PLOT AND STRUCTURE
Throughout all nature, throughout the universe so far as we know it,
there is a basic tendency toward unity and growth. The tendency is
of course present in the human mind. That is why the human mind
demands plot and structure in fiction. In nature's higher
manifestations of plant and animal the demand for unity progresses
into a demand for organic structure, an assemblage of parts whose
respective offices and limitations are determined by their relation
to the whole and which therefore, in addition to their intrinsic
value, assume a relative value that _outranks the intrinsic_. Add to
the tendencies of unity and growth a tendency toward limit of growth,
or perfection. Fiction plot is the result of these three universal
demands, and bearing them in mind is a sound foundation from which to
consider all problems in connection with plot.
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A similar process of reasoning from elemental beginnings would, if
relentlessly applied to the laws, traditions and superstitions of
art, do more than anything else to free it from chaff,
artificialities and misconceptions that have attached themselves to
it.
There is even advantage in considering examples from nature for the
sake of clearer understanding of the nature and requirements of plot.
You already know what plot is, but see whether comparison with the
following will not crystallize your concept of it to a degree that
will make you largely independent of rules and regulations:
A river-system, a river and its network of tributaries, is like a
plot. A unity with growth in a single general direction with its
mouth as climax or limit of growth; many elements combining smoothly
and perfectly into one.
The tap-root and subsidiary roots of many plants furnish a similar
illustration. A tree's framework is an inverted example.
A rope of vines or, more clearly, a man-made piece of rope in the
process of making with the loose strands gathered at one end into a
closely knit main line.
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A snow-slide forced by the terrain to converge all its material into
a narrow gap at the foot of the slope.
It would be, I think, a pity if all trees and all river-systems were
made in strict accordance with one pattern, as the rules so largely
demand of plot-building. Yet either tree or river-system would be no
longer such--and a sad spectacle indeed--if it were cut into bits,
were large where it should be small or were otherwise changed from
its essential nature.
_Structure_.--It has been said that the short story is far more
exacting than the novel in demand for strict unification and rigid
enforcement of relative values. That is true in practise and I am
not sure that it isn't true in theory. Perhaps the novel escapes
through mere laziness or inability of writer and reader to create and
receive so large a unit perfectly constructed in all its many
details. Perhaps, on the other hand, the novel is a more natural
expression by the writer and a more natural and desired form for the
reader. Perhaps, if we draw the distinction between novel and
romance, only the latter should be held to the strict requirements of
short-story structure.
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To take the form of strictest requirements, I have found only one
rule that seems in practise to produce satisfactory results:
The short story has one main point and only one. It may be the
climax of a course of events, an aspect of life, a psychological
impasse, what you will. But there must be only one of it. Every
other element in the story, every scrap of material, every bit of
color, every human trait, _everything_ in the story, must be
subsidiary to the main point. No elements are even admitted to the
story unless they serve in developing the main point. When admitted
they get space and emphasis only in proportion to that service. No
one of them is valuable in itself; their values are wholly relative,
not intrinsic. (Of course, there is no reason for not abandoning
this principle on occasion if you are _sure_ you can better satisfy
your readers by so doing.)
_Violations of Unity_.--Compelling your reader to follow alternately
two sets of characters in two sets of scenes is dangerous, since it
violates unity unless the reader is kept keenly conscious of their
inevitable convergence upon one point. Hopping back and forth in the
time of the action is in most {158} cases fatal to unity. Shifting
the point of view is objected to on grounds of violated
unity--telling your story first from the angle from which events are
seen by one character, then from the angle of another character or
from that of the author.
Do not leave loose strands dangling along your rope, like a minor
character who vanishes without needed explanation, or a line of
endeavor suddenly abandoned without a word.
Too many characters are not only an obstacle to clearness but greatly
increase the difficulty of unification.
Do not attempt to include too much material, color, life-history or
anything else. If your story refuses to unify satisfactorily it may
be because you are using more elements than you are able to handle.
Even if you can handle all you have, be sure that the expanse of your
canvass is not greater than the reader can look at conveniently and
without missing some of it. In a general way it is well to tuck it
in at the edges, so to speak, and enclose it in a fairly definite
picture-frame.
_Holding Reader to Correct Plot Line_.--It is {159} not sufficient to
select and assemble the proper elements according to their relative
values. The assignment of proper relative space and emphasis must be
managed with such nicety that the reader can not mistake their common
direction. He may be kept from knowledge of the goal, but he must
know and feel that everything in the story, carrying him along with
it, is sweeping along in one single general direction. If he is on a
tributary flowing southwest he must know that it is a tributary, not
the main stream, that it flows southwest and that the main stream,
while it may flow southwest, south or south-east, will hardly flow
north.
