CHAPTER I_The Technique of Fiction Writing

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THE TECHNIQUE OF FICTION WRITING

"The one excuse and breath of art--charm."--_Stevenson._

The Technique of

Fiction Writing

ROBERT SAUNDERS DOWST

JAMES KNAPP REEVE

PUBLISHER

FRANKLIN, OHIO

The Editor Company

James Knapp Reeve

_TO

C. K. R. D._

PREFACE

Many books have been written on fiction technique, and the chief excuse

for the present addition to the number is the complexity of the subject.

Its range is so wide, it calls for so many and so different capacities

in one attempting to discuss it, that a new work has more than a chance

to meet at least two or three deficiencies in all other treatments.

I believe that the chief deficiency in most works on fiction technique

is that the author unconsciously has slipped from the viewpoint of a

writer of a story to that of a reader. Now a reader without intention to

try his own hand at the game is not playing fair in studying technique,

and a book on technique has no business to entertain him. Accordingly, I

have striven to keep to the viewpoint of one who seeks to learn how to

write stories, and have made no attempt to analyze the work of masters

of fiction for the sake of the analysis alone. Such analysis is

interesting to make, and also interesting to read, but it is not

directly profitable to the writer. It is indirectly profitable, of

course, but it will give very little direct aid to one who has a

definite story idea and wishes to be told the things he must consider in

developing it and writing the story, or to one who wishes to be told

roughly how he should go about the business of finding real stories. In

fact, I believe that discussion and analysis of perfect work has a

tendency to chill the enthusiasm of the beginning writer. What he

chiefly needs is to be told the considerations he must hold in mind in

conceiving, developing, and writing a story. The rest lies with his own

abilities and capacities to work intelligently and to take pains.

Therefore the first part of this book takes up the problems of technique

in the order in which they present themselves to the writer. Beginning

with matters of conception, the discussion passes to matters of

construction and development, and finally to matters of execution, or

rather the writing of a story considered as a bare chain of events. Then

the matters of description, dialogue, the portrayal of character, and

the precipitation of atmosphere are discussed, and lastly the short

story and novel, as distinct forms, are taken up.

Usually the propositions necessary to be laid down require no

demonstration; they are self-evident. That is why a book on technique

for the writer need not indulge in fine-spun analysis of perfect work.

Where analysis will lend point to the abstract statement, I have made

it, but my constant aim has been not to depart from the viewpoint that

the reader has in mind some idea of his own and wishes to be told how to

handle it. Unquestionably literary dissection is useful in that it gives

the beginning writer familiarity with the terminology and processes of

the art, but the main object of a book on technique is to place the

results of analysis, directly stated, in logical sequence.

I will note one other matter. A great part of the technique of fiction

writing concerns matters of conception and development which are

preliminary to actual writing. In fact they are essentially and

peculiarly the technique of fiction. The story that is not a justly

ordered whole, with each part in its due place and no part omitted,

cannot have full effect, however great the strictly executive powers of

its writer. Verbally faultless telling will not save a story which is

not logically built up and developed, either before writing or in the

process of writing. The art of telling a story is largely the art of

justly manipulating its elements. The art of telling it with verbal

perfection is not so much a part of the strict technique of fiction

writing as it is of the general technique of writing. Therefore I have

made little attempt to discuss the general art of using words. For

assistance in studying the art of expression the reader should turn to a

work on rhetoric. The subject is too inclusive for adequate treatment

here. Moreover, it is debatable whether the art of verbal expression can

be studied objectively with any great profit. But the art of putting a

story together can be studied objectively with profit, and its

principles are subject to direct statement.

