The sounds produced by a people are invariably a direct indication of
the degree of their refinement; the greater the blare and clamour
attendant upon their doings, and the more harsh and uncultivated their
speaking voices, the less their innate refinement.
Bearing all this in mind, it is easy to understand why so much of our
modern literature became tainted with the same sound-harshness that had
smitten life as a whole. Some writers would not take the trouble to be
musical; some maintained that there was no necessity to be melodious;
some regarded beauty of sound as synonymous with weakness; others--and
these were in the majority--had lost all sense of word-music and the
captivating quality of rhythm. And yet few things make a greater or a
more general appeal to the reader.
[Sidenote: The Dangers of the "Rough-hewn" Method]
There is no doubt but what the idea that rough, unpolished work stood
for strength, while carefully-finished work implied weakness, was due to
the fact that several of our great thinkers adopted the "rough-hewn"
method. Such men as Carlyle and Browning were sometimes irritatingly
discordant and unshapely in style--occasionally giving the idea, as a
first impression, that their words were shovelled together irrespective
of sound or sense.
Said the lesser lights, "This seems a very easy way to do it! And they
are undoubtedly great men. Why shouldn't we do likewise? It must save a
deal of trouble!"
But there is one difficulty that we lesser lights are always up against:
whereas genius, in its own line, can do anything it likes, in any way it
likes, and the result will be of value to the world, those of us who are
not in the front rank of greatness cannot work regardless of all laws
and traditions; or, if we do, our work is not worth much. It was not
that Carlyle and Browning were permitted to write regardless of laws and
traditions because they were great; certainly not. They were great
because they could write regardless of laws and traditions, and yet
write what was of value to the world. So few of us can do that.
Parenthetically, I am not saying that Browning was never musical; the
lyrics in _Paracelsus_, for instance, are beautiful; but often he went
to the other extreme.
It no more follows that beautiful language is weak, than that uncouth
language is strong. The rough and often clumsy phraseology sometimes
used by the two men I have named was their weakness; and the fact that
the world was willing to accept the way they often said things, for the
sake of what they had to say, is an immense tribute to the worth of
their ideas.
[Sidenote: To use Pleasing Language is Good Policy]
There are invariably two ways of saying the same thing, and, all else
being equal, it is more advantageous to say what we have to say in a
pleasant rather than an unpleasant manner. We know the wisdom of this in
everyday life; equally it is the best policy in writing.
I could name books that are moderately thin in subject-matter and yet
have had a large sale, and this, primarily, because of the charm of
their style and the music of their language.
While there should be ideas behind all that is written, if those ideas
are presented in language that captivates the ear, the book has a double
chance, since it will appeal through two channels instead of only
one--the ear as well as the mind.
It must never be forgotten that the object of our reading is
sometimes--very often, indeed--recreation and recuperation. We are not
always seeking information; the mind is not always equal to profound or
involved thought; but it is always susceptible to beauty and harmony (or
it should be, if we keep it in a healthy condition, and do not damage it
with injurious mental food). And whether we are seeking information or
recreation, there is a great fascination in reading matter that has
rhythm, melody, and balance in its sentences.
I consider that the power to write on these lines is very largely a
matter of training. Though, obviously, some ears are more keenly alive
than others to the comparative values of sound, and some are born with a
certain instinct for good expression, there is no doubt but what
practice will do much to induce a graceful, melodious style of writing,
and study will help us to detect these qualities in the works of others.
[Sidenote: Write Verse if you want to Write Good Prose]
With regard to training: I strongly advise those who aim for a good
prose style to practise writing verse. When you start, you will probably
find that your early attempts are nothing more than a series of lines
with jingling rhymes at stated intervals.
Nevertheless, even such productions as these are of definite use in your
training. You have had to find words that rhymed. You have had to
compress your ideas within a set limit; this in itself is a check on the
long-winded wandering tendencies of the amateur. You have had to
consider the respective weight of syllables--which is worth an accent,
and which is not, and so on. In short, you have had to give some
discriminating thought to what you were writing, and how you were
writing it, and that is what the beginner so seldom does. He more often
sits down and goes on and on and on--words, words, words--with no
feeling for their respective values, or the proportion of the sentences
and incidents as a whole.
