the movement of a story, it is often possible to make one of the
characters, in the course of conversation, give the information that the
author is anxious to convey to the reader. But in order to effect this,
do not fall into the error of making a character say things that in real
life there would be no reason for his saying. You may want to convey the
information to the reader that the heroine's ancestors were eminently
respectable; but it would be bad art to make her remark to her own
parent (or a relative): "As you know, mother dear, grandfather was a
distinguished general."
* * * * *
Beginners imagine that the strength of a story is in direct proportion
to the way they crowd together incidents, or multiply their characters.
But this entirely depends on the quality of the incidents and the
importance of the characters.
The whole is greater than a part--always has been and always will be;
and if each individual character is weak, and each episode is feeble, no
matter how you may elaborate your story, the whole will be weaker than
each part.
* * * * *
It is time-saving, when writing a story, to lay the scene in some
locality you know well, even though you change the name and preserve its
incognito. It is most useful to have a fixed plan of the streets and
lanes and buildings and railway station in your mind when writing.
* * * * *
Try to distinguish between a longing to voice your own pent-up emotions,
and a desire to give the world something that you think will interest or
instruct them. Three-quarters of the love-stories girls write are
merely outlets for their own emotions; and picture what they wish would
happen in their own lives--with no thought whatever as to whether the
MS. contains anything likely to interest the outsider.
* * * * *
Short sentences and short paragraphs are usually an advantage in stories
as well as in articles; they give crispness and brightness to the whole.
Whereas long sentences and long paragraphs are both stodgy to read and
uninteresting to look at, (and it must not be forgotten that the look of
a page sometimes counts a good deal with the public).
I know that instances can be cited where celebrated people have written
long sentences and ungainly paragraphs, and yet have been read.
President Wilson, in his most famous Note to Germany, led off with a
sentence of one hundred and seventy-one words, while there were only
twelve full-stops in the whole message. But President Wilson, at that
particular date, scored heavily over every other writer, in that the
whole world was eagerly willing to read anything he wrote--even though
he had omitted all stops and capital letters!--whereas the majority of
us, alas, have to persuade or coax or beguile the public into looking at
our words of wisdom, and we have to make the reading as easy for people
as we can. Otherwise they will not bother their heads about us!
People were willing to put up with President Wilson's diffuse and
"trailing" manner of writing, because at the moment he was the
mouthpiece of the inhabitants of the United States. Any one who is the
mouthpiece of over ninety millions of people can cease to worry about
style--some one is sure to read him no matter how he expresses himself.
But so long as we manage to avoid having positions of such greatness
thrust upon us, we shall do well to keep our sentences terse and short,
and our MSS. broken up into paragraphs.
[Sidenote: The Question of Polish]
There is much divergence of opinion as to how far it is desirable to
polish one's work. Personally I think it all depends upon the work.
Some authors put down their ideas in a very rough form, and seem unable
to realise the possibilities of those ideas and their development, till
they see them on paper.
Others are able to think in minute detail before they put a line on
paper.
Some people can never leave anything alone, and will tinker with half a
dozen fresh proofs (if they can induce the publisher to supply them).
Others are more sure of themselves, or disinclined to alter what they
have written.
The late Guy Boothby used almost to re-write his stories, after they
were set up in type; the margins of most of the slip proofs being so
covered with new matter and alterations that they had often to be
entirely reset. So expensive did this become, that at last I decided to
keep his typed MS. in a drawer for a week or two, and then send it back
to him, asking him to do whatever rewriting was necessary before it was
set up.
Of course, writers may alter a good deal in their first MS., before ever
it gets to the publisher; but my experience has been that the author who
worries his proof is the one who has previously worried his MS. (and
sometimes his family too)! It is primarily a matter of mind-certainty,
combined with the question of temperament.
One thing is undeniable: some writers will polish their MSS. into things
of beauty; others will polish all the individuality and life out of
theirs. In the latter case, however, I am inclined to think there was
not much individuality and life to start with!