I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. William R. Kane, of The

Editor Magazine, for much helpful criticism and many valuable

suggestions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 13

I. The Writer Himself 22

II. The Choice of Matter 30

III. Conceptive Technique: Story Types 37

IV. Conceptive Technique: Plot and Situation 48

V. Constructive Technique of Narration 64

VI. Executive Technique of Narration 80

VII. Executive Technique of Narration

(Continued) 95

VIII. Description 107

IX. Speech 121

X. Portrayal of Character 136

XI. Atmosphere 152

XII. The Short Story 165

XIII. The Novel 182

XIV. Conclusion 197

Appendix 209

INTRODUCTION

"A work of art is first cloudily conceived in the mind; during the

period of gestation it stands more clearly forward from these swaddling

mists, puts on expressive lineaments, and becomes at length that most

faultless, but also, alas! that incommunicable product of the human

mind, a perfected design. On the approach to execution all is changed.

The artist must now step down, don his working clothes, and become the

artisan. He now resolutely commits his airy conception, his delicate

Ariel, to the touch of matter; he must decide, almost in a breath, the

scale, the style, the spirit, and the particularity of execution of his

whole design."

Thus Stevenson, in "A Note on Realism," takes it for granted that the

artist in pigments, stone, or words cannot reproduce until he first has

produced, cannot show a perfect work unless he paints, builds, or writes

along the lines of a perfected design.

One cannot dabble long at architecture or the graphic arts without

gaining keen realization of the fact that conception in its elaborative

aspects is as much a part and phase of technique as the executive

handling of materials. But the art of literature, and, more narrowly,

the art of fiction, deal with materials other than those employed in the

other arts; words, not colors or marble, nor yet sounds, are the

resource of the story teller to precipitate his conception in enduring

form; and words are at once frank and mysterious things. Their primary

office is to forward the common business of life; each has some meaning

in itself, more or less definite. It results that the writer of a story

who sets out with only the merest glimmering of what he means to do in

mind can produce a superficially plausible work, a work not too

obviously misshapen, a work that means something, at any rate, although

his failure to trace a design to guide his hand almost inevitably will

prohibit his giving the basic conception most effective expression. And,

since almost any sequence of words has some significance, it also

results that the writer of fiction who works at haphazard may fail to

discover that failure in his work as a whole is due to lack of planning

rather than to defective execution. The mere grammatical coherence of a

fictionally slipshod piece of work is a shield between its writer's

inquiring eye and its essential defects.

The art of fiction is the art both of the tale and of the story,

fictions that differ radically. Their most striking difference is stated

in the following pages; here I can only remark broadly that the tale is

episodal, consisting of a fortuitous series of incidents without

essential connection or relation except that they all happened to happen

to the characters, while the story is a whole in that each incident

functions in the development of a plot or dramatic problem. If prevision

and full elaboration of his basic idea are essential to the writer of a

tale, they are doubly essential to the writer of a story, simply because

a story is a whole and the result of careful co-ordination of parts.

Even if the writer of some particular story has not worked along the

lines of a fully elaborated design, the story actually will manifest

co-ordination of parts or else be worthless. A story is more than a

series of incidents; it is a series of incidents significant in relation

to character. Its writer cannot set to work with an eye solely to the

physical spectacle and follow after with his pen; he must prepare his

people as well as the events, a task of cunning calculation. He must

have an eye to many other matters, but this is not the place to state

them. The matter of character is the matter significant here, because

the whole difference between tale and story is made by the presence or

absence of relation between events and personality. And it is certain

that the writer of a story cannot hope to do the best work if he

postpones until the moment of actual writing the task of moulding and

elaborating his basic idea with a view to giving it maximum effect. The

task to express perfectly, in a verbal sense, is difficult enough to

claim the undivided attention of the ablest artist, but undivided

attention cannot be given the matter of verbal expression by a writer

who shapes his substance and picks his words at one and the same time.

Either word or substance must suffer.

