end of the story, for even those stories which attempt to begin in
the middle and go both ways at once place the climax properly. But
there is a danger that the climax will come too soon. After they have
reached what is properly a central point in their story, amateurs
often become lazy or in too great a hurry, and rush the latter part
of the narrative through unceremoniously. In the first part they may
have been inclined to go into needless detail; but when once they
come in sight of the finish, they forget everything except that their
task is nearly ended; they plunge ahead regardless, treat important
matters most superficially, neglect those skillful little touches
which go to make a story natural and literary, and reach the end to
find that they have skeletonized an important part of the narrative.
In such a case the reader is very apt to come upon the climax
unexpectedly, and so to find it forced and illogical; whereas if
the author had preserved the proportions of his narrative, and led
up to his climax properly, it would have been accounted strong and
inevitable.
The climax of a story must be a genuine climax--that is, it must be
the culmination of the interest of the story, and it must definitely
end and eliminate the element of suspense. The climax, or its immediate
consequences, must decide the destinies of all your characters, and the
fate of all their schemes. If the heroine is hesitating between her two
lovers she must decide in the climax or on account of it; if the hero is
in a position of great danger he must be killed or saved. The revelation
need not be couched in the bald phrase, "And so John married Kate;" but
it may be hinted at or suggested in the most subtle manner; but settled
in some way it must be. Stockton did otherwise in "The Lady, or the
Tiger?" but he sought for humorous effect, and all things are fair in
the funny story. Stories which are meant to be serious, but which leave
the reader still puzzling over the possibilities of the plot, are likely
to get their author into serious difficulties with the reading public,
even if the editors can be persuaded to overlook his idiosyncracies.
The amateur is prone to the conviction, deduced, I fear, from the
practice of the cheap melodrama and the cheaper novel, that "climax"
and "tragedy" are synonymous terms, and that he is violating sacred
traditions unless he ends his tale with a violent death. But it is by no
means necessary that the climax of a short story should be or should
contain a catastrophe or a tragedy. Its nature depends entirely upon the
character of the tale in which it appears, and it may be just as strong
and just as thrilling if it consists only of the "Yes" with which the
heroine answers the hero's wooing. Indeed, it not infrequently happens
that the tragedy or the catastrophe which appears in the climax is only
an accessory to the real climax, a cause or a result of it. The climax
of "The Ambitious Guest" is a tragedy; but the climax of Irving's "The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow," though certainly a catastrophe, is anything
but tragic, if read in the ironic spirit in which it was written:
Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang
upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he
gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to
see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash
of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his
stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him.
Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late.
It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash; he was
tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed,
and the goblin rider passed by like a whirlwind.
While in Poe's "The Black Cat," one tragedy is a preliminary of the
climax and another is in a manner the result of it; but the real climax
is the discovery of the cat:
... a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily.
The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood
erect before the eyes of the spectators. On its head, with red
extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast
whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing
voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster
up within the tomb!
Nor does the mere introduction of a tragedy make a climax, for though
the following paragraphs contain two tragedies, there is no climactic
force:
Joseph, who had been sitting with his head on his knees, and
wondering what in the world was going to happen, raised his
head, and exclaimed, on seeing his brother, "You have come after
me--" At this instant some one struck him on the head with a
pistol, which brought him to the floor. But Harry, hearing the
familiar voice, and seeing the man also, knew too well who it
was. He shouted at the top of his voice, "Stop! Wait! This thing
must be investigated!" Telling them who the prisoner was, and
pleading with them, he was finally able to disperse the mob,
though against their own will.
The next morning, when Mamie was brought to consciousness again,
she begged that he should not be punished.
On learning the truth he was immediately released, but the
bitter grief, mingled with so much excitement, was more than he
could endure. He died that night at ten.
The bitterness occasioned by this catastrophe remained in the
bosom of Mamie, and she too died of a broken heart.
