length, the difference being that with a short story greater
condensation is necessary. Instead of devoting a chapter to some
contrasting episode, you would give a paragraph to it; and instead of
having a dozen or so secondary characters, you would be content with
only two or three besides the hero and heroine, and this in itself would
reduce your number of minor episodes and your descriptive matter.
Whatever the length of your story, it is well to remember that there
should be one main idea at the back of all (apart from the wedding);
also a framework, to which is added a certain amount of secondary matter
that is well-balanced and introduced with a definite object in view; the
characters must bear a fixed relation to the whole; and there must be a
climax, concealed from the reader, so far as possible, till the last
moment, but ever-present in the writer's mind as the goal towards which
every incident, indeed every paragraph, in the story trends.
You will find it very useful to study the short stories of Rudyard
Kipling, Sir James Barrie, and Mrs. Flora Annie Steel.
[Sidenote: The Necessity for Careful Planning]
Studying fiction in this way is exceedingly interesting, and wonderfully
instructive. Obviously every author has his own individual methods, and
no two work in exactly the same way. But if you examine these main
features, which are common to most, you begin to realise something of
the careful planning and forethought that go to the making of a story
that is to grip its readers, and live beyond its first publication
flush.
Perhaps you may be inclined to think that the bestowal of such minute
care on the details of a book would tend to make it artificial and
stilted; there are those who argue that the rough, slap-dash style is
the only method by which we can catch the fine frenzy of genius in its
unadulterated form! But all Art calls for attention to detail; anything
that is to last must be the product of painstaking thought. Life itself
is a mass of detail carefully planned by the Master-Mind. If you study
your own life, you will be amazed to find, as you look back upon the
past, how every happening seems to be part of a wonderful mosaic, that
nothing really stands quite alone with no bearing whatever on after
events.
That the slap-dash method is much easier than the careful, thoughtful
working-out of a story, I admit. But it does not wear--why? because
there is really no body in the work; it is all on the surface, and
therefore quickly evaporates. That which costs you next to nothing to
produce, will result in next to nothing.
Of course, you can elaborate your work, and add a multitude of details
all apparently bearing on the story, till the readers (and also the main
features of the story) are lost in a mass of small-talk and unimportant
events. But the secret of all good art is to know what to take and what
to leave; and the genius of a writer is evidenced in the way he knows
just what incidents to put down in order to gain the object he has in
view, and what to omit as redundant, or unnecessary to the direct
working out of his theme.
[Sidenote: The Application]
I am not analysing any novel to give you concrete examples of the points
I have named. My object in writing these chapters is not so much to set
down facts for you to memorise, as to help you to find out things for
yourself.
Our own discoveries are among the few things of life that we manage to
remember.
Having dissected a novel, and made notes on the way it was constructed,
turn to your own work (whether a long or a short story), and see what
you have to show in the way of a main idea, a good framework, a purpose
for each character, a reason for each incident, well-balanced secondary
matter, with a steady _crescendo_ and _accelerando_ leading to a good
climax.
I need not point out the application. It is for you to make your own
stories profit by your study of the methods of the great writers.
PART FOUR
POINTS A WRITER OUGHT TO NOTE
Beautiful and striking thoughts are a common everyday
occurrence; the uncommon occurrence is to find the
person who can reduce those thoughts to writing in
such a manner as to convey, exactly to another mind
the ideas that were in his own.
Practice Precedes Publication
When you sit down pen in hand with the intention of writing
something--WRITE!
This may seem unnecessary advice to lead off with; but it is surprising
how much time one can spend in not writing, when one is supposed to be
engaged in literary work (no one knows this better than I do). It is so
easy to gaze out of the window in pleasant meditation, letting the
thoughts wander about in a half-awake, half-dreaming state of mind.
Girls often sit and think all kinds of romantic things, weaving one
strand of thought with another, letting the mind run on indefinitely
into space and roam about aimlessly among pleasant sensations. Such
girls sometimes think this an indication that they have the ability to
write a novel; whereas it is doubtful whether they could draft a
possible plot for the simplest of stories; their brain is not
sufficiently disciplined to consecutive thought.
Others are possessed of high, noble impulses; or they feel a sudden
overwhelming sense of the beautiful in life; or a desire to attain to
some lofty ideal; and forthwith they conclude this indicates a poetic
gift of unusual calibre. All such experiences are good, they are also
plentiful (fortunately, for the uplifting of human nature); but they do
not imply the ability to write good poetry, even though they prove
exceedingly useful to a poet.
[Sidenote: Beautiful Thoughts do not Guarantee Beautiful Writing]
Most beginners think that the main essential for a writer is a
fair-sized stock of beautiful or striking thoughts; but it is quite as
important to know how to write down those thoughts. As a matter of fact,
beautiful and striking thoughts are of common, everyday occurrence; the
uncommon occurrence is to find the person who can reduce those thoughts
to writing in such a manner as to convey, exactly, to another mind the
ideas that were in his own.