So far as the beginner is concerned, my advice is Polish; most of us can
stand a good deal of this without losing anything worth keeping, or
coming to a bad end!
[Sidenote: To get under way, Start where you are]
Do not waste time in waiting for something extraordinary or sensational
to turn up, in the way of a plot, or you may have to wait a long while.
Begin with some everyday happening and invest it with personality.
If you can, avoid making your early MSS. love stories. The _denouement_
of a love story is so obvious: try to write something on less obvious
lines; it will be better practice for you.
Study some of the many delightful books that have been written in other
than love motifs, yet dealing with events of ordinary life; such as _The
Golden Age_, and _Dream Days_, by Kenneth Graham; _A Window in Thrums_,
by Sir James Barrie; _The Country of the Pointed Firs_, by Sarah Orne
Jewett; _Timothy's Quest_, by Kate Douglas Wiggin.
Genius is shown in the ability to take simple themes, and treat them
greatly.
About the Climax
The most important part of a story should be the climax (I use the word
climax in its modern sense, meaning the terminal point where all is
brought to a conclusion, the _denouement_, the final catastrophe). The
climax must be in the author's mind from the very first sentence, and
everything he writes should be with this in view--_i.e._, his own view,
not that of the reader; it must be his aim throughout the story to
conceal the climax from the reader till the last moment. Nothing with an
obvious solution will hold the reader's interest.
Every piece of writing should have some sort of a conclusive ending--a
satisfactory one if possible. Writers sometimes make their fiction
terminate in an abrupt, unsatisfactory manner, which is no real finish,
and leaves the reader wishing it had not all ended like that, and
wondering if there is more to come.
When such defects are pointed out, the amateur invariably replies, "But
it must end like that, because that is what actually happened." They
forget that the fact a circumstance actually happened is no guarantee
that it was worth recording; nor is the circumstance necessarily the
symmetrical finish to the story,--and a piece of writing should be
symmetrical, and in well-balanced design. You cannot always detach an
incident from contingent happenings, and then say it is complete. The
larger proportion of our actions are linked with, and interdependent
upon, other actions.
Therefore see to it that your story terminates in a satisfactory manner.
That which apparently ends in failure to-day, may take a new lease of
life to-morrow and prove to be merely a stepping-stone to new
developments.
It is not bound to be a happy ending (though if there be a choice, happy
endings are by far the best, in a world that has enough of sorrow in its
work-a-day life); but it must be an ending leaving a sense of right
completion with the reader--the conviction that this is the logical
conclusion of the whole.
All great works of art leave behind them a sense of fulfilment, the
"something attempted, something done," that is always the desirable
finale to the human heart and mind. We hate to be left in a state of
never-to-be-satisfied suspension; and we invariably reject and condemn
to oblivion the work that deliberately leaves us thus.
Some people have an idea that it is "artistic" to leave a story in a
half-finished condition, or with a disappointing ending, or a general
feeling of blankness. A few years ago there was a mania for this type of
story among small writers: those who were not clever enough to produce
originality of idea, and at the same time get their work logical,
symmetrical and conclusive, would seize on some miserable, or at any
rate uncomfortable, ending--drown one of the lovers the day before the
wedding; part husband and wife irrevocably, and possibly kill their only
child in a railway accident in the last chapter--anything in fact that
would produce what one might call a "never-more" finale. And then a
certain section of the public (who really did not like it at all, but
feared to say so lest they should appear to be behind the times!) would
exclaim, "So artistic!"
Yet it was anything but artistic; three-quarters of the time it was
logically and morally bad; logically bad because it was seldom the true
and natural conclusion that one would have seen in real life; morally
bad because it is actually wrong to manufacture and circulate gloom
unnecessarily.
I repeat again I would not imply that all endings must be happy; great
tragedies need tragic conclusions; suffering is as much a part of real
life as joy; a certain course of action must inevitably lead to a
sorrowful ending, and there is no getting away from the unalterable
truth, "The wages of sin is death." But the type of story to which I am
alluding is seldom great or tragic: it is not even painful; it is more
often weak and washy, and ends with unsatisfactory incompletion because
the author fancied it was brilliantly original!