Accordingly, to emphasize the necessity that the writer of fiction give

full shape and development to his design before writing, I have stated

the necessity and discussed technique itself under two heads, conceptive

or constructive technique and executive technique. To have carried this

division rigorously through the whole book would have been neither

possible nor profitable, for it would have involved much repetition and

confusion, but the various items of technique are either largely

conceptive and constructive or largely executive, and the best place to

discuss each has not been difficult to determine. It was only necessary

to contemplate the actual process of conceiving, developing, and writing

a story, and to take up in their order the problems that confront a

writer of fiction. The only matter which found no natural place, so

approached, was that of characterization, which is almost equally a

matter of construction and of execution, so that discussion of it has

been broken up to some extent.

This approach to technique is the natural approach, and has been adopted

for that reason. The more naturally and easily any study can be

conducted, the greater the results that will be achieved. But there is a

more immediate reason for taking up the phases of technique in the order

in which they present themselves to a writer of fiction, thereby

emphasizing the existence and importance of the constructive phases of

technique. Briefly, it is that construction is at once easier and more

important to learn than execution. Perhaps a little argument in support

of the statement is called for.

It will not be questioned seriously that it is easier to learn the main

principles of construction than it is to learn or discover how to write

with finish and power. It is entirely possible to state abstractly the

principles of construction, to grasp their reasons and implications from

abstract statement, and to apply them by a mere act of the intelligence

in writing any story. But it is entirely impossible to state abstractly

the principles of writing with finish and power, or to learn to write so

from any mere discussion of the matter. The condition is illustrated by

almost any treatise on rhetoric, where half the text will be made up of

examples transcribed to lend some weight to the obviously--and

necessarily--inadequate discussion. How to write with finish and power

can be learned only by long continued and intelligent practice, if it

can be learned at all. Of course, this is not to say that constant

practice is not necessary to gain any real facility and adequacy in

applying the principles of construction.

The argument of the last paragraph is clinched by the fact that of a

thousand stories, all of which are well constructed and put together,

only a few or perhaps none will be written with any approach to real

literary power, in the verbal sense. Of all the writers of to-day who

can put together a story in workmanlike fashion how many have the power

of the telling word? how many have even a style?

I have yet to substantiate the assertion that construction is more

important for the writer of fiction to learn than execution, but the

task is easy. In the last analysis, the power of a story, that is, its

power to interest, depends upon its matter, the spectacle it presents.

If the whole conception is justly elaborated and properly put together,

it will have very nearly full effect, even though its writer does not

give it perfect verbal expression, provided the verbal precipitation of

the thing is not too shamelessly inadequate. Perfect verbal expression

is necessary to give a properly constructed story maximum effect; it is

not necessary to give it approximate effect. But perfect verbal

expression will not save a story that is misshapen and distorted through

lack of proper construction.

These considerations strongly urge the writer of fiction to master the

principles of constructing a story before he frets about the nuances of

expression, and just as strongly they impose upon a book on technique

the obligation to discuss matters of construction at length and also to

discuss them as such. The book which does not explicitly insist that

certain matters are matters of construction, therefore to be performed

before writing, is very apt to mislead. It is a defect from which too

many books on fiction technique are not free, and one that I have tried

to avoid.

How comprehensive and inclusive are the principles of construction the

first half of this book attempts to show. Here it is enough to state

that they embrace matters so different as the manipulation of possible

incidents in the interest of climax, and the preparation or building up

of the people of a story that its situations may have real dramatic

value for a reader. The writer of fiction who merely writes cannot hope

to provide by any instinct for these and the other matters of

construction, and no power in his words can fortify essential weakness

in his matter. Style, literary power, the right word in the right

place--all will resist the tooth of time, but no one will preserve a

story from the contagion of decay at the heart. Indeed, in the juster

sense, a shapely design is the necessary foundation or basis for perfect

writing, which is no mere varnish.

In this present era of magazine literature the chances are that nine out

of ten actual or prospective writers of fiction who take up a book on

technique for serious study will do so with an eye to the short story.

And since this book is for the practitioner of the art, not for the mere

reader of fiction, I have felt myself under obligation to discuss the

short story and its peculiar technique with some approach to adequacy.

