly, dialogue aids swiftness of progression, and description delays
it; yet an over-abundance of talk may retard as effectually as profuse
word-painting. With dialogue we shall have to do later, and here it is
enough to say that talk which really belongs to the tale, which helps
the story forward, adds sprightliness to the movement. We all know how
the elder Dumas makes dialogue increase the vivacity and the rapidity
of movement of his dashing romances. What can be told in the speech of
the characters in a narrative seems generally to go forward with more
briskness than what is related in the words of the author.
The mention of Description brings us to the scene of a narrative. The
setting of a tale is not unlike the mounting of a play. When the use
of nature in fiction was fresher than now the affair was very simple.
It was only necessary to bring in gloomy skies and wailing winds
as accompaniments for a doleful situation, or to have the flowers,
the sunshine, and the birds properly specified when things were
going happily. The birds sang most obligingly for the old novelists,
utterly ignoring the habits which ornithologists had with painful care
observed,--they warbled when they were wanted, although they were
called upon at times of day when they had never before dreamed of
piping up:--
Singing gladly all the moontide,
Never waiting for the noontide.
In less artistic fiction there is still something of this method. There
are many transiently popular novels where in the closing chapter the
autumn rain still falls dismally upon a lonely grave, or the summer
sun--the June sun--and the obliging dicky-birds decorate the wedding
of the long-persecuted but at last triumphant heroine, transcendently
lovely in white satin.
In really serious work the matter has become more intricate. Nature
must be used without the appearance of design. It is recognized that
no man can command the weather, and the trick of seeming to manage the
elements is no longer tolerated. Art must conceal art. Even contrasts
have been used until it is necessary to be very cautious in employing
them. The villains no longer steal through smiling gardens whose snowy
lilies, all abloom, and sending up perfume like incense from censers
of silver, seem to rebuke the wicked. The thing sought now is the
appearance of naturalness. Simplicity and directness are the prime
qualities to be kept in mind. Set a story carefully, but above all
things be sure that it does not appear that pains have been taken.
The finest art is that which works with apparent frankness, seeming
to display its methods without disguise, yet in reality producing its
effects by a skill which is utterly beyond perception.
One of the faults most common with beginners is self-consciousness. The
inexperienced writer is apt to show that he is not sure how what he
writes will be received. Cultivate the attitude of being conscious of
nothing but the story to be told. Above all, do not seem to apologize.
In fiction as elsewhere apologies are apt to breed contempt. The writer
who seems to plead to be excused inevitably suggests that there is
need of excuse. Tell a story or leave it, but never take the middle
course of telling it with apologies, direct or indirect. Often the
self-conscious author shows that he secretly fears that he will be
thought to lack cleverness if he allows himself so to be imposed upon
by his characters as to think them real. If they are not real to him he
should not be telling their history. The slightest appearance of doubt
on his part ruins all illusion and the story along with it.
On the other hand, it is a mistake to expect the reader to share an
emotion simply from being told that it is felt by the writer. Every
phrase like “I felt,” “I was amused,” “I was enraged,” and so on, which
is not amply supported by the narrative, weakens the effect. It is
generally enough to destroy the entire flavor of any ordinary witticism
to tell the reader that it is droll. It sometimes will do to say that
the characters of the tale thought a thing funny, but even this is a
somewhat dangerous expedient. If a thing does not strike the reader as
amusing, it is of little use to inform him that it is his duty to find
it so. An author has no business to put himself in the attitude of a
verger who leads pilgrims from one historic spot to another, saying
in effect at each, “Here it is necessary that you feel yourselves
thrilled!”
When everything else has been said, the essential thing in regard to
Narration is that it shall be interesting. It is the old question
of Force. “Tediousness,” observes Dr. Johnson, with his usual
sententiousness, “is the most fatal of faults.” He might have added
that it is a fault so serious that it overcomes all excellences.
Macaulay inquires, “Where lies the secret of being amusing? and how is
it that art, eloquence, and diligence may all be employed in making a
book dull?” Dullness is less easily forgiven in narrative than in any
other form of composition. The avowed aim of a story is to entertain;
and if it fail of this, its merits count for nothing. The specific
methods by which interest may be secured or increased must be studied
with the realization that the very existence of narrative depends upon
them.
The first point is to be interested one’s self. In other words, the
first great secret is earnestness.
The second is closely allied to it. It is to be perfectly
straightforward. This secret is sincerity.