Always work steadily towards the climax, speeding up the movement as you
near the end. Make big events come closer and closer together, with less
detail between, the nearer you are to the conclusion.
Do not anticipate your climax, and get there too soon, and then try to
make up the book to the required length by adding on an after-piece.
The climax should be such that it leaves in the reader's mind a sense of
absolute fitness, a certainty that it was after all the one right
ending--even though it came as a great surprise.
The Use of "Curtains"
When a story is presented in sections, as in a serial or a play, it is
advisable to make each section end--so far as possible--in such a manner
that the reader is set longing for the next part. Thus, while the climax
is generally the solution of a problem, a "curtain" is usually a problem
needing solution (literally, a good place for ringing down the curtain,
since the audience will be on tenterhooks to know what happens next).
This arrangement is sound business as well as a good mental policy. It
is wise to make an instalment leave some final, incisive mark on the
mind of the readers, if there is to be an interval before the story is
resumed, otherwise it may be difficult for the public to recollect what
went before, and the thread of continuity will be lost.
More than this, an editor, despite the usual backwardness of his
intelligence, realises the desirability of securing readers for
subsequent issues of his periodical, no less than for the current
number. If each instalment of the serial terminate with some mystery
unsolved, or some hopeless entanglement needing to be straightened out,
or some problem that baffles everybody (most of all the readers), it is
much more likely that people will rush to secure the next number to see
how things turn out, than if the instalment merely ends with the hero
indulging in a tame, lengthy soliloquy on artichokes, and leaves nothing
more exciting to be settled than whether these same artichokes shall, or
shall not, be cooked for the heroine's lunch.
On more than one occasion I have had readers write protestingly because
an instalment of a serial has left off cruelly "just when one was
frightfully anxious to know what would happen next!" But that is the
very place for an instalment to end: good "curtains" are worth as much
to a serial as a good plot; and if a story lack good "curtains," an
editor thinks twice before purchasing it for serial publication, even
though it has undoubted literary merit and will make a good volume.
Inexperienced writers overlook this necessity for holding the reader's
attention from section to section, and sometimes offer an editor serial
stories without sufficient backbone or dramatic interest to hold the
readers' attention from the first instalment to the second, much less
for twelve or more detachments.
Or they crowd several excitements into a couple of chapters, and then
run on uneventfully for a dozen or so.
This does not mean that problems must crop up mechanically at stated
intervals, and the serial be produced on a mathematical basis of one
murder, or mystery to so many words! But it does mean that the author
must see to it that his important incidents are fairly distributed
throughout the work as a whole, and that each chapter ends at the
psychological moment. This gives an editor a chance to break the story
at places where the excitement runs highest.
Careful attention to balance will help the writer to get the action
fairly distributed. If the MS. be examined as a whole, with this
question of balance in mind, the writer will be able to detect if too
much movement has been concentrated in one part, with undue expanses of
uneventfulness stretching between.
[Sidenote: Dickens was an Adept at "Curtains"]
No one knew better than Charles Dickens how to keep the reader on the
_qui vive_ for the next chapter. Joseph H. Choate says in his Memoirs:
"As Dickens' books came out they were eagerly devoured in America.
_Dombey and Son_ came out in numbers long before the laying of the
first Atlantic cable, and several numbers went over in fort-nightly
steamers, the most frequent communication of that day. In an early part
of the story little Paul was brought to the verge of the grave, the last
number to hand leaving him hovering between life and death, and all
America was anxious to know his fate. When the next steamer arrived
bringing decisive news, the dock was crowded with people. The passengers
imagined some great national or international event had happened. But it
was only the eager reading public who had hurried down to meet the
steamer, and get the first news as to whether little Paul was alive or
dead."
