ADAPTATION OF STYLE TO MATERIAL
If the theory suggested by the chapter head had not withstood the
test of ten years and the judgment of a number of people whose
judgment is worth having, I should not venture to present it here
even in brief space, for if carried into practise it would more or
less revolutionize the art of fiction. Perhaps, too, it has already
been advanced, though I have never happened to run across it or to
hear of it through others.
In an earlier chapter was the statement that the art process of
fiction consists of three steps--Material, Artist and Reader and that
the third step fails to get anything approaching due consideration in
either theory or practise. This book is largely an attempt to
emphasize this fact and a plea that the reader be given greater
importance in the teaching of fiction writing.
{218}
While working out and testing this theory of the reader's place in
creative work I was testing out also another theory which seemed to
have little connection with the first and, with my perspective ruined
by specialization, it was only a year or two ago the almost
self-evident fact dawned upon me that the two fitted neatly into each
other and constituted a complete theory of the art process. Until
then each had been locked away in its own little compartment, there
being no intent of building up a rounded out whole.
While the first theory dealt with neglect of the reader in the
general art process, the other centered on the neglect of material as
an influence on style. In other words, writers seemed too
concentrated on themselves, the Artists, in the creative process and
too neglectful of the two other steps, Material and Reader.
_Rigidity of Style as to Material_.--To present the matter briefly,
all that an author has to convey to you comes to you through a single
medium which we call his style and which in practise is singularly
inelastic in relation to the great variety of things that must pass
through it. Take Maurice Hewlitt in {219} his earlier days when his
accentuated and highly individualized style make him a good example.
Through that one unchanging style had to come to you tragedy, comedy,
pathos, contemplation, action, love, hate, patience, anger, romance,
satire. All the gamut of human emotions in the material must be
crushed into uniformity of expression before it could reach you,
losing of its own essence in the process. All must be translated
into the one inflexible rhythm and jingle of that one
style--standardized, as it were, out of much of their individuality
and strength. Such a loss is a calamity, and, I think, to a marked
degree unnecessary.
In poetry the need of guarding against this loss is definitely
recognized, if not as a broad principle, at least in adaptation of
sound to sense and in selection of the metrical form best adapted to
a given theme. Why should it not be at least equally guarded against
in prose? Many of the distinguishing qualities of poetry as opposed
to prose vary with different races and with the march of time. Of
the universal, permanent distinguishing qualities are there any that
should differentiate poetry from prose as to the importance {220} of
the Material's influence on style in transmission of Material to
Reader through Artist?
That there are already in our fiction occasional and sporadic cases
of this adaptation of style to material shows the soundness of the
theory, for these examples are evidently not for the most part the
result of studied effort but instances in which the writer's art is
sufficiently developed to break through his usual style and
spontaneously adapt expression to the thing expressed.
There are even stray rules pointing in this direction, but chiefly
for dialogue where a demand for adaptation makes itself felt through
the need of making a character express his emotions as a real person
would express them in real life. For example, the use of short sharp
sentences and simple Anglo-Saxon words in most cases of emotional
stress.
But if you wish an example of what adaptation of style to material is
capable of accomplishing if used as a fixed and general principle of
composition, turn to Shakespeare, forgetting the non-essential fact
that he is a poet.
{221}
_Style in Relation to Material_.--Style is the expression of material
through the artist, of material as transmuted through his
individuality. He is, if you like, a part of his material, but, on
that basis, he divides cleanly into two parts, one of them, the
artist, expressing the other, the material. What I object to is the
attempt to express through a single, inelastic style _all_ of his
material, _all_ of himself as material, or _all_ of himself as
artist. There _is_ no one style that can even approximate perfect
expression of all that is in the world.
Do tragedy, comedy, pathos, love, anger, excitement, calm speak the
same language in real life? Must not human art at least approximate
human life if only by a kind of symbolism? What writer, or any other
human being, can approximate expression of all of himself through the
intoning of any one single style? Does he go from cradle to grave in
one single chord? Does he not respond to emotions, his own or other
people's, as a harp to hand? And yet, God save the mark, when he
comes to write he calmly tries to squeeze death and all living into a
single monotone!
{222}
Is literature merely the click of a telegraph key, crushing all juice
from life to reduce all life to its own inflexible code and flat
rhythm? Is an author merely a funnel through which all the juice of
life must emerge at the small end in a single thin stream?