"But how ought I to start with writing?" the novice sometimes asks.
"There seems so much to say, yet it is difficult to know where to
begin."
When a student commences the study of Art he does not begin with the
painting of some big, involved subject, such as "A Scene from Hamlet."
He spends some years working at little bits and making studies. He
practises on a profile, or a hand, or the branches of a tree; he will
sketch and re-sketch a child's head, or one figure; he will work away at
a few rose-petals or an apple--always endeavouring to render small
pieces of work well, rather than large pieces indifferently.
When a great artist starts work on an Academy picture, he does not
commence at one side of the canvas and work right across to the other
side till the picture is finished. He does not necessarily begin his
masterpiece by painting on the canvas at all. As a rule, he makes a
rough-out of his idea (more than one, very often), merely blocking in
the figures, arranging and re-arranging the position of the main items,
then assigning the details to their proper places, till he gets all
properly balanced, and to his liking.
Then he dissects the picture-that-is-to-be, making separate studies of
the figures, sometimes making several drawings of an arm, or a piece of
drapery, or a bit of foreground, expending infinite care and work on
fragments, and making dozens of sketches before a stroke is put on the
canvas itself.
Thus you see both the novice and the master specialise on detail before
they tackle a piece of work as a whole.
Some of the "studies" made by famous artists for their important
pictures are positive gems, and help us to understand something of the
immense amount of thought and preparation that go to the making of any
work of art that is to live.
The student who is training for authorship must work on the same lines.
All too often the amateur starts by putting down the first sentence of a
story or an article, and then writes straight on to the very end,
without any preliminary rough-out or separate study of detail; and the
result is a shapeless mass of words, lacking balance and variety, and
either without any climax, or with two or three too many.
[Sidenote: "It simply Came!"]
When offering a MS. for publication, the writer will often tell me--as
though it were something to be proud of--"I merely sat down, and without
any previous thought, wrote the whole of this story from beginning to
end. It simply came."
One can only reply: "It reads like it!"
I have before me a letter and MS. from a would-be contributor, who
writes: "I just dashed this off as it first came into my head. I do so
love scribbling, and I simply can't help jotting things down when the
fit takes me."
This is very well to a limited extent. There are times when all authors
just dash things off when the fit takes them; but, if they have any
sense (and no one succeeds as a writer if they have not) they do not
regard the dashed-off scribble as the final product, and rush with it to
a publisher. Much ability may be evidenced in a hurried "jot-down" of
this type; and if written by a master hand, it may be useful as an
object lesson, showing how a clever author makes his preliminary
studies; but as a finished piece of work it is of little value, for the
simple reason that it is not finished.
Of course, the greater the writer the less revision will his
dashed-off-scribble need, because experience and practice have taught
him to know almost by instinct what to put down and what to omit.
Nevertheless, he is certain to go over it again, making alterations and
additions, before sending it out to the reading public.
Before you can hope to write anything worth publication (much less worth
payment), you will require considerable practice in actual writing.
Directly a beginner puts on paper a little study in observation, or
collects some facts from various already-published books, or induces
twelve or sixteen lines of equal lengths to rhyme alternately (rhymes
sometimes omitted, however, in which case the lines are styled "blank
verse"), that beginner invariably sends along the MS. to an editor, and
is surprised, or grieved--according to temperament--when it is not
accepted.
Few would-be authors realise that what may be good as a study or an
exercise, is not necessarily of the slightest use to the general public.
And, after all, the final test of our work is its use to the public. If
the public will not take it, it may just as well remain unwritten
(unless we are willing to regard it as practice only), for it is certain
our acquaintances will not listen while we read our "declined" MSS.
aloud to them!
"But why shouldn't the public buy my first attempt?" some one will ask.
[Sidenote: Why "first attempts" have rarely any Market Value]
The public seldom is willing to pay some one else for what it can do
quite as well itself. And most people have made first attempts at
writing. Rare indeed is the person who has not laboured out an essay, or
dreamed a wonderful love story, or put together a few verses. In the
main, all first attempts bear a strong family likeness one to the other,
and though the general public may not stop to analyse its own motives,
the truth is, it will not buy immature work as a rule, because it feels
it can produce writing equally immature.
For this reason (among other things) first attempts have rarely any
market value--unless you have been dead at least fifty years and have
acquired fame in the interval!
Of course there is always the remote chance that a genius may arise,
whose first attempt eclipses everything else on the market; but as I
have said before, we need not worry about that exceptional person, since
some one has estimated that not more than two are born in any
generation. And even these two have to be divided between a number of
arts and sciences; they are not devoted exclusively to literature!