The late Dr. S. G. Green has told how, at the day school he attended as
a boy, "work was suspended once a month on the publication of the
instalment of _Pickwick Papers_, which the head master read aloud to the
assembled and eager boys. When Mr. Pickwick was released from the Fleet
Prison, a whole holiday was given, to celebrate the event!"
This is the type of serial story an editor yearns for: one that will end
with so dramatic a "curtain" each month, that the public suspend all
employment in order to secure copies of the following issue, and learn
what happened next!
Even the final sentences of an instalment with a good "curtain" can be
made to do wonders in whetting the reader's appetite for more. But it is
advisable to see how they read in connection with the words that
inevitably follow. For instance, there was a lurid serial in a daily
paper which ended one day with the words:
"'Cat,' she cried, 'vile, odious, contemptible cat.' To be continued
to-morrow."
"But," commented _Punch_, "could she do any better than that even after
she _had_ slept on it?"
On Making Verse
Most of us break out into verse at one period of our life. Youth
starting out to explore a world that seems teeming with new discoveries,
generally tries to voice his emotions in poetry--not because youth has
any special aptitude for this form of literature, but because the poet
has expressed, as no other writer has done, the hopes and ideals, the
craving for romance and the thirst for beauty, that are among the
characteristics of our golden years. And youth, wishing to voice his own
emotions, naturally selects the literary form in which such emotions
have already been enshrined.
Verse-writing is a very useful exercise for the student--as I have
already stated in a previous chapter; but until we are fairly advanced,
it is well to avoid regarding our efforts too seriously.
To string together certain sets of syllables with rhymes in couples, is
an exceedingly simple matter; but to write poetry is the highest and the
most difficult form of literary art.
It is hard to convince the beginner that the verses he has put together
are not poetry--even though they may be technically correct as to
make-up, which is by no means always the case. He is inclined to argue
that he has dreamed dreams, and seen visions, and travelled far from the
prose of life; what he writes, therefore, must be scintillating with
star dust, if with nothing more heavenly.
For the making of poetry, the dreams of youth are valuable; take care of
them, they are among the precious things of life, and they vanish with
neglect or rough handling; but something more than dreams is needful.
[Sidenote: Study the Laws governing Metrical Composition]
If you feel you can best express yourself in verse, make a comprehensive
study of the laws governing metrical composition. Such knowledge not
only enables you to write in a shapely, orderly, pleasing form, but it
may also help you to ascertain what is wrong, when something you have
written seems jarring, or halting, or lacking at any point.
To many amateurs, laws and rules suggest a cramping influence; they feel
sure they could do far better work if unhampered by any restrictions. In
reality, however, the limitations such laws impose are a gain to the
poet, since they compel him to sort out his ideas, to differentiate
between essentials and non-essentials, to condense his thoughts and
measure his words. And if properly carried out, all this should result
in the reduction of verbosity to the minimum, and a moderately clear
presentation of a subject--it does not always, I know, but it ought to
do so.
I am neither enumerating nor discussing these laws in this volume, since
excellent books on the subject have been published. I merely wish to
point out to the student the necessity for giving the matter attention.
Some people think the fact that the idea embodied in their verse is good
and ennobling, should condone weak or faulty workmanship. But, alas! in
this callous world it doesn't, as a rule.
The ideal verse is that which presents beautifully a great thought in a
small compass.
[Sidenote: Ideas are more Important than Rhapsodies]
A poem should centralise on some special thought or idea. Rhapsodies, no
matter how intense, do not constitute poetry; every poem, be it ever so
short, should suggest some definite train of thought. Haphazard
statements or description are no more permissible in a poem than in a
novel.
All nonsense verse, even, must have an underlying semblance of a
sensible idea, though when you come to analyse it, it may turn out to
be the height of absurdity.
[Sidenote: Moreover the Ideas should be Poetic]
Not only must a poem contain a definite idea, it must be a poetic idea,
something that will lift the reader above the prose of life. Try to make
him see beauty if you can; and to hear beauty in the music of your
words. Poetry should be beautiful and suggest loveliness, whenever
possible.