_Demands of Unity_.--Art's demand for unity is fundamental and not to
be denied, but what has been our idea of unity of style? Merely to
whistle one note and call it a satisfactory expression of the author
and the universe. It can not be. And to attain this one note in a
story we place no limit to the violence needed to make all human
emotions give up their own individuality in order to be in key. It
is well enough, as far as it goes, but it is only a first crude step.
It is time we took a step beyond.
Can any artistic demand for unity be based on any elemental more
fundamental and indisputable than the irreconcilable difference of
opposite human emotions?
Let the author mold his material to his individuality, unify it
through himself, express it through his individual style. Let him
mold his material into unity around what single {223} thought or
emotion he please before he passes it through his style. But let him
make that style, not a single inflexible note, but a tune, a tune
that sings high or low, loud or soft, in majors or minors, harmony or
discord, fast or slow, expressing in delicate response the varying
emotions of its song through the singer, itself a unity and an
expression and in each of its parts a unity and expression of that
part.
_Let Your Style Respond_.--If you are sincere in your work, if you
really feel your material and if you are not so ridden and oppressed
by rules that you can not be natural, your style will of its own
accord tend to attune itself to what it expresses. Give it the
chance, encourage it to do so. Let no rule of misinterpreted unity
force it into one monotonous, inflexible note impervious to all the
emotions of the material that strive to break through into
expressions of themselves so that they themselves can reach the
reader in something of the fulness and color of reality instead of in
the shape of cold line drawings.
Let your tune follow the moods of what it sings about. If in your
material comes tragedy after a grayness of every-day affairs, {224}
will your song ripple on in unchanged measure? Why not let the
tragedy come through into the song itself? Let each mood of your
material come through into your song and to your reader. If there
follows a relief scene of comedy, how much of comedy will fail to
reach the reader if it fails to tinge even the medium of transmission?
If you are not musician enough to compose the various elements of
material into your style-tune, at least you can approximate by the
use of notes you know produce the general effect and are keyed to the
mood you desire to reproduce in your reader--rhythm changed to
smoothness or harshness, sentence-length changed to that generally
used in real life for the expression of that mood, words chosen for
slowness and weight or speed and lightness, skilful use of adaptation
of sound to sense, few words for speed of action, many for waiting
and suspense.
_The Need of Emphasizing the Relation of Style to Material_.--All
these things are done--a little--by a few. These few are of the real
artists. It is because they are real artists that their material
finds expression in their style. It is not because responsiveness
{225} of style to material is systematically taught. It should be,
if American fictionists are to attain the development their natural
advantages make possible to them. It is the art of artists that most
deserves teaching so far as it can be taught, particularly if it is
so potent that it pushes its way without encouragement and against
heavy odds of hindering rules.
I have only outlined the need and the possibilities and, I fear, made
a poor case of it. But some day some one else will give it full and
convincing presentation--if, indeed, some one has not already done so
outside my knowledge. In any case, there lies a line of development
that sooner or later fiction is bound to follow.
Whether you believe it or not, give it slow consideration in your
mind. Even if you decide against it in the end, the considering of
it will teach you more concerning style than you are likely to get
from the study of other people's rules.
Of _that_ I am very sure. In your case _you_ are the most important
authority. Appeal to that authority and see that it gives judgment,
judgment reasoned out, by _you_, from fundamentals. {226} Let no
rules by other people impose themselves until you have reasoned out
their worth. Keep and develop your own individuality.
And the one best way to learn to write is to--write.
I hereby absolve you from all rules in this book except such rules as
warn against rules.
THE END
{227}
APPENDIX
YOUR MANUSCRIPTS AND THE EDITORS
To new writers, and to most old ones, a magazine editorial office is,
among other things, a mystery, not the least mysterious of its
contents being the editors. It is, of course, no more mysterious
than the office of any other specialized business, and editors are
merely one small class among many classes doing various kinds of
specialized work. Certainly there seems no justification for the
traditional awe in which editors are held by so great a majority of
people. This awe is undeniably present and does more than a little
to prevent more comfortable relations between writers and readers on
one hand and editors on the other. Partly it is a "hangover" from a
past age when editors better earned an atmosphere of awe as
individual molders of public opinion, and partly it is due to
people's insistence on regarding with a peculiar and undiscriminating
reverence {228} anybody or any thing connected, however remotely,
with "literature."