The average writer whose books have made his name famous, had to write
much by way of practice, before any of it found a paying market. And we
humbler folk must not be above doing likewise.
Begin to train yourself in writing by making studies, in words, just as
the art student makes them in line or wash. Make studies of character,
of scenery, of temperament, of dialogue--of anything that comes to your
notice and interests you.
To make a character study of someone you know intimately, or with whom
you are in daily contact, is a useful exercise--but I don't advise you
to read it to them afterwards, that is if you feel you have been quite
frank in your writing, and you value their friendship!
Aim to make each study a little word-picture, embodying some idea, or
reproducing some trait, or conversation, or incident. But do not be in
too great a hurry to embark on a lengthy or involved piece of work.
[Sidenote: The Style of Writing should Vary According to the
Subject-Matter]
Practise various styles of writing--serious, conversational, gay,
didactic, colloquial, etc.; and see that the style corresponds with your
subject-matter.
Watch good authors with this latter point in view. For example, the
style of writing in Kipling's "Barrack Room Ballads" is not the style he
used when writing "The Recessional."
Often several styles of writing are necessary in one story, if we are
introducing contrasts in characters or in scenes. And though we may
think that one style is peculiarly our own, it is most desirable that we
should write just as readily in any style. This gives variety and colour
to our work; also it reduces the risk of our acquiring mannerisms,
which are generally tiresome to other people, though we are blandly
unconscious of them ourselves.
But be sure that you do not appear to force an effect; do not make an
effort to be light-hearted, for instance, or overdo the sombre tone one
would use at a funeral. Sincerity should underlie all your writings;
they should carry the conviction with them that what you say happened,
actually _did_ happen, and was not invented by you merely to heighten
the gaiety or deepen the gloom, as the case may be.
In order to make your style sincere and convincing, you must study life
itself, not take your models from other people's books. If you are to
write in a joyous style that will infect others with your cheeriness,
you must enjoy much of life (if not all of it) yourself, and be able to
enter into other people's enjoyment. If you are to make your readers
feel the grief that surrounded the funeral of which you write in your
story, you must have shared in sorrow and sympathised with others in
theirs.
Once you enter into the very spirit of each happening, you will find
your style will soon shape itself according to the situation. You will
use the right words and expressions just as you would were you facing
the situation in real life, without having to stop to think out what is
best suited to the occasion.
But the beginner has to learn to be natural when writing; that is one of
his hardest tasks, I often think; and he sometimes needs considerable
practice before he acquires the power to write exactly as he thinks and
speaks, and convey precisely what he himself feels. Therefore practise
your pen particularly in this direction if you find it an effort to be
natural on paper.
[Sidenote: The Need for Condensation]
All beginners need to practise condensation; our tendency while we are
inexperienced is to be diffuse, and to over-load our subject with
unimportant explanations or irrelevant side-issues.
It will help you if, after a finished piece of writing has been put
aside for a few days, you go over it with a fresh mind, and delete
everything--single words or whole sentences--that can be omitted without
lessening the force or the picturesque quality of your writing, or
blurring your meaning.
For example:--If the hero's grandfather has no bearing on the
development of the story (and you are not seeking to prove hereditary
tendencies), spare us his biography.
Do not tell the reader, "It is impossible to describe the scene," if you
straightway proceed to describe it.
It is waste of space to write, "It was a dull, gloomy, cheerless
November day"; one takes it for granted that a gloomy November day is
dull, likewise cheerless.
If the colour of the heroine's eyes and the tint of her hair are
immaterial to her career, omit such hackneyed data. Of course these
matters may be important--if the lady is the villainess, for instance. I
have noticed that it seems essential the wicked female should have red
hair and green eyes, while the angel has violet (or grey) eyes, with
long sweeping lashes--in novels, at any rate. I cannot be so certain
about real life, for I have never met an out-and-out villainess in the
flesh; though I have known several really nice girls, who were a joy to
their aged and decrepit parents, and who married the right man into the
bargain--and all this on mere mouse-coloured hair, nondescript eyebrows,
and complexions verging on sallow!
If, after consideration, you are bound to admit that it will make no
difference to the working out of the story, nor to its general interest,
if you omit some such trivial description, or a word or a phrase, take
it out; its deletion will probably improve the MS. In such a matter,
however, it is very difficult for us to judge our own work.
[Sidenote: The Quest of the Right Word]
As a useful exercise in the art of condensation, practise describing
incidents as forcefully as you can, using the fewest possible sentences.
This will also train you to select the word that best describes your
idea. You will soon realise that the one right word (and there is always
one right word for every occasion) carries more conviction with it than
half-a-dozen words when neither is exactly "it."
The able writer is not the one who uses many words, but he who
invariably uses the exact word.