Statement of the way the short story has been approached may serve to

align the reader's mind with the argument.

In the first place, the short story is yet a story, a fiction, so that

the general technique of fiction is applicable to it, with suitable

modifications here and there. In the second place, the short story is a

distinct type of fiction in that it embodies a plot or dramatic problem

and is brief enough to read at one not very prolonged sitting. It is at

once slighter and more pointed or direct than the long story of plot,

the novel or romance. The result is that all its processes, particularly

the process of characterization, must be conducted in a fashion more

swift and summary than in a long story, and the difference is the whole

of the difference in the technique of the two forms.

Unfortunately, a discussion of the peculiar technique of the short story

cannot confine itself to this difference without failing to clear away

the many misconceptions that becloud the subject. A good deal has been

written on the short story, and, since there is really not very much to

say, a good many writers have been led into nonsense. With so much

misconception in the air, I have felt that it would be useful to state a

tenable theory of the short story, and have attempted to do so in the

chapter on the form. The matter will be found there and cannot be

reproduced here, but brief statement of the argument will complete the

foretaste of the book.

Since the short story is a story, at least, it may be divided and

classified, like all stories, into stories of character, stories of

complication of incident, and stories of atmosphere, that is, into

stories which emphasize or stress the element of personality, the

element of incident, or the element of setting. But the truly

significant division of the short story into types, the division which

it will be most directly profitable for the writer of fiction to

realize, is twofold, not triplicate, and is the division into the

dramatic short story and the short story of atmosphere or unity of

emotional effect on a reader.

These two types are as different as black and white, and the

misconception noted above consists in confusing them. The short story of

atmosphere is Poe's sort of story; he said something definite and true

about his peculiar art; but later writers, critics rather, have padded

and distorted his words to cover the whole field of the short story. The

general result is much printed folly, and the specific result for the

short story writer is that he is continually urged, commanded,

entreated, and advised to invest his work with some mysterious "unity."

The advice is sound if the short story of atmosphere, the short story

of unity or totality of emotional effect, is meant; the short story of

atmosphere is a mysterious and subtle unity in that its people and

happenings are curiously of a piece with its setting, serving to deepen

or intensify the emotional effect of the setting on a reader. But,

applied to the dramatic short story, the advice is unsound, for the

dramatic short story may and usually does involve much diversity and

contrast in its three elements of people, events, and setting. The only

sense in which it can be said to be a unity is that it is verbally

coherent, a single story. The single story may involve radically

different people, happenings, and scenes.

The positive evil tendency in telling the short story writer to seek to

invest his work with "unity" is that if he follows the advice his

material will be restricted, and he will write stories too simple really

to interest, apart from the appeal of their characters. And this point

of interest brings up another aspect of this book which I would mention.

The last chapter states a general theory or philosophy of fiction which

it will prove most profitable for the writer of fiction to grasp,

however imperfectly I may have stated it. The theory is not profound, in

the sense that it is mysterious, being merely the theory which is

implied in the content and aim of the art of fiction itself. The content

of fiction is man and what he may possibly or even conceivably

experience; the aim of fiction is to interest, in Stevenson's words,

"the one excuse and breath of art--charm." How much is implied in the

content and aim of fiction I have tried to show in my closing pages, but

the theory there stated is the guiding principle of the whole book, and

any value it may have derives from such unforced handling of the

subject. Apart from the merit of my own work, one thing at least is

certain. If commentators on the art of fiction generally would deal

less in "isms" and seek less to display their profundity and critical

acumen, the actual writer of fiction might read them with some profit.

As it is, the greatest single danger threatening the practitioner of the

art is that his eagerness for all that pertains even remotely to his

trade may lead him to take seriously the empty thunders of the schools

and to forget that his business is to interest and captivate Mr. and

Mrs. Smith, simply that.