The plot of a certain type of story requires subordinate and preliminary
climaxes to relieve the tension or advance the action, as already
stated.[42] Such periods, when given genuine climactic force, are
antagonistic to the spirit of the short story, in that they violate the
unity, and a story containing them is usually faulty otherwise; but such
stories have been written by good writers and so must be recognized
here. The preliminary climaxes must be sufficiently few, sufficiently
subordinate and sufficiently distant not to detract from the force of
the chief climax. The main point is to see that one of the preliminary
climaxes is not really _the_ climax, for inexperienced writers sometimes
allow their stories to run on longer than they should; or they confuse
what is merely an incident with what should be made the main crisis. In
"The Ambitious Guest" there is only one climax; but in Hawthorne's "Mr.
Higginbotham's Catastrophe" I find no less than five critical points,
which I here subpend with the numbers of the paragraphs in which they
occur:
¶ 7.
"Old Mr. Higginbotham of Kimballton was murdered in his orchard
at eight o'clock last night by an Irishman and a nigger. They
strung him up to the branch of a St. Michael's pear tree where
nobody would find him till the morning."
¶ 14.
"... if squire Higginbotham was murdered night before last I
drank a glass of bitters with his ghost this morning. Being a
neighbor of mine, he called me into his store as I was riding
by, and treated me...."
¶ 21.
"No, no! There was no colored man. It was an Irishman that
hanged him last night at eight o'clock; I came away at seven."
¶ 36.
"I left Kimballton this morning to spend the vacation of
commencement-week with a friend about five miles from Parker's
Falls. My generous uncle, when he heard me on the stairs, called
me to his bedside and gave me two dollars and fifty cents to pay
my stage-fare, and another dollar for my extra expenses."
¶ 49.
He rushed forward, prostrated a sturdy Irishman with the
butt-end of his whip, and found--not, indeed, hanging on the
St. Michael's pear tree, but trembling beneath it with a halter
round his neck--the old identical Mr. Higginbotham.
These several climaxes form a perfect series, each a little higher than
its predecessor, and all logically culminating in the chief climax of
the story in ¶ 49; and by this progressive and culminative effect they
go far to preserve the sense of unity which their presence endangers.
Such real if minor climaxes are entirely different from the several
stages of the story illustrated in Chapter IX by James' "The Lesson of
the Master."
The novice usually has some hazy conception of the importance of a
climax, and endeavors according to his lights to attain the desired
effect, but he is seldom successful. Most frequently he is handicapped
by his plot, which is not designed to produce a successful climax. If
he has escaped that danger he is liable to ruin a possible good climax
by too abrupt an introduction. His nearest approach to success is what
may be called a "false" or "technical" climax, in the use of which he is
very skillful--too skillful, indeed, for his own good. This false climax
is produced by breaking off the narrative abruptly the moment the
suspense of the story is terminated. It is really an abrupt conclusion,
and not a climax at all; and it produces the jump in the reader's mind
by its suddenness, and not by its concentrated force. It is sometimes
made more pointed by the use of italics or capitals. Thus the following
final paragraphs, which are typical of the work of the novice, have no
hint of a climax as they stand:
... Mrs. Moore sat gazing into the glowing grate.
"Well, truants, where have you been all this time? I--" She
stopped suddenly as she saw Nettie's blushes, and the happy look
on Guy's face.
"Mother, Nettie has made me the happiest man in existence, by
consenting to be my wife. And we have come to ask your
blessing."
"It is heartily given, my dear children. Nothing could give me
more pleasure than to see you two happily married," said she,
kissing them. "By the way, how did you young people happen to
make this wonderful discovery?"
"Well, mother, I have had some serious thoughts about the matter
ever since I surprised you and Nettie last September, but I
never dared to put my thoughts into words till to-day."
"I don't remember that you surprised Nettie. She was out in the
orchard, she told me, when you arrived."
"Yes, I believe I remember finding her in the orchard," and he
gave a ludicrous description of their first meeting.
"That accounts for Nettie's blushes when I introduced you that
day. You won't go west now, will you, Guy?"