Viscount Morley, in his _Recollections_, writes: "At Cheltenham College,
I tried my hand at a prize poem on Cassandra; it did not come near the
prize, and I was left with the master's singular consolation, for an
aspiring poet, that my verse showed many of the elements of a sound
prose style."
But the master's consolation was not so singular after all. It is quite
possible for one to write verse that may be excellent training for
prose writing, and yet that is not poetry in the most exclusive sense of
the word.
[Sidenote: Read Poetry Aloud to Cultivate a Sense of Musical Language]
In addition to writing verse, I urge all students who wish to cultivate
a sense of music in their writing to read good poetry, and, whenever
possible, to read it aloud.
When reading aloud, the ear helps as well as the eye; whereas, when
reading silently, the eye is apt to run on faster than the ear is
able--mentally--to take in the sounds; and you are bound to miss some of
the finer shades of movement and melody. When you say the words aloud,
the sound and the beat of the syllables are more likely to be impressed
upon your mind.
You cannot do better than Tennyson to begin with--one of the most
musical of our poets. Read "The Lotos-Eaters," the lyrics in "The
Princess," "The Lady of Shallott," "Come into the Garden, Maud." In "The
Idylls," and "In Memoriam," are many exquisite passages. Read
"Guinevere," and "The Passing of Arthur," for example, noting the lines
that are conspicuous for their charm of wording, or balance, or sound.
Turning to other writers: I select a few instances at random, and am
only naming well-known poems that are within the reach of most
students:--
Christina Rossetti: The chant of the mourners, at the end of "The
Prince's Progress," beginning "Too late for love," is worth reading many
times.
Jean Ingelow has, in a marked degree, a musical quality in her verse
which compensates in some measure for its slightness. Her habit of
repeating a word often gives a lilt and a cadence to her lines that is
very pleasing, as for instance in "Echo and the Ferry," and "Songs of
Seven." As an example by another poet, this repetition of a word is used
with delightful effect in "Sherwood," by Alfred Noyes.
Other poems you might read are: "The Forsaken Merman," Matthew Arnold;
"The Cloud," Shelley; "Kubla Khan," Coleridge; "The Burial of Moses,"
Mrs. Alexander; and "The Recessional," Kipling. "The Forest of Wild
Thyme," Alfred Noyes, contains much in the way of music.
After you have studied these--and they will give you a good
start--search for yourself. To make your own discoveries in literature
is a valuable part of your training.
[Sidenote: Anthologies are Valuable Text-Books]
The student will find it very helpful to have at hand one or two small
volumes of selected poems by various authors. Such anthologies often
give, in a compact form, some of the choicest of the writers' verses;
and this saves the novice's time in wading through some work that may be
indifferent in search of the best. Moreover, a little volume can be
slipped into the pocket, and will provide reading for odd moments.
Do not content yourself with a mere reading of the poems. Try to decide
wherein lies the charm (or the reverse) of each. Explain, if you can,
why, for instance, the following, by Swinburne:--
"Yea, surely the sea like a harper laid hand on the shore as a lyre,"
appeals to one more than Longfellow's lines:--
"The night is calm and cloudless,
And still as still can be,
And the stars come forth to listen
To the music of the sea."
Compare poems by various writers dealing with somewhat similar themes;
note wherein the difference lies both in thought and workmanship. Mrs.
Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese" could be studied side by side
with Christina Rossetti's "Monna Innominata"; Longfellow's "The Herons
of Elmwood" with Bryant's "Lines to a Waterfowl"; Christina Rossetti's
"The Prince's Progress" with Tennyson's "The Day Dream."
Such exercises will enlarge your ideas as well as your vocabulary; they
will help to give you facility in expressing yourself, and also that
genuine polish which is the result of close familiarity with good
writing.