It shouldn't be necessary to say so, but, if the testimony of one of
them can be accepted by those who persist in considering them
something very much above--or below--the normal, editors are just
ordinary humans no different in essentials from any other people of
ordinary education. As in any collection of people, there are all
kinds among us, even those who breathe a rarified atmosphere and hold
themselves superior to their fellows, but, heavens, think of waiters
you have known! While as to barbers and policemen--
Just humans, whose job happens to be that of trying to choose from
many manuscripts those the reading public will like best. If the
manuscripts they handle happen to be fact articles as well as
fiction, there is also the job of selecting with an idea of
education, or of advancing some cause or principle advocated by the
particular magazine, but even here there is also the job of pleasing
the reading public. Besides that, if the editor has a plain or
social conscience, the desire to leave people the better, rather than
the worse, for their reading. That's all.
{229}
A word more about that job, so that we editors may not seem quite so
mysterious, inconsistent, arbitrary and other things as we do at
present. Take the editor of any fiction magazine--or any magazine,
for that matter. So long as he works on that particular magazine his
job is, generally speaking, not to test a manuscript by its general
literary or its general magazine merits, nor to choose according to
his own personal tastes, but, to the best of his ability, to choose
first according to its suitability to _that particular magazine_. If
John Jones is editor of magazine B and then becomes editor of
magazine C, his manuscript tests will change instantly. He will
accept some stories he rejected for B and reject some others that he
would gladly have taken for B. That is, if John is a good editor and
has not deliberately taken up the task of making C as much like B as
possible.
Each fiction magazine aims at a special type of reader, or a special
group of readers. Therefore it tries to individualize itself in such
manner as to get and hold the interest of _that_ type. Its "policy"
may undergo changes, but it is always a more or less {230}
individualized one. What is one magazine's meat may be another
magazine's poison.
There are other reasons why the rejection of a manuscript is "not
necessarily a reflection upon its merits." It may fall fairly within
the individualized field of a magazine and be recognized by the
editor as of entirely sufficient merit, yet be sent back. A grocer
or a druggist or a delicatessen man acts exactly the same way. If
one hundred cans of corn is the number a grocer is justified by sales
in carrying on his inventory and he already has one hundred cans of
corn, he doesn't buy any more cans. If an editor estimates that his
readers' demand justifies him in buying about fifty love-stories,
five tragic stories, ten business stories, etc., per year and he
already has in stock the full quota of each that should be on hand at
any one time, he, like the grocer, buys no more of these types.
Length, as well as type, is also a factor that an editor must
consider in the light of his inventory.
Of course, there are all kinds of exceptions in applying the
inventory test to manuscripts, for stories are not standardized like
{231} cans of corn nor do all magazines adhere to so rigid a basis of
selection. Then, too, there is the fact that some types are,
permanently or temporarily, difficult to secure and, when
sufficiently well executed, are likely to be seized upon at any time.
Really good humorous stories, being notoriously difficult to find,
would hardly be rejected even by a magazine with its normal supply of
humorous stories already in the safe.
Also, manuscripts come in waves, not only as to number but as to
setting, material, theme, and so on. For six months, a year, three
years, there may be, for example, an oversupply of stories of
diplomatic life, rural stories, stories laid in Latin America, and a
dearth of stories of golfing, stories of olden times, sea stories.
By the end of a year or two the situation may be completely reversed
on any or all of these types. In most cases the change from dearth
to plenty or _vice versa_ is without warning or discernible cause.
After being caught by a few dearths an editor is likely to stock up
with a reserve on types that have shown themselves subject to
fluctuation in supply. On the other hand, he may decide that writers
as a whole, in {232} their fancy or lack of fancy for a type, are a
fairly safe index to the fancy of the public in general.
In any case, many factors besides merit, recognized or unrecognized,
and besides bad judgment by editors, decide the fate of manuscripts.
On the other hand, most manuscripts are rejected for the all
sufficient reason that they do lack sufficient merit.
Some ideas are prevalent that seem worth meeting.
A "pull" is seldom of service in gaining acceptance for manuscripts;
of none at all so far as my observation extends, and I can not now
recall, even from hearsay, any case in which "pull" took the place of
merit. Doubtless there are such instances, but, ethics aside,
progress through "pull" is not worth a writer's practical
consideration. Many beginners believe they will get a better hearing
for their stories if they present them in person instead of mailing
them. It's an editor's business to select manuscripts according to
their values, not according to his opinion of their authors, and I
think most editors do so. If he is subject to personal influence,
don't forget that you may make an {233} unfavorable, instead of a
favorable, impression. In any case you're taking from him time that
he probably needs badly and is not likely to be happy over losing.