However simple and ordinary the subject of your verse, try to carry the
reader beyond superficialities, to the wonderful and the unordinary that
so often give glory to life's commonplaces.
Take a well-worn subject like the incoming tide; how many people have
been moved to write on this topic!
I could not possibly reckon up the number of times I have seen "ocean's
roar" rhyming with "rocky shore." The writer who is nothing more than a
versifier is content with a description of the sights and sounds of the
beach; but the poet looks further than this. Read Mrs. Meynell's "Song,"
and you will better understand my meaning when I say that the poet must
endeavour to show us, through the substance of things material, the
shadow of things spiritual.
SONG
By ALICE MEYNELL
As the unhastening tide doth roll,
Dear and desired, upon the whole
Long shining strand, and floods the caves,
Your love comes filling with happy waves
The open sea-shore of my soul.
But inland from the seaward spaces,
None knows, not even you, the places
Brimmed at your coming, out of sight
--The little solitudes of delight
This tide constrains in dim embraces.
You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed,
But know not of the quiet dimmed
Rivers your coming floods and fills,
The little pools, 'mid happier hills,
My silent rivulets, over-brimmed.
What, I have secrets from you? Yes.
But, O my Sea, your love doth press
And reach in further than you know,
And fill all these; and when you go,
There's loneliness in loneliness.
_By Courtesy of
The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd._
[Sidenote: Amateur Verse usually falls under these Headings]
Putting on one side religious verse (which one does not wish to dissect
too brutally, since one recognises and respects the spirit underlying
it, despite its sometimes poor technique), amateur verse usually falls
under one of four headings:
1. Lovers' outpourings.
2. Baby prattle.
3. Nature dissertations.
4. Stuff worth reading.
The first of these explains itself, and includes perennial poems
entitled "Blue Eyes"; "Parted"; "To Daphne" (or Muriel, or Gladys, or
some other equally nice person); "Absence"; "My Lady"; "Twin Souls,"
etc. In these the following are generally regarded as original and
delightful rhymes: Love and dove; mourn and forlorn; girl and curl; moon
and June; eyes and skies.
Without wishing to hurt any sensitive feelings, truth compels me to
state that it is rare for such productions to have any literary value.
The verses coming under the second heading are frequently written by
young girls, unmarried aunts, and very new fathers; occasionally mothers
give vent to their maternal affection in this way, but more often they
find their time fully occupied in attending to the little ones' material
needs.
Such poems (often entitled "Lullaby") are usually characterised by an
entire lack of anything that could possibly be called an idea. They will
apostrophise the infant, and tell it how lovely it is, begging it to go
to sleep, and assuring it that mother will keep watch the while--which
no up-to-date mother would dream of doing in these busy, servantless
days! But as to any concrete reason why the verses were penned, one
looks for it in vain.
I do not think such effusions serve any useful purpose. They are not
even desirable as an outlet for the feelings, since there are better
ways in which one can work out one's affection for a child--woolly
boots, pinafores, personal attention, and the like. Nevertheless every
woman's paper is deluged with MSS. of this type.
The Nature dissertation is a trifle better than the preceding, because
it does offer a little scope for looking around and noting things. But
the weakness here is this: the writers do not always look around; they
as often sit at a comfortable writing-table indoors and amalgamate other
people's observations; and the outcome is a recital of the obvious, with
oft-repeated platitudes.
The following are well-worn titles: "A Spring Song"; "Bluebells";
"Twilight Calm"; "Sunset"; "Autumn Leaves"; occasionally they take a
Wordsworthian turn, "Lines written on the shore at Atlantic City" or
"Thoughts on seeing Stratford-on-Avon for the first time" (such a poem
naturally beginning "Immortal Bard, who--" etc.).
At best, the majority of nature poems, as written by the untrained,
contain little beyond descriptive passages. This again results in a
pointless production that seldom embodies any idea worth the space
devoted to it.