Analysing an Author's Methods
It is not possible to suggest any definite course of reading for the
study of technique (or methods of authorship). The ground is too wide to
be covered by any prescribed set of books.
In order to understand, even a little bit, "how the author does it," you
need to study each book separately, as you read it--deciding, if you
can, what was the author's central idea in writing it; disentangling the
essential framework of the story from the less important accessories;
analysing the plot; assigning to the various characters their degree of
importance; accounting for the introduction of minor episodes; noting
how the author has obtained a fair proportion of light and shade, and
secured sufficient contrast to ensure a well-balanced story; and how all
the main happenings combine to carry one forward, slowly it may be, but
surely, to the climax the author has in view.
These are a few of the points you should observe. Now look at them in
detail, and at the same time apply them to your own work.
[Sidenote: One Central Idea Should Underlie every Story]
Every author of any standing has one central idea at the back of his
mind when he sets out to write a novel; this is the pivot on which the
plot turns--it may be called the keynote of the book, Sometimes the
author's "idea" is obvious or avowed, as in the case of much of
Dickens's works, and _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. Sometimes it is so deftly
concealed that you may not realise a book is giving expression to any
one special idea, so absorbing is the general interest.
One great advantage of this keynote is the way it gives cohesion to a
story as a whole, a motive for the plot, a bed-rock reason for the
story's existence.
The central idea which is invariably behind a well-written story must
not be confused with the "moral" that adorned all the praiseworthy books
of our grandmothers' day. The idea may be a very demoralising one, and
anything but a wholesome pill administered in a little jam, as was the
"moral" of by-gone story-books. But the point I want you to notice is
this: every author who is an experienced worker starts out with a
definite object in mind--good or bad, or merely dull, as the case may
be; he does not sit down and write haphazard incidents with nothing more
in view than the stringing together of conversations and happenings
that arrive nowhere, and illustrate nothing in particular, and reach no
climax other than a wedding.
[Sidenote: A Wedding need not be the Chief Aim of a Novel]
Possibly it will come as a surprise to many amateurs when I tell them
that the inevitable uniting of the lovers (or their disuniting, as the
case may be) in the last chapter, is not necessarily the chief object of
an experienced writer; often it is merely incidental.
The average beginner--more especially the feminine beginner--has but one
aim when she embarks on fiction, viz., the marrying of her hero and
heroine. That the wedding bells ringing on the last page may be an
episode of secondary importance, so far as a book is concerned, seldom
occurs to her. The result is the monotonous character of thousands of
the MSS. offered for publication; and the weary reams of paper that are
covered with pointless, backboneless fiction, that amounts, all told, to
nothing more than the engagement (or the estrangement) of two
colourless, nondescript individuals!
[Sidenote: The Ideas behind Books are as Varied as Human Nature]
Sometimes the author aims to show you either the inhabitants and manners
and customs and scenery of some definite locality! or one particular
class of society; or the virtues or failings of an individual type; or
the beauty of an abstract virtue; or the pitiful side of poverty; or
vice decorated with gloss and glamour.
But whatever the idea may be, one of some sort lies behind every novel
of recognised standing.
Begin your study of a book, therefore, by looking for its central idea;
then observe how this permeates the whole, and how the author utilises
his characters and his incidents to demonstrate the idea.
Some writers explain themselves in the title they give to a book. _The
Egoist_ tells you at once what to expect. But whether the motif of a
book be obvious or not at first apparent, it is important so far as the
staying quality of a story is concerned. And it is not until you have
studied standard authors, with this particular matter in mind, that you
realise how much more important it is that a book should have a keynote,
than that the hero should be handsome, or that the heroine should be
dressed in some soft clinging material that suits her surpassing
loveliness to perfection.
[Sidenote: Look for the Framework of the Story]
Having decided what is the central idea behind the book you are studying
(I am not suggesting any particular book; choose any work of recognised
merit by a dead or a modern writer and it will serve), next try to find
the framework of the story--the plot if you like, though the framework
is not always the plot.