The first of these calls for the telling of a thing as if the writer
really cares for it, as if it is something which seems to him richly
worth relating; while the second insists that he shall treat his
readers with every appearance of frankness. He shall appear to conceal
nothing which it is for the interest of the tale for him to tell, and
he shall try to take no advantage by telling that of which he is not
himself completely persuaded, nothing which does not seem to him a
vital portion of the history, real or fictitious, which he set out to
relate. Hawthorne, when asked the secret of his style, said: “It is the
desire to tell the simple truth as honestly and as vividly as one can.”
Many entire books on rhetoric have less wisdom in them than is in this
single sentence.
Making a somewhat different division of the subject, we may say that
interest in Narration comes from three sources: the plot, the incident,
and the development of character. The story which depends upon plot
alone goes by quickly. Only while it has novelty can it command
attention, and it is scarcely to be read a second time. The tale which
depends upon incident alone--if there be such--would be not unlike a
book of anecdotes, too fragmentary to be effective as a whole. That
in which the drawing of character is the chief feature is likely
to be heavy and sure to be restricted to a limited audience. In the
masterpiece, plot, incident, and character-drawing are combined. The
great novelists have never essentially varied in their methods, and in
the work of Cervantes, Fielding, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and the rest,
style, character, and story are all integral parts of the whole.
It is perhaps not amiss to say here a word in regard to the collection
of material and to what is meant by the study of nature. I have already
repeated the truism that the writer must ever be on the alert for
material. If he is to write stories he is to undertake the reproduction
of human life, and it is above all needful that he understand human
life. He cannot be too careful in his consideration of the world about
him. He must be constantly examining the acts of his fellow men;
constantly saying to himself: “What were the motives which led to
that act? What were the feelings aroused by that experience? What the
emotions in such a situation?” He must make his own inner experience
the test, and from the less divine the greater. He may to a great
extent judge the motives which actuate men and women in important
crises from those which have moved him in circumstances seemingly
trivial. A well-known New England story-teller said to me once when I
praised a tale in which she had shown most vividly the remorse of a
man who had committed a great crime: “It will amuse you to hear how I
knew what that man’s feelings were. Once when I was a child I burned
up my sister’s doll in a fit of anger. The remorse I suffered over that
foolish performance was the material that I made my story out of.”
There is a good illustration of the way in which the creative mind
works. From the nature of its own emotions it is able to appreciate the
feelings of others, and to see that in feeling there is more question
of degree than of kind. His own being is the only one into which a
writer can really look. What he finds in his own heart is the key by
which to read the cipher which is written in the hearts of others.
Narration is the form of literature which most universally appeals to
men, and it is no less that form which most affects human conduct. Men
who could not be brought to give ear to a sermon may be taught by a
parable or moved by a tale. It is in narrative that prose rises most
surely and indisputably to the rank of a fine art, so that while the
masterpieces of fiction remain it will be impossible to question the
right of prose literature to claim a place beside painting, sculpture,
music, and poetry. Art is the regenerator of the world, and in modern
times it is in the form of fiction that it most easily and most widely
reaches the hearts of men.
XVIII
ACCESSORIES OF NARRATION
The range of Narration is so wide that it is well to look a little
more carefully at the means of producing effects in this especial
department of composition. The subject is at once so fascinating and
so complicated that it would not be difficult to make an entire course
of lectures upon it, although in the end we might be brought to the
humiliating consciousness that no amount of lecturing could make
novelists of us. In the limits of these talks it is impossible to do
more than to consider briefly the more important matters which occupy
the attention of the story-teller; and those which first come to mind
are the things which it is customary to name Local Color, Dialect,
Dialogue, Character Drawing, and Moral Purpose.
Local color in the modern sense was invented in the present century. It
is true that the writers of other times had employed the same device
before, but it has been consciously sought and has been supplied
with this name within recent times. It might be asked by a cynic why
the quality is any better now that it is ticketed and talked about
in reviews than it was in the days of Theocritus and Kalidasa and
Boccaccio; but so many things have been used before modern generations
were thought of that if we are not to have the privilege of regarding
things as new when they have been newly named we are likely to be at a
desperate loss for novelty.
By local color is now meant the bringing out of the peculiarities
of the locality where the scene of a tale is laid. It is evident
that there is no spot so poor as not to have characteristics which
distinguish it from all others. It is the aim of many modern
story-tellers to give this especial local flavor with the most faithful
and often painful vividness. Indeed, there are not a few recent stories
which seem to exist for no other reason than to exploit the accidental
qualities of remote and hitherto undescribed places.
This is an age in which competition between periodicals has waxed warm,
and to the desire of editors to procure novelties is largely due the
increase of the already rather tiresomely abundant examples of local
color and of dialect. An air of freshness may be imparted to a tale by
laying the scene in places practically unknown in fiction. Accidents of
custom and manners arrest the attention for the moment, and it is due
to this fact that the great mass of stories marked by this peculiarity
have succeeded. The principle is not unlike that of drawing a crowd to
the theatre by new scenery. A tale which is really vital can do without
local color, as a really strong play succeeds without elaborate setting.