To sum up, my desire has been to write a book that would be of some

practical use, at least practically suggestive to the writer of fiction;

therefore the only natural way to approach technique has been adopted,

and I have indulged in analysis only when the analysis would be useful

in itself or would serve to clear away misconception. In other words,

the book has been written strictly for the writer, not the reader of

fiction, and that implies much.

CHAPTER I

THE WRITER HIMSELF

Critical Faculty--Cultivation of Genius--Observation and

Information--Open-mindedness--Attitude Toward Life--

Prejudice and Provincialism--The Social Question--Reading--

Imagination.

Accessible as are the data of the fiction writer, the facts and

possibilities of life, their very accessibility places him under strict

necessity to sift the useful from the useless in search for the pregnant

theme. For if life presents a multiplicity of events to the writer, from

which he may select some sort of story with little labor to himself,

life also presents the same multiplicity of events to the reader, who

can see the obvious as well as the lazy writer, and who will not be

pleased with a narration of which he has the beginning, middle, and end

by heart. A tale which does not interest fails essentially, and novelty,

in the undebased sense of the word, is the root of interest. Therefore

the writer of fiction who takes himself and his art seriously must

develop the open and penetrating eye and the faculty of just selection.

All is not gold that glitters, a fact that too often becomes painfully

evident only when some tale discovered with joy and developed with

eagerness lies coldly spread upon paper. The beginner who will approach

his own conceptions in a spirit of unbiased criticism and estimation

before determining to set them down will save himself useless labor,

much postage, and many secret tears. Half of the essentially feeble

work produced that has not a chance of getting published is the result

of the writer's falling in love with his own idea simply because it is

his own idea. The defect is in conception rather than in execution, and

a matter of first importance to the writer is to develop the faculty of

estimating his unelaborated ideas.

Unquestionably this faculty can be developed. The struggle for its

development is half over, in a practical sense, when the writer comes to

judge his concepts at all before writing, when he wins free of the habit

of writing just to be writing, and of choosing to work on a particular

tale because it is the best he can squeeze from his brains at the

particular moment, rather than because it is absolutely good and he

knows it to be absolutely good.

Unquestionably, too, the critical faculty is powerless to supply worthy

conceptions. But that is beside the point. If the conceptions are

worthy, the just critical faculty will recognize their merit, and give

the writer courage and confidence to send each tale across the almost

inevitable sea of rejections until it comes to port, as it surely will,

if well done. And if the conceptions are feeble, and the writer cannot

better them, it will be better for him and all concerned that he

discover the truth.

Whether the essential genius of the teller of tales, the power that

first supplies a theme of moment and then a fitting garb for it, is a

plant capable of nurture, is not for me to attempt to show, or even to

state. Fortunately, the question is academic. The dons may debate the

point, but for those who themselves labor in the literary vineyard the

thing to remember is that the same habits of observation and practice

which some claim will create the literary faculty will at least foster

its growth, if it is a gift, as others claim, and not to be

artificially cultivated. Steady hours at the desk and moments with the

notebook, the cultivation of the seeing eye, the informed mind, and the

sympathetic heart, may not be able to create the divine spark. But it

may burn within one for all that; and shall one neglect to bring it to

full flame on the mere chance that it may not exist because of the

possibility that it cannot be created? If the chance of its existence is

great enough in the individual's eyes to justify the labor of writing at

all, it is great enough to justify undertaking the correlative

activities of observation and self-culture. At the least of it, these

can result only in making one a better and more complete man or woman,

irrespective of the literary result. The writer who fancies that his

labor is but to string words, and that idea or passion come to life in

the barren mind or heart, is foredoomed to failure. No equation can be

formed between something and nothing, nor can something come from

nothing. All life and all art is a quid pro quo; the writer must barter

his time and sweat for his raw materials, ideas.

