[Sidenote: Popular ideas concerning fiction]
A popular opinion seems to exist that the art of writing Fiction can
be acquired without any natural gift for the profession of Literature;
the wish to become a writer is thought a sufficient proof of vocation,
although such a wish, accompanied with fluency in pen and ink, is very
apt to mislead those who can express their thoughts easily in writing.
Diligent study and persevering labour will of course do much to further
progress in any art, but it is unlikely that the art of writing fiction
can be acquired in the same way that the mere mechanical knowledge of
Music, or of Painting, or of Sculpture can be learned by a beginner.
Some experienced writers own that they find it difficult to give a
definite account of the processes by which they themselves have
arrived at the production of their ideas; at the outset, I fancy, many
of them worked without settled method, or distinct consciousness of
their own processes, and this unconsciousness of the method followed,
and of the way in which images reveal themselves to the writer, seems
to indicate that a systematic plan, a set of rules to be implicitly
followed, would be useless to most learners, and would defeat the
desired end.
[Sidenote: The principles of literature]
It seems to me that the principles of Literature, or, to speak simply,
the ways in which writing should be done, reveal themselves during its
practice, and probably much of the originality which, whatever may be
their shortcomings as novelists, distinguishes many English writers,
is due in a measure to this personal, unaided way of groping after
truth. Writers who possess a natural faculty often work for years with
an intuitive rather than a conscious adherence to distinct principles;
without these principles, whether possessed consciously or intuitively,
it is, I think, impossible to write that which can be called
Literature. It appears to me therefore that would-be writers, without
a certain innate faculty, may read and study and acquaint themselves
with all the literary canons laid down by critics, and yet fail in
producing literature, while others who have the true gift will be able
to produce good and spontaneous bits of writing. I do not, however,
think that mere natural faculty will enable persons to continue to
write well without constant, self-denying study, and they must work up
to their abilities, if they would attain success.
It would therefore seem wiser for beginners, instead of trying at the
outset to learn how to write, to apply some test to their own powers of
writing; let them, in fact, make sure that they have a real literary
gift.
[Sidenote: The power of vision]
The power of Vision, the subject of my paper, is necessary for all
Literature, but it is completely indispensable to a novelist. Many
novels are undoubtedly written without it, but it may be asked for what
purpose are they written? except it be to waste time; they pass into
the limbo of useless and forgotten things; there is even a tradition
that the Head of a great circulating library said he used these
ineffectual novels for garden manure!
There are, however, many young writers very much in earnest, with
too much reverence for Literature to attempt novel-writing for mere
pastime, and they are often tormented by doubts of their capacity for
success; it is better to tell them frankly, that although such doubts
may not be justly founded, they are very hard to lay, and they may
possibly abide with the writers till long after the public has begun to
listen to their utterances, may indeed remain till writers and their
hopes and fears have come to the last chapter of life.
[Sidenote: Certain tests]
But earnest literary students may greatly help themselves at the outset
by using certain tests in trying to make sure whether they have or have
not any portion of the gift, without which perseverance will only lead
to disappointment. It may not be possible to teach the art of writing
novels, but one may try, as well as one can, to help beginners to find
out for themselves whether they have or have not “natural faculty” for
this calling.
It is said that exactness of proportion can only be proved by
measurement, and it is perhaps only by the application of certain
principles that beginners in the art of Fiction can learn whether they
should persevere or whether they will not save themselves bitter
disappointment by wisely giving up a profession for which they have
proved themselves unfitted. The effort required by any attempt at
real Literature argues an absence of idle-mindedness in those who
make it, and encourages a hope that beginners may be willing to
apply test-principles to their methods and power of work. Of these
principles, the power of Vision seems to be the most useful as a test
of true vocation for the art of writing Fiction.
[Sidenote: Imagination and realism]
IT was said many years ago of a distinguished writer, who has since
passed away, that she lacked imaginative power, that she only described
that which she had seen and known. The accusation was refuted as an
ignorant one, it was proved that the writer had not seen with her
outward eyes all that she so vividly described; it is, however, evident
that in making such a statement, the critic forgot the existence of
the power of Vision, the power which enables a writer not only to
see vividly and distinctly characters, actions, and scenes, but also
enables him to see the especial features in these several images
which will help to reproduce them with the greatest vigour and with
perfect truth. The absence of this power in its truest form makes
some so-called realistic work wearisome, and even nauseous, because it
contains such a superabundance of detail that breadth of treatment and
truth of effect are lost, while tone is lowered by too much familiarity
with the objects presented.