A reader tends to anticipate, to cast ahead. Make sure that, while
you hold from him sufficient to make any desired surprise effective,
he does not waste his attention-strength by casting ahead over false
trails leading away from your general direction. In other words,
keep him in hand from start to finish, being sure his feet follow
your path in your direction.
To instill a sense of plot, one must either go into endless rules,
exceptions, diagrams and analyses or else present only the
fundamentals {160} and commoner guide-posts, leaving the writer to
develop his own ability. There has been too much of the former
method and I shall not attempt to add further initiative-killing
rules, particularly as I believe that the majority of fiction rules
can often be violated with good results.
_Non-Conformist Plot and Structure_.--No rule for fiction has a sound
basis unless it is grounded on some such elemental in human nature as
an instinctive desire for growth, unity, completeness, a rounded-out
whole, symmetry, rhythm, contrast, and so forth. But even an
elemental desire can be led to the point of temporary satiety, even
contrast itself. Monotony is undoubtedly monotonous.
Consider the reader. Fed year after year with the results of the
same rules, with the same literary devices, the same general plots
and endings, the same signs along the way, isn't his appetite for
standard food sure to be dulled at intervals? He is far wiser and
more sophisticated in fiction than you probably think; if he goes
right on eating standard food it is often because he finds a scarcity
of other kinds. Why not study the condition of {161} his appetite,
estimating from how much of certain kinds of food he has had to eat
and for how long, and then make a business of feeding him a new kind
until he tires of it in turn? A most unliterary suggestion?
Perhaps, but I should not wholly relish the task of proving it such.
There are, at least, certain fashions in fiction and even in
"literature" that change and change back with the years. The costume
story reigns, sinks into oblivion, reigns again. The author chats
himself into his stories, keeps out of them, enters once more to chat
again. Romance and realism alternate in favor. The critics permit
it, though sneering perhaps at each change, just as they are inclined
to sneer at both change and permanence themselves.
Why not other changes? For example, more changes from the rules of
plot? Many fairly radical changes, indeed, could be made without
violation of the really fundamental rules.
Here is the story of an interesting laboratory experiment on the
reactions of readers. During the war our managing editor was
stationed in one of the largest officers' {162} training camps. He
made a business of watching the reactions of his comrades to magazine
fiction and of course to our own magazine in particular. It happened
that an author asked me to decide a question for him. He was writing
a novelette around an historical character and found himself on the
horns of a dilemma. Either he must do extreme violence to the facts
of that famous person's life, particularly as to sequence of events,
or else abandon any attempt at a real fiction plot. I suggested that
he abandon the attempt at plot and structure and make the story
practically a mere running narrative.
In the training camp the results of that experiment were startling
and very suggestive. Among all the stories in books and magazines
that structureless novelette reported by far the most comment and
praise. The most valuable point was that the readers were
sufficiently analytical to know, and state, exactly why they liked
it: "Different from other stories." "Couldn't tell what was going to
happen." "Couldn't predict the end after reading a third of the
way." "Like real life."
Many of them had read numerous other stories by the same author, Hugh
Pendexter, {163} dealing with similar material and times, but all
these stories had conformed to the laws of plot and structure.
Practically none of the readers was sufficiently familiar with the
historical character's life to know the material in advance.
Another laboratory experiment. One day in the office some one
suggested we hadn't had a "desert island" story for a long while and
ought to get one. All agreed, but of course with no enthusiasm; all
of us could tell that story in its essentials before it was even
written. Then some one wished they'd write "desert island" stories
that were different. All seven of us fell to outlining the kind we'd
like personally. All seven agreed. All wanted the usual "props"
left out and all wanted the castaways to have a real and a realistic
struggle for existence--"no self-sacrificing fish," as one put it.
There were to be no practical specialists like engineers, sailors,
carpenters and botanists in the party. Just every-day people like
ourselves.
Then we figured that, if this was the kind of story all of us craved,
there were probably many readers, just as sophisticated or "fed up"
as we, who also would welcome this {164} departure. We presented the
problem to J. Allan Dunn, asking whether he cared to write a "desert
island" novelette without any of the usual material therefor, no
savages, volcanoes, women, cocoanuts, socialism, rival party,
tropical vegetation, fierce beasts, animals waiting for
domestication, no specialists in the party, no supplies to draw from,
nothing, not even a pen-knife or watch-crystal. Each of us wrote out
a list of the things he knew or could do that might be useful in the
circumstances--unspecialized and, mostly, meager lists.
He accepted, after justified hesitation. We modified our terms to
permit him wild dogs and wild boars for excitement, meat and leather,
but it was understood that action, interest and whatever plot proved
possible were to be drawn from the barehanded struggle with nature
for existence.