This is not, however, the whole of the matter. A good play may be
helped by novel effects of scenery and a tale good in itself may be
improved by local color. Detailed description of local peculiarities
may make more clear to the reader the character and the motives
of the personages in a narrative. All men are influenced by their
surroundings, and to be familiar with unusual social conditions is
often essential to the understanding of acts or opinions which have
been done or held under them. To make intelligible the story of Hester
Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, Hawthorne was obliged to set forth
something of the manners and morals of colonial days. Scott could not
have made comprehendable the tale of Rob Roy without giving some idea
of what life in the Highlands was like in the time of that redoubtable
chieftain. The author must in any case impart to the reader whatever
special information is necessary to the best effect of his fiction.
The comment which it seems fair to make in this connection is that
here is to be applied the rule which should govern the management
of all details in narration,--namely, that everything shall be kept
subordinate to the central purpose of the work. So long as particular
description aids in bringing out more clearly the main idea of the
whole, so long as it is used as a means and not as an end, so long as
the setting is kept subordinate to the story, so long it is good. The
moment what is called local color is allowed to dominate a story, it
must injure the permanent effect. The literary mechanic who is writing
stories simply to sell them will usually find it easy to dispose of
studies of local peculiarities which are piquant, whether they are true
or not. There is nothing to object to in this, but this work is not
to be confounded with legitimate Narration, and it is not to be looked
upon as permanent literature. Local color is accidental rather than
essential. It depends upon circumstances which belong to a place rather
than to human nature. It follows that it is not in itself of permanent
interest, and that work depending upon it for interest must go by as
soon as the novelty is passed. The work of Miss Wilkins, Miss Jewett,
Miss Brown, and the rest, has attracted attention through the fidelity
with which it presented peculiarities of New England rural life. The
claim to permanent value in each, however, rests on other and higher
grounds. In so far as they are true to the fundamental and essential
characteristics of humanity, in so far as they deal with the constant
emotions of men and women as men and women, and not as eccentric
types evolved by peculiarities and environment, they have permanent
value--and no farther.
Closely allied with local color, and indeed in many cases hardly
to be distinguished from it, is dialect. We are all familiar with
a certain strange appearance which has of late years come over the
pages of the magazines, a sort of epidemic of which the most prominent
characteristics are the misspelling of words and a plentiful spattering
of apostrophes, as if the secret of literary art lay in eccentric and
intermittent orthography. We have been instructed that these startling
productions were dialect stories, and whether we have professed to
like them or not has depended largely upon our daring to say what
we thought. There are, it is true, dialect stories which we must all
admire and enjoy,--many of them in spite of their strange language
rather than because of it,--but none the less is the multiplicity
of tales in dialect a visitation not unlike the Egyptian plague of
swarming flies or of sprawling frogs.
The object of the use of dialect is of course to produce what might
be called a personal local color. To personages who belong to
nationalities other than his own a writer often gives phrases in their
own tongue or conforming to the idiom of their own language in order
to convey a lively impression of their being foreigners. To produce
a vivid sense of the fact that his characters are Creoles of New
Orleans and to suggest all the romantic flavor of life among them,
George Cable used dialect in that delightful book, “Old Creole Days;”
to make the reader realize the especial local and race peculiarities
of one character or another Thomas Nelson Page used one negro dialect
in “Marse Chan” and Joel Chandler Harris another in “Uncle Remus.”
In these and similar cases the dialect used is really, as far as the
general reader is concerned, an unknown tongue. Its correctness or
incorrectness cannot be judged by the general public to which these
tales are addressed, and its use must therefore be flavor rather than
accuracy, impression rather than information, picturesqueness rather
than literalness.
The proper use of dialect is often a great aid in characterization.
Some figures it is all but impossible to individualize without this
means. There are figures in Scott which would not be at all the same
thing if stripped of their dialect; while in each of the stories
mentioned above there are instances of the same thing. It is to be
remembered, however, that this is a subsidiary purpose. In other words
it is a detail of fiction. Dialect is written for the sake of the
story, and woe to that author who produces a story for the sake of a
dialect. The tales of the “Soldiers Three,” the “Window in Thrums,”
“Old Creole Days,” succeed for other qualities than the dialect, and
the dialect is good because it helps to make effective something
better. It is even not improbable that with a large body of readers
these and kindred books succeed only in spite of their dialect, since
even at its best this perversion of language is apt to be in itself
somewhat irritating even if not perplexing.