[Sidenote: The art of selection]
True Vision sees vividly that which it describes, sees it in perfect
proportion and perspective, and with this clear eyesight has a power of
selecting from surrounding details the chief and most impressive points
of its picture; it thereby enables its possessor—according to his power
of utterance—to impress the picture he has called up with vigour and
distinctness on his reader.
The power of Vision may and does exist with lack of ability to sing
or to say, even faintly, that which it so plainly sees, but for all
that it is a real gift, not a mere effort of memory, when it calls up
a character or a scene. Memory of course helps it, for perhaps all
we write or try to write, even that which seems to us newly evolved
from our original consciousness, may only be a recreation of forgotten
experiences.
The practical working of the power of Vision is apt to vary; the object
or scene is sometimes not at once clearly discerned, a fragment is
perhaps first seen, but patient waiting is often rewarded by a distinct
and vivid sight of all the other parts which have been simmering in the
brain, at first but dimly apprehended, shapeless, lacking alike form
and colour.
It may be said that the power of Selection in a writer is a distinct
principle, and should of itself form the subject of a paper on creative
work, instead of being classed with Vision; but the power of Selection
appears to me to be inseparable from any one literary principle—it is
an essential part of true Vision.
[Sidenote: A natural not acquired gift]
There are some parts of the whole which constitutes the power of
novel-writing that seem as though they might be acquired by dint of
hard study, without the possession of a natural gift for them. Style
is one of these, another is the careful construction of a story; but
unless the power of Vision be intuitive in a beginner, it is, as I have
said, almost useless to attempt Fiction. For instance, it is useless to
try to describe, unless the person or thing in question is as clearly
seen by the mental eyes as the would-be writer’s face is seen by his
physical eyes when he looks in the glass; even when the image is
distinct, power to present it may not exist in sufficient vigour to
enable readers to see the picture as the writer does. This is, however,
almost a matter of course. I am inclined to think that probably few
writers, if any, have ever satisfied themselves in painting the
pictures they have mentally created. To take the highest example, we
cannot know how far keener the power of Vision was in the pictures
seen by Shakespeare than in those which he has revealed to the world.
It is this want of proportion between the power to see and the power
to execute that has made the despair of artists of all time, whether
painters or poets, sculptors or prose-writers, so dissatisfied must
they ever be with their own productions compared with the creations
they see so vividly.
[Sidenote: Observation not sufficient]
IT may be said that all this art-study is unnecessary, that it is
sufficient carefully to observe life and scenery, and then to write
down all that the eye has noted, woven into the form of a story. This
is not easy work, our very faculty of observation is qualified by our
power of true mental vision; without mental vision, and the selecting
power that belongs to it, the objects noted down, instead of forming a
coherent and lifelike picture in the mind of a reader or listener, will
produce a dry catalogue of persons and things, there will be a want
of proportion and perspective, of efficient light and shade. “No one
knows what he can do till he tries” is a very true saying which fits
our case. Let persons without the literary faculty try to write off a
description of the office or counting-house in which they work, of the
room, whether it be study or drawing-room, in which they dwell, of the
persons among whom they live, and they will see what the results of
such attempts are from a literary standpoint.
[Sidenote: Silas Marner]
Many passages might be quoted to illustrate the vigour and distinctness
with which this power of Vision manifests itself, and in a few words
creates a picture which remains impressed on the mind of the reader,
but I have not space for them. Here is one, however, which stands out
by itself in intensity of distinctness and direct presentation.
Silas Marner, standing at his cottage door, has had a fit of
unconsciousness, during which the child, little Eppie, has found her
way into his hut.
“Turning towards the hearth, where the two logs had fallen apart, and
sent forth only a red, uncertain glimmer, he seated himself in his
fireside chair, and was stooping to push his logs together, when,
to his blurred vision, it seemed as if there were gold on the floor
in front of the hearth. Gold!—his own gold brought back to him as
mysteriously as it had been taken away! He felt his heart begin to
beat violently, and for a few moments he was unable to stretch out his
hand and grasp the restored treasure. The heap of gold seemed to glow
and get larger beneath his agitated gaze. He leaned forward at last,
and stretched forth his hand; but instead of the hard coin with the
familiar resisting outline, his fingers encountered soft, warm curls.
In utter amazement, Silas fell on his knees, and bent his head low to
examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child—a round, fair thing, with
soft yellow rings all over its head.”