The conditions and circumstances were given to our readers along with
the published story. It won a stronger response from them than had
any other story we'd published for several years. This from the
audience of a magazine devoted primarily to action stories of which
the usual "desert island" story is a {165} fairly representative
type, though it must be admitted that this audience has been
recruited from among those who prefer more nourishing meat along with
the action, insist upon a sound basis of fact or probability and are
too sophisticated not to have tired of the usual hack melodrama.
These two experiments are at least suggestive. You can doubtless
recall from your own experience stories that registered strongly on
you because of variance from the usual types. Generally, if the
story succeeds, the variance is attributed to genius or unusual
gifts; as a matter of fact it is in most cases due either to accident
or to a mere common-sense study of readers and what can be expected
to have dulled their appetites.
_Ending a Story_.--Variance from type in the ending is of particular
value. It must, of course, be an ending logically belonging to the
story, but surprise, or at least change, is entirely possible.
Yet is there any escape from the "happy ever after" ending of a
love-story? I suppose and hope so, but have my doubts except as to
the rarest instances. A love-story without at least the suggestion
of marriage or its {166} substitute as ending seems considered almost
as desolate as a love-story without either love or story.
Renunciation is a reversal of "happy ever after" rather than a
variation, and not generally popular. Death is very grudgingly
accepted as a substitute. I've made earnest effort to secure
variants--parties decide to be friends instead, one party proves to
love a third party or grows weary of the second, parties quarrel and
omit making up, death of either or of all hands, anything for a
change. No results except a death-rate well under one per cent.
Perhaps it is because writers believe editors will not accept
variants from the "happy ever after." I suspect their belief is well
founded, but I wonder whether in this case the editorial attitude is
not solidly based on a downright insistence from human-being readers.
Unhappy endings? The minority like them, the majority do not. I can
venture nothing more except that the size of the minority increases
if the line is drawn not between "unhappy" and "happy" but between
endings that leave the reader depressed and those that leave him
uplifted. Through the {167} latter, with their appeal of pathos or
high tragedy, there is decided opportunity for comparative variation
from the usual.
At the end of a story I think most readers rather resent loose
strands of plot left untied, like minor characters of whose future no
glimpse is afforded or some minor enterprise that has run through the
plot only to have its fate a mystery at the end. Skill, particularly
in unifying severely to the central point, can make the reader forget
the disappearance of minor strands at the very end, but it is well to
remember that most readers have a healthy sense of legitimate
curiosity.
_Beginning a Story_.--At the first word of your story the reader
knows nothing concerning it except what title, illustrations and
contents-page may have told him. Generally he doesn't know whether
it is laid in Africa, Alaska or New York City, or whether it is of
to-day, 1890 or 1700. The more quickly you tell him, the more
quickly can you draw him into your illusion. If you wait, you almost
certainly confuse and irritate him. Story after story comes in to
editors that leaves the reader groping and unable to settle down
until long after it is under way; often {168} he doesn't learn where
he is until he has wandered through several pages. Even a paragraph
is too long a wait--and waste. You need not make a business of
placarding date and place, but there are a myriad ways of introducing
him quickly to both. Failure to do this is so common and so
extremely injurious to the story's effectiveness that it affords a
most striking example of the disastrous effects of giving more
attention to rules than to common sense and of not drilling into the
very bones of writers the necessity of watching and measuring their
stories constantly from the point of view of readers.
Another common and bad mistake is to present any but a main character
first, preferably the main character. Indeed, in the short story
perfect unification almost demands that he be first on the stage.
But there is a common-sense reason aside from that of unity and
centralization. Long experience with fiction has taught readers that
the first character to appear is nearly always the main character,
therefore whatever character gets the initial spot-light is promptly
seized upon by them as the main one. If he isn't, they have to let
go of the story illusion they are already building and start {169}
building a new one around a new center and feel rather foolish or
cheated and irritated. As in the case of not setting time and scene,
the writer has failed to hold them to the correct plot line--even to
start them on it. Of what avail is knowledge of technique, or the
present method of teaching technique, if it fails to impress such
horse-sense points as these? Sufficient skill can introduce the
central character when and how it pleases, but most writers lack it.
In the case of the drama there is no harm in minor characters
appearing first. Stage custom has established this, not the other,
as the custom. Also, the stage, being better able to study its
patrons at first-hand, has realized the catastrophe of letting them
stray from the correct plot line and guards against it by giving out
programs in advance as keys to caste (with characters listed in order
of appearance), scene, time and sometimes even more; the rise of the
curtain instantly gives the audience its bearings in a general way,
and star, scene, time and even plot are frequently known before
entering the theater. Writers of fiction could profit tremendously
by careful study of the necessarily practical technique--or common
sense--of the theater.
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