Each complete story is composed of an essential skeleton, with a certain
amount of secondary matter added to it to take away from its bareness.
It is well to notice that with the greatest writers the framework is
usually something fairly solid and substantial that will stand the
addition of other matter; and it often deals with some great human truth
that is world-old. It is not much good to have a framework composed of
trivialities.
But suppose the framework be something like this--
Worthy John Jones becomes engaged to good Mary Smith; they quarrel,
and become disengaged. J. J. falls a temporary prey to the sirenical
wiles of Elsienoria Brown; M. S. lends a temporary ear to the
insidious suggestions of Adolphus Robinson. Elsienoria Brown
inadvertently listens to the innocent prattle of a little orphan
child, and forthwith mends her wicked ways and dies of consumption;
Adolphus Robinson is condemned to penal servitude for life after
absconding with the Smith family plate. J. J. and M. S. are finally
restored to each other through the kind offices of the same innocent
orphan child.
It may take you a little thought and time to detach this framework from
the author's wealth of additional incidents or secondary matter.
There may be talk about the lovely old Tudor mansion, Mary's home; the
life history of each of Mary's ancestors, whose portraits hang in the
long gallery; the eccentricities of Mary's grandfather; the Spartan
temperament of Mary's mother, with details about the perfection of her
servants, and the thoroughness of her spring-cleaning activities;
digressions as to non-successful aspirants for Mary's hand prior to the
advent of John; Mary's work among the poor; Mary's love of Nature, and
her exquisite taste in garden planning; Mary's patience with a gouty
father; the sordid history of the late parents of the prattling orphan
child whom Mary recently adopted; Mary's stay in Cairo (after the
quarrel), and her meeting there with Adolphus; details of Cairo natives;
measurements of the pyramids; a nocturne on moonlight over the desert; a
dissertation on flies; prices and descriptions of bazaar curios;
sidelights on hotel visitors, their tongues, their flirtations, and
their fancy-work----
And much more concerning Mary.
Then there will be Elsienoria; her stage career; her intrigues; her
eyes; her interest in bull-terriers and bridge; a descriptive catalogue
of her jewels, and the furnishings of her palatial yacht; and a vignette
of her poor old mother taking in washing in Milwaukee.
In like manner there will be copious data concerning John, and ditto
concerning Adolphus, with all sorts of entanglements to be straightened
out, and a legion of simple happenings that lead to confusions.
It is from a mass of incidents such as these that you will have to
eliminate the framework, the part that cannot be dispensed with without
the rest falling to pieces. Practice in analysing stories will soon make
the framework of each clear to you.
[Sidenote: Assess the Value of each Character in the Story]
The characters should be studied individually, in order to find out why
the author brought them on the scene; what position each occupies in
relation to the whole; who are the most important folk, and who are
brought in merely to render some useful but unimportant service to the
story.
Then note how the author keeps the circumstances that surround each
character directly proportionate to his or her place in the story. The
great deeds are invariably performed by the hero--not by some odd man
who appears only in one chapter and is never heard of again. The most
striking personality is never assigned to some woman who only has a
minor part given her, and who vanishes in the course of a dozen pages,
with no further explanation.
In this way assess the value of each character to the story as a whole.
Next study the matter that seems non-essential to you, and decide, if
you can, why each episode was introduced.
[Sidenote: The Use of Secondary Matter]
At first glance you may think that much of it could be done without, and
would make no difference whatever to the story, beyond shortening it, if
it were omitted altogether.
This is perfectly true of poor work. The unskilled writer will pad out a
MS. with all manner of stuff that has no direct bearing on the plot.
There will be conversations that reveal nothing, that throw no lights on
the characteristics or the motives of anybody, and are obviously
introduced merely to fill up a few pages. There will be incidents that
in no way affect the movement of the story, that add no particular
excitement or interest, and carry you no nearer to the climax than you
were in the previous chapter.