Let the reader try to picture this scene to himself, and then consider
the marvellous power with which it is here brought before him, the
intense power of Vision, and of Selection evinced not only by the
points chosen for representation, but in the omitted details which an
ungifted writer would have dragged into the foreground. The strange
agitation of the lonely man is seen as vividly as the head of the
little golden-haired intruder lying before the red, uncertain glimmer
of the burning logs; this picture is more than an incident in the
story, it is the key which lets us in and acquaints us with the unhappy
weaver who till then had seemed outside our sympathies.
[Sidenote: George Eliot]
As we read her work, we know that unless this writer’s power of Vision
had been of a high order, she could not have placed so many living
pictures in our memories, pictures not of mere scenes, but bits of
actual life, in which the rude passions, and also the gentler qualities
of men and women, are set before us.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell]
I will mention yet another illustration of truth of Vision, rendered,
because seen in a sudden flash, with so much vigour that it is
difficult to believe it is not a record of human experience. The
incident is too long to transcribe, but it occurs in the fourth chapter
of the third volume of _Sylvia’s Lovers_, the scene in which Charlie
Kinraid, Sylvia’s old lover, returns, and tells her that her husband
has deceived her. There is a desperate simplicity in the pathos of
the poor girl’s words, “I thought yo’ were dead”; and the vivid image
of the shuddering, conscience-stricken husband is more moving than any
elaborate description could have made it. It is truth; one seems to
know that it was all seen and heard distinctly by the writer before a
word of it was set down.
[Sidenote: Some masters of fiction]
In _Kidnapped_, the defence of the cabin on board the privateer
strongly evidences the power of Vision; still earlier in the book is a
more sudden effect in the ghastly discovery the hero makes at the top
of the steps up which his treacherous uncle had sent him. In _The Black
Arrow_, by the same master-hand, the scene of the apparition of the
supposed leper is a marvellous instance of this faculty.
I might quote many remarkable examples from _Oliver Twist_, from _The
Ordeal of Richard Feverel_, from _The Cloister and the Hearth_, and
other masterpieces, in illustration of my meaning. There is more than
one wonderful instance in _John Inglesant_, notably the passage in
which the reader is made to see Strafford almost without a description
of his apparition.
These illustrations are more or less evidences of direct Vision, the
pictures presented seem to have been at once photographed on the
mental sight; but many remarkable instances could be cited in which
the effects are produced by a series of touches so exquisitely blended
together, that the impression produced is that of a solid whole. In
_The Woodlanders_ there are examples of almost unrivalled truth of
Vision, presented by a series of richly coloured touches. In the
first chapter of _Pride and Prejudice_ we have another feature of
the power of Vision, the incisive presentation of character in the
dialogue between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet; this so completely impresses
both characters on the reader’s mind, that the concluding words of the
chapter seem superfluous.
In _A Foregone Conclusion_, by Mr. Howells, we recognise an extremely
subtle power of Vision; we can scarcely say how the persons have become
familiar to us, yet we seem to know that they are alive, and that
they were distinctly seen by the writer; there is the same power in
_Silas Lapham_. It may be said that I have only given examples from the
Masters of Fiction. I could have given many others from the books of
far less popular writers, but I believe in a high ideal, for one can
never reach one’s aim, and it is well always to be striving upwards.
[Sidenote: Essential qualities for writing fiction]
The outcome of the question, then, seems to be that beginners in the
art of novel-writing are able to test themselves as to their power of
Vision with regard to Fiction; they will soon discover whether they can
master the difficulty of creating a forcible and distinct picture in
their minds of the subject they propose to treat; they _must_ see it
distinctly, and it _must_ be lasting; they must see not only the outer
forms of characters, but their inner feelings; they must think their
thoughts, they must try to hear their words.
It is possible that the picture may not all be seen at once; the
earnest student may have to wait days before he sees anything, weeks
before he vividly and truthfully sees the whole. I can only say, let
him wait with patience and hope, and above all let him firmly believe
that novel-writing is not easy; possibly, in spite of earnestness and
diligence, the beginner has made a mistake, and has not the necessary
gifts for success in Fiction. Well then, if after many trials he
cannot call up a picture which is at the same time distinct and true
to Nature, he had better bring himself to believe that his attempt is
not a creation of the imagination, it is at best but a passing fancy,
not worth the trouble of writing down. One more counsel. There are
three qualities as essential to success in novel-writing as the power
of Vision: they are Patience, Perseverance, and an untiring habit of
taking pains.