"I shall have to, mother; but I'll sell out at the first
opportunity. In the meantime I think we had better notify aunt
Adams that she is doomed to have a son-in-law."
"I have thought of an excellent plan," said Nettie. "Let's all
go east for the holidays. Only, for goodness' sake, don't tell
Edith and Maud about my exploits in the apple tree. They would
be so shocked at my lack of dignity."
So the following week they started for Nettie's home. Guy soon
won Mrs. Adams' consent to her daughter's marriage, which was
arranged to take place the following September.
"That is the month in which the old apple tree bears its most
delicious fruit," Guy whispered to Nettie.
If, however, the author had stopped with the third paragraph, he would
have had at least a false or technical climax. This false climax must
not be confused with the coincident real climax and abrupt ending
discussed further on.
When the climax has come the story has reached its end and the quicker
you terminate it the better your reader will be pleased. With the
passing of the climax interest ceases, and you have only to gather up
and explain the few unsettled points, and round off your narrative
gracefully. Any further interest in your characters is little more
than a sense of politeness due to old acquaintances; or, at most, a
psychological desire for complete impressions. So when you have told
your tale, end it.
For the conclusion, as for the beginning, one paragraph is about the
average length. The practice differs, of course, with different writers
and different stories, but there is not so much variance as in the
beginnings. An effective climax often completes a story in the most
satisfactory way. In "The Ambitious Guest" Hawthorne employs three
paragraphs (¶ 42-44), exclusive of the climax itself, to conclude the
story. Each of these three paragraphs contains matter necessary to the
completion of the tale in Hawthorne's style. It is probable that a
modern writer would have condensed them into a single paragraph, because
of the modern demand for extreme compression; but with the possible
exception of the last two sentences of ¶ 44 there is nothing irrelevant
in the conclusion. In "The Birthmark," and "Young Goodman Brown,"
Hawthorne uses but a single paragraph for his conclusion.
The conclusion and the climax should be as nearly simultaneous as
possible. The present tendency is to make them coincide, and so increase
the effect of the climax by making it the actual end of the story, as it
is the end of the interest. It is not always that the coincidence can be
perfect, but many a story could be cut short immediately after the
climax, and be much improved thereby. For example, if Hawthorne had
written "The Ambitious Guest" to-day it is probable that he would have
ended it with ¶ 44: "The slide! The slide!" Had he done so he would
certainly have given additional force to his climax, strong though it is
now; and I believe that any reader would have understood perfectly all
that is contained in ¶ 42-44. You must be careful, however, in the use
of this style of conclusion, lest your supposed climax is merely an
abrupt ending--a false climax--which leaves unsettled some things which
a further conclusion should make clear. Not every plot allows an abrupt
ending, even though it may have a good climax, and you must suit your
method to your matter. In any case, the story must convey a complete
impression.
But the conclusion must not be padded with irrelevant matter to make
it appear rounded, or to please the perverted taste of the writer. The
end is allowed scant space and has even less room for sage observations,
or pointing of morals, or lamentations over the sins or misfortunes
portrayed than have the other parts of the story. In the example already
quoted the narrative drags on for some nine paragraphs after the story
is really ended, without adding anything of interest or value. Happily
such conclusions are infrequent, but the best of writers are
occasionally dragged into them through their reluctance to quit
forever scenes and people that have grown dear to them through close
association. A somewhat similar method of padding out the conclusion to
the detriment of the story is to end with a catch word referring to the
beginning, as in the following example, where the "blackberry girl" is a
reminder of the title:
I hope these few surprises of mine may serve as a lesson to some
young man, and help to teach him to prove true to his first
love, though she may appear to be only a poor girl--yes, even a
"blackberry girl."
Of all poor conclusions the conventional is most to be feared by the
novice, for it is surely fatal to the story to which it is attached. If
the story is conventional in plot and treatment it is inevitable that
its ending should be conventional, so here again we see the necessity of
originality of plot. But too often a writer, after having successfully
carried his story past the climax, will grow weary or careless and end
it with the conventional ideas and phrases which were worn threadbare
ages ago.