There is little need to state that of writers of equal genius the one

with the deepest reservoirs of observation and information to draw upon

will produce the more significant work. In relation to expository and

argumentive writing the fact is patent; in relation to the writing of

fiction it may be less obvious, but, curiously enough, is even more

impressive when perceived. The writer of special treatise or argument

may "devil" his subject for the occasion; though the writer of fiction

may specially investigate the phase of life or society with which he

deals, his investigations will aid him only in the external matters of

dress, customs, speech, or atmosphere. For the preservation of the

essential congruity and justness of the whole as a presentation of life

he must depend solely upon his own innate familiarity with life, which

cannot be brushed up for the occasion, for it necessarily derives from

the totality of the individual's experience and the use he has made of

it.

In this connection it may be noted that above all else the writer of

fiction must be catholic in his interests and sympathies. He is the

sieve through which the motley stream of life is poured to have selected

for presentation its most significant aspects, and any unwisely

cherished aversions of his are so many gaps in the netting through

which, to his own loss, worthy matter constantly will escape. It is

difficult enough at best for even the most open-minded writer to achieve

some approach to an adequate presentation of a phase of life, and for

the writer whose vision is distorted by prejudice and predilection,

however perfect his technique, it is nearly impossible. The writer of

fiction is concerned with political, social, or religious dogmas only in

so far as they impinge upon and affect the individual life whose course

his pen is tracing, and his only proper and fruitful attitude toward

such dogmas is that of observer, not of fierce advocate or equally

fierce assailant. The heart of the people is sounder than its head,

perhaps because larger, and life is a complex of passion rather than a

complex of intellectual crusades. The writer of fiction addresses the

whole man, his emotional nature as well as his intelligence, and should

address him by presenting the whole man, instead of some feeble

counterfeit not actuated primarily by passion.

Emotion can be evoked only by the portrayal of passion, and

emotion--sympathy, disgust, admiration, any spiritual excitement--is the

root of the appeal of fiction. There are other elements of interest,

primarily intellectual, as in the detective story or any story of

ratiocination, but emotional appeal is the one essential in work of any

compass. Emotional appeal is attainable only through a just presentment

of life, and toward life the writer of fiction must preserve an attitude

of observation and ready acceptance. In the last analysis, that is his

business. The world pays its wage to the scientist for the narrow,

intensive view; it pays its wage to the teller of tales for the broad,

extensive view.

The course of letters is marked by great failures whose essential

technical powers were nullified or at least hampered by their narrow

outlook on life, and by great successes whose achievements bear the scar

of prejudice and provincialism. In our day, the multitudinous standing

controversies of the past have been reduced in bitterness by the more

general diffusion of information and by the conflicting claims of more

numerous interests that demand exercise. Nevertheless we still have the

division between rich and poor, capital and labor, conservative and

radical. For reasons immaterial here, this division and resulting social

conflict will become more complete and bitter; the writer of fiction

will face the fact and be forced to deal with it at times; and it is to

be remembered that one may be abreast or even ahead of the best thought

of the day without being hectic, and that to draw the conservative of

fiction as a fool or a villain simply because he is a conservative is

bad art. Conceivably a man may be back in the ruck of thought and belief

because he is a fool, but he is not a fool merely because he is behind

the times. He may have had no chance to learn better, and that is

precisely the story.

Besides viewing life with a sympathetic and inclusive eye, the writer of

fiction should investigate the smaller world of books. Life is

infinitely more rich in substance than the printed word, but the

observer is not a disembodied spirit, and cannot scrutinize the whole

world, cannot exhaust even his own little neighborhood. He can call to

his service the eyes of his contemporaries and of those who have gone

before, and, in a few hours reading, can live vicariously a dozen lives.

In this very real sense the world of books is practically larger than

the actual world; one can hope to exhaust its more significant matter.

By reading, the writer of fiction can gain familiarity with the actual

tissue of life, the casual relation between motives and acts--so often

obscured in real life--can mingle with nobler, baser, more significant

people than he will be apt to meet, and can estimate the efforts of

others in his own art. Reading of all sorts will yield information, and

reading of fiction will reveal the root causes of success and failure in

the difficult task to precipitate life in words.