But the good craftsman wastes no space on unnecessary talk, even though
certain scenes and episodes may be of less importance than others. He
knows that secondary matter, such as descriptive passages, dialogues,
interludes and digressions are necessary in order to "dress" the
framework and give it something more than bare bones; they are also
needed to give variety and balance to a book. Some incidents that may
not appear to be vital to the story, are introduced to break what would
otherwise have been a monotonous series of events; or they are put in
for the purpose of giving brightness and a picturesque element as a
contrast to some sorrowful or gloomy occurrence.
[Sidenote: Minor Details can be made to serve Two Purposes]
If the book be written by a master, each character, each conversation,
each incident, each descriptive passage, each soliloquy is introduced
for a specific purpose; nothing is haphazard, nothing is merely a
fill-up.
Moreover, the expert novelist is not content to put his secondary matter
to one minor use only; he frequently makes it contribute something to
the main issues of the story--and in this case it serves a double
purpose.
For instance, take the imaginary story I sketched out just now. Let us
suppose that, half-way through the story, there occurs a stormy chapter,
in which John and Mary quarrel and part in a scene that is red-hot with
temper and emotion. It will be desirable to secure a decided contrast in
the next chapter, to give every one--readers as well as lovers--time to
cool down a little; besides, you do not follow one emotional scene with
another that is equally overwrought, or they weaken each other. The
author would, therefore, aim for something entirely different in the
chapter following the one that ended with John violently slamming the
hall door, and Mary drowning the best drawing-room cushion in tears.
We will assume that the author transports Mary to Cairo for change of
air; and, in order to restore the atmosphere to normal, he decides on an
interlude, entitled "Moonlight Over the Desert"; this will serve as a
soothing contrast to the preceding upset.
But he will not necessarily describe the moonlight himself. If he makes
Mary describe it in a letter to a friend, or to her father who remained
at home, he will be killing two birds with one stone; he will be
administering a pleasant sedative, after the turmoil of the lovers'
quarrel; also he will be showing you how Mary's temperament responds to
the beauties of Nature, and how appreciative she is of all that is good
and pure and lovely. In this way he will be helping you to understand
Mary better, and thus the "Moonlight Over the Desert" chapter will be
contributing definitely to the main trend of the book.
Then, again, the author may wish to bring the reader back to the
everyday happenings in a light and whimsical manner, and he may give you
a scene showing the various ladies who are staying at the same hotel
with Mary in Cairo, retailing their conversation, with the usual
oddities and humours and irresponsibilities that are to be found in the
small-talk of a mixed collection of women at an hotel. In this way he
can introduce brightness and a light touch among more sombre chapters.
But in all probability he will make the conversation serve a second
purpose; Mary may, on this occasion, hear the name of Adolphus Robinson
for the first time, little realising that he is to play an important
part in her life later on; or an American visitor may chance to give
details of her old charwoman in Milwaukee, Elsienoria's mother, little
knowing that Elsienoria is the evil star in Mary's horizon, etc.
These are indications of the way an experienced author can make every
incident in the story dovetail with something else, as well as serve an
"atmospheric" purpose, _i.e._, to change the air from grave to gay, or
from mirth to tragedy. He never writes merely for the sake of covering
paper, or bridging time; whereas the amateur only too often introduces
digressions and irrelevant matter with very little reason or apparent
connection, apart from a desire to cover paper, or, perhaps, because the
episode came into his mind at that moment, and he thought it was
interesting in itself, or that it would help to lengthen the story.
[Sidenote: Never lose Sight of the Climax]
Notice, too, how the clever author keeps his eye on the climax; how
ingeniously he will make everything lead towards that climax; and how he
puts on pace as he gets nearer and nearer the goal, instead of hurrying
on events at a terrific rate at the beginning, then getting suddenly
becalmed part-way through, and making the tragedy painfully
long-drawn-out at the end--as is the method of many amateurs!
[Sidenote: The Main Rules apply to all Stories, irrespective of Length]
You may tell me that all this does not apply to you personally, as you
are not so ambitious as to try your hand at a book; you only write short
stories.