The inexperienced writer of the gentler sex is peculiarly liable to be
guilty of using conventional endings. To her mind, apparently, the chief
end of man is marriage, and the proper end of a story is a wedding. It
must be acknowledged that this is the only logical conclusion to her
stories, for from the moment they appear in the opening paragraphs the
reader knows that in the last the hero will marry the heroine, willy
nilly, at the behest of the matchmaking "authoress." "To the author, who
has suffered with and on account of his characters more intensely than
any reader can suffer, there is something amusing in this anxiety to
have the old formula, 'And they all lived happy ever afterwards,'
repeated at the end of every tale. A tiny _bonne bouche_ of happiness
is so inadequate after some stories of sorrow that it seems almost an
irony to offer it to the readers; and yet, like children who have taken
a bitter medicine, they are very likely to complain that they have had
no taste of sweetness, if it is not offered to them.... The common
feeling that death is inevitably sad is responsible for much of the
stress which is laid upon the endings of books. That, and the belief
that people who love each other can have no joy or benefit of life if
they must live apart, have set up two formal and arbitrary conditions
which a story must fulfil in order to be considered cheerful. The
principal characters may go through fire and water if necessary, but
they must get rid of their smoke stains and dry their costumes in time
to appear alive and smiling in the final chapter; and the hero and the
heroine must marry each other, or, if the writer has allowed their
affections to wander further afield, they must at least marry the people
of their choice. These, of course, are not the standards of the most
thoughtful readers, and yet, like all conventionalities, they extend
further than an author likes to believe."[43]
The fact is, however, that if real people were constantly thrown at one
another's heads so determinedly it would take a stronger power than even
the omnipotent literary aspirant to force them into matrimony. Nor are
weddings, or descriptions thereof, particularly delectable reading when
they desert the society column for the short story. They are usually
very much alike--though one original writer did perform her ceremony up
a tree--and the bride always wears the same dresses and smiles the same
smiles and weeps the same tears. So if you _must_ have a wedding, let
the reader off with the classic formula, "And so they were married and
lived happily ever after;" but don't inflict on him such cheap
sentimentalism as this:
Christmas morning was clear, cold and bright, just such a
morning as had marked Fred's first departure from the Blanford's
some three years before.
Grace's sisters had come home to take charge of affairs for the
day and evening so Grace did not have much to see after but
herself. Fred, supposing he would rather be in the way, did not
arrive until about an hour before the ceremony was to take
place, which was in the evening. A good many guests were invited
and as they had already begun to arrive, Grace but barely had
time to greet Fred, when she found she must withdraw and don her
wedding garment.
If Grace had looked pretty with her gown held up about her a few
weeks ago, she now looked handsome indeed as she came into the
well crowded room.
Her rich silk gown fell in deep soft folds at her dainty feet.
The soft creamy lace fell about her well shaped neck in
clusters; the color of the gown made her hair and eyes look
black as jet; and the excitement still kept the roses in her
cheeks. Fred did not look so handsome, but no one could help
admire the manly form as he stood beside Grace answering the
questions that were to acknowledge them man and wife.
As soon as the ceremony was over and congratulations had been
extended to the bride and groom, they were ushered in to a
nicely prepared supper. A merry Christmas evening was spent.
Grace's brothers did not lose their housekeeper, as she and Fred
made their home with them.
They spent their days not like the hurrying brook, but grasped
all the sunshine that was meant for them.
And in general it is much better--better art and better manners--for you
to draw the reader politely aside as soon as the heroine has whispered
the inevitable "Yes;" for what follows should not be spied upon by any
third party.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 42: See "preparation for the climax" in Chapter IX.]
[Footnote 43: "The Problem of Endings," by Mary Tracy Earle. _The Book
Buyer._ Aug. '98.]
XI
THE STYLE
The method of presentation of the short story is a matter of import.