There is little need to emphasize the difficulty of the task, twofold as

it is. One must find matter, and one must display it. Not only will

reading conduce to mental development and flexibility; it will reveal

the function of the single word. Life is seen in chiaroscuro, but words

are sharp and definite things. As Stevenson has said, the writer must

work in mosaic, with finite and quite rigid words. If he really works,

scorning to abuse a noble instrument and to prostitute a noble

profession, his difficulties will but increase with his earnestness.

Flaubert is a case in point. Only by reading can the writer discover the

resources of language, and only by reading can he find encouragement in

the spectacle of what patience and devotion have achieved.

One may employ a method of literary presentment diametrically opposite

to that of fitting the right word in the right place, the method of

taking a broad canvas, disregarding length, and, in a sort, modeling the

verbal mass, which will possess plasticity to an extent, though

composed of words intractable and rigid in themselves, like the atoms

which compose modeler's clay. But this method is open only to the writer

of a novel of epic length; the verbal economy of the short story forbids

it; and it will usually be found that the books which manifest it--"Les

Miserables," "David Copperfield," "Tom Jones," "Jean Christophe," "War

and Peace," much of Thackeray's work, for instance--owe their appeal to

the essential vitality and worth of their matter rather than to any

detailed perfection of artistry. If the story is worthy, it will not be

injured by compact and artistic expression; the function of the artist

is to select the significant from life and to present it as pungently

and as perfectly as possible; brevity in expression is as essential as

economy of line in drawing. I have read and heard it stated that

Stevenson and many others eminent for artistry are thin and

self-conscious in their work, and personally I would give much to know

whether this impression does not derive from the fact that many of the

accepted great books of the world, and most of those appearing day by

day, are negligible as examples of executive artistry, by their contrast

making the occasional work that is concisely and artistically done seem

somewhat artificial. The reader is perhaps so accustomed to imperfect

work that the perfect has a touch of artificial glitter, and seems

unreal. But this is a digression. The fact remains that the writer of

fiction who would live by his art cannot afford to go in ignorance of

what has been done before him. He should read, widely and with all his

faculties on the stretch. A vast amount of experiment lies ready on the

printed page. One may not by reading learn how to do perfect work, but

one can at least discover what cannot by any possibility be done.

The general proposition is that the writer of fiction must observe

life, must estimate it, and must express the phase that his estimation

shows to be significant. The open eye, the cultivated and able mind, and

the trained hand are all equally essential, and all must work together

in harmony. Some have the eye without the hand; some the hand without

the eye; in others the faculty of discrimination is wanting; but eye,

mind, and hand may all be trained by application. No one who has not

done his best has the right to complain of failure, and he who engages

in the difficult business of letters, and neglects to use all efforts to

equip himself, is a fool and nothing else. The writer may live in

prosaic surroundings and be repressed by daily contact with people as

dull as ditchwater; yet the world is wide and man a free agent within

limits; let him strike his tent and go elsewhere. But let him first make

quite sure that the defect is in his environment and not in himself.

Otherwise, when ensconced in a snug artistic Bohemia, he may suffer the

pain of learning that some quiet, clear-eyed seer has found rich ores in

the old home life, and has wrought them to fresh shapes of beauty. And

beyond the influence of all accidents of time and place lies the world

of imagination, instinct with austere beauty, offering escape, solace,

and rich gifts to him who has the golden key. Investigate the life that

was Hawthorne's in Salem, Massachusetts, in the thirties and forties,

then read "The Scarlet Letter," and turn your eyes within if ugliness

lies stark about you. No boor and dullard may walk with you in the

fields of fancy, alone with the night wind and the quiet stars. Dream

with sanity, live with sanity, work with sanity and purpose, and realize

that life and thought are your business, and that the stream of life as

a whole is clean and fresh and sweet and utterly interesting even if you

yourself are caught in some stagnant backwater. Open your eyes and swim

for the clear reaches of the stream.