It is safe to say that, as a general rule, the more you increase your
adjectives, and qualifying or explanatory phrases, the more you decrease
the strength and vividness of your writing.
[Sidenote: Making Plots]
The student should practise sketching out plots. This is a very
fascinating occupation, and all seems to go easily here--until you
examine them! Then you may be less elated.
When you have completed the plot to your own satisfaction, look at it
carefully in order to discover if you have, by any chance, used an idea
or a theme that has been used by some one else before you. This is a
painful process, for, as a rule, one's most admired plot crumbles to
nothing under this test! If you are quite honest about it, you will be
obliged to confess--until you have had a fair amount of practice--that
your plots are nothing more than other people's plots re-shuffled.
Do not delude yourself by saying that you will "treat it differently."
Perhaps you will; but you will stand more chance of success if you
determine to get a new plot that has not been used before, and treat
_that_ differently.
The lack of any new idea or originality in the plot is the cause of
thousands of MSS. being turned down each year. Many amateurs seem to
think that the plot is of next to no importance, whereas it is the
foundation upon which you raise the superstructure; if there is no
strength in the foundation, the upper part is likely to be tottery.
[Sidenote: Learning and Cleverness must not be Obtrusive]
Until you start to scheme out plots, you have no idea how much there can
be (but often is not!) in this part of an author's business.
Do not regard your writing as a medium for the exhibition of your own
cleverness. Never try to show off your own learning or to impress the
reader with your own brilliancy.
Early amateur efforts often bristle with quotations, foreign words,
stilted phrases, pedantic remarks, or references to classical
personages. The reason for this is clear; when the amateur writes he
invariably sees himself as the chief object of interest in the
foreground, rather than his subject-matter. Almost unconsciously the
back of his mind is filled with the thought, "What will the public think
of ME when they read this?" Consequently he does all in his power to
impress the public, and his relations and friends (and by no means
forgetting his enemies) with his attainments and unusual knowledge.
We are all of us like this when we start. But as we gain experience--not
merely experience in writing, but that wide experience of the world and
human nature, which is such a valuable asset to the writer--we come to
realise that the public pay very little heed to a writer personally
(until he or she becomes over-poweringly famous); it is the
subject-matter of a book that they trouble about, and the way that
subject-matter is treated. Readers do not care in the least if an author
can read Hafiz in the original (unless he is actually writing about
Persian poetry, of course); but they do care if he has written a bright,
absorbing story that holds their interest from first to last, or a
helpful illuminating article on some topic that appeals to them.
Therefore, why make a special opportunity to drag in Hafiz, or some one
equally irrelevant, when he is but vaguely related to the subject in
hand, or possibly is quite superfluous?
Do not think I mean by this that a knowledge of languages and the
classics is immaterial or unnecessary for the writer. Quite the reverse.
The more knowledge we acquire of everything worth knowing (and standard
literature is the great storehouse of knowledge) the better equipped we
are for work, and the greater our chance of success.
[Sidenote: The Well-Informed Man does not use his Learning for Show
Purposes]
But remember this: the really well-informed man does not use his
learning for show purposes. Knowledge should not be employed for
superficial ornamentation. It must be so woven into the strands of our
everyday life, that it becomes as much a part of us as the food we eat
and the air we breathe. Our reading should not be made to advertise our
intellectual standing.
We do not read Plato and Shakespeare and Dante that we may be able to
quote them, and thus let others know we are familiar with them. We read
them in order to get a wider outlook on life; to see things from more
than one point of view; to look into minds that are bigger than our own;
to learn great facts and problems of life that might not otherwise come
our way, yet are necessary for us to know, if we are to see human nature
in right perspective. In short, we study great authors in order to
arrive at a better understanding of our neighbour; some take us farther
than this, and help us to a better understanding of God and His
Universe. If we are reading the classics with any lesser aim, we are
missing a great deal.
The knowledge we absorb from such reading should work out to something
far greater than a few quotations! It should affect our thoughts and our
life itself (which obviously includes our writing), because it has
helped us to clearer, altogether larger ideas of this world of ours and
the people who are in it.
Such knowledge will make its mark on our writing in every direction,
giving it depth and breadth--_i.e._, we shall see below the surface
instead of only recording the obvious; and take big views instead of
indulging in puerilities and pettiness.
Likewise it should make us more tolerant and sympathetic and
large-minded, knowing that life is not always what it seems.
And it may help us to accuracy--a virtue of priceless worth to the
writer.
Of course, the knowledge acquired from the reading of great books does
not take the place of the knowledge we gain by mixing with living
people; we need the one as much as the other. But it is a wonderful help
in enlarging our power of thinking, and the scope of our thoughts; and
it opens our eyes to much in the world around us that we might otherwise
miss.
So much by way of precept. Now for an example of the type of writing
that is overloaded with learning.