Its very artificiality calls for skilled workmanship; it must be made
pleasant and readable by all known devices; its brevity, too, permits
and demands a higher finish than is necessary in the novel. And
altogether the short story offers a writer who is not exactly a
genius a rare chance to show his ability as an artist in words.
Hence the question of style is of serious moment.
Style is so much a matter of individuality, and the short story
comprises so broad a range of subjects, that it is not easy to lay down
general rules concerning the proper style. No two masters would or could
treat the same plot in precisely the same way, and yet the method of
each would be correct. However, certain generalizations concerning the
style of the short story may be made without being arbitrary. As always
in literature, the style should be appropriate to the matter. This may
seem entirely gratuitous, yet the examination of the work of amateurs
will justify the remark. They are apt to treat serious subjects with the
most unbecoming levity, and to dress commonplaces in an absurdly ornate
style; and at times they so far disregard propriety that they offend
against good taste.
The style of the short story should be simple, easy and concise. Usually
the matter is not of great moment; it is incidental rather than
critical; and it offers little reason for exaggerated expressions, or
rotund periods. Above all it should be natural, for the short story,
despite its many conventionalities, is very near to nature. The extreme
sensationalism affected by many amateurs is most absurd, for nature and
things true to nature can never be really sensational--a fact which is
unconsciously recognized by the offending writer in his resort to
artificial means to make his narrative sensational. I say "extreme
sensationalism" because I believe a certain amount of what is commonly
designated sensationalism is permissible in the short story to sustain
the interest, and to produce that delightful "thrill" which accompanies
a clever scene. The best rule for the novice is to stick close to
nature--that is, to fact. He may present what startling effects he will
so that he can prove them copies of nature, and so that they do not
offend against art; but it is not permitted him to harrow the feelings
of his readers by unduly dwelling upon exciting topics. Any undue
exaggeration of this style, or any attempt to create excitement by sheer
force of italics, capitals and exclamation points, is in extremely bad
taste. It at once disgusts the intelligent reader, and it will soon so
weary even the ignorant that he will yawn drearily over the most
startling display of "scare" lines.
The necessity for a simple style must not be made an excuse for
commonplaceness; and here the author confronts rather a serious
question, for everyday life abounds in commonplaces, which literature
will not tolerate. If we make our stories readable we must, in some
degree, represent life; if we represent life we cannot wholly avoid
commonplaces; if we do not avoid commonplaces we become unliterary.
However, the difficulty is more easily solved than at first appears, and
the solution lies in the very life which we portray. Life certainly is
full of the baldest facts, but they are so subordinated to the
relatively few but important events by which our lives are checkered
that we shortly forget the commonplaces and remember only the striking
occurrences. In like manner we should so preserve the proportion of our
stories that the necessary commonplaces, while they properly perform
their parts, shall be carefully subjugated to the interesting
happenings. This is largely a matter of the handling, for in fiction
events seem great or small in accordance with the space and treatment
that they receive. The way, then, to dispose of commonplaces is to
slight them as much as possible: to crowd them into the least possible
space, and to couch them in ordinary language; for thoughts that are
rendered unusual by their expression become conspicuous.
By ordinary language I do not mean the stereotyped phrases which the
mentally lazy employ in the expression of their thoughts, but the
simple, correct and rather colorless speech which is heard among the
truly cultured. Indeed, sensationalism is preferable to the deadly
monotony of the writer who is wont to clothe his ideas in the ready-made
garments of conventional phrases; for sensationalism has at least the
merit of vividness. The writer who penned the following could hardly
have been more absurdly commonplace and stereotyped in his phraseology
if he had been ridiculing some "popular" author of cheap literature,
but he wrote in serious earnest; the story throughout is a perfect gold
mine of such hackneyed expressions. I have italicized the most
offensive, though it is hardly necessary.
_Faint rumors_ of a church scandal _permeated the very
atmosphere_ in Frankton, and every one was _on the alert_ to
_catch the faintest whisper_ in regard to the matter; as the
minister was a _social favorite_, and it was known by _an inside
few_ that he was the one most seriously involved.