What you have to say to him can almost always be said equally well by
letter, perhaps far better. A letter takes less of his time and--he
can choose his time for reading it.
I know of no fiction magazine that has a "regular staff" of writers
in the sense of its having no opening for new writers. Often a
magazine comes to depend for the bulk of its supply upon a
comparative few who have proved themselves best able to provide that
supply, but that does not mean that it hasn't a welcome for others.
The oft-heard wail that "a new writer has no chance with editors" is
merely silly. Weren't all the "old" writers once new? How, pray,
did they gain their first footing? In one sense, to be sure, new
writers have little chance with editors for the sweet and simple
reason that a majority of beginners haven't sufficient merit to earn
them a chance with any competent, fair-minded judge. Some of them
will never have. Some have not yet developed and are worthless to
{234} magazines until they do. If a writer can't develop unless
encouraged by acceptances before he has developed, he almost surely
hasn't in him the ability to develop in any circumstances.
Don't be discouraged by rejections. They are merely the usual thing.
They only class your manuscript among the eighty-five to ninety-nine
per cent. that every magazine turns back. Along with yours many
manuscripts of successful or even famous authors are rejected, and
some of these rejected stories, possibly yours among them, will be
accepted by other magazines. The only disgrace is in being
discouraged. If, instead of the usual printed slip, you get a note
from one of the staff, be glad, for your manuscript has raised itself
above the others and earned attention for its merits; your rejection
is really a step forward--the big first step.
Often the beginner's discouragement is due to his trying his wares on
the wrong market. Would you try to sell a lady's slippers to a civil
engineer, a soldier's boots to a dainty dame of fashion, a
policeman's brogans to a child? Yet that is exactly what so many of
you try to do with manuscripts. I {235} am, though an editor myself,
quite incapable of saying just which magazines will buy which
manuscripts, for an infinite variety of factors and circumstances are
involved, but the total ignorance of magazine markets displayed by
many beginners can be due to nothing but failure to give the field
even a rudimentary consideration before trying to master it.
The elementary rules for the actual submission of manuscripts have
been printed thousands of times, but the need for them abides:
Every manuscript should be typewritten. No matter how good
handwriting may be, it imposes a heavy handicap on any manuscript,
for, in comparison with other manuscripts in typewriting, its story
can unfold only on leaden feet even to the most patient, kindly and
self-sacrificing editor.
Double-space the typewriting. It reads more easily, allows you
sufficient space to make your own alterations and corrections without
messing parts of your story into illegibility, and, if the manuscript
is bought, gives space for editing it as copy for the printer to
follow.
{236}
Write on only one side of the paper. This custom is so firmly
established that it's folly to violate it and almost no one does.
There are plenty of reasons for the custom, but its mere existence is
practical reason enough.
Leave a fairly wide margin on the left-hand side of each sheet--as a
kindness to the editor in case your manuscript is bought and to the
compositor who must read and set what you have written and the editor
edited.
Type your name and address on the first page of your manuscript. For
common-sense reasons.
Number your pages. Consecutively straight through from beginning to
end. Especially if you hope for any chance of detailed criticism
from the editor.
Unless your manuscript is to be returned express collect, enclose
stamped, self-addressed envelope of sufficient size and strength, or
at least sufficient postage. As a matter of common honesty. A
surprising number of writers are not honest in this respect.
If you write to the editor when you submit a manuscript, see that the
letter is enclosed with the manuscript, not sent under separate {237}
cover. If your idea in writing is to further the chances of your
story, you're going about it in a poor way if you add to the editor's
troubles by making him handle your case in two parts instead of one.
Or by making him read your autobiography in full.
Several things will help toward a better understanding of the
editorial attitude toward manuscripts. First, tell me, did you ever
know a merchant to work hard day after day for the purpose of
_avoiding_ buying stock for his customers' demands? No, the editor
desires to buy; he spends his time trying to get stories, not to
avoid them. When he finds one that meets his needs he rejoices. A
minority of magazines seek first of all for authors with "big names,"
because of the following they command among the reading public, but
the editors of even these are inclined to pat themselves on the back
when they "find" a brand-new author of merit.
Second, to balance the above, remember that your manuscript is merely
one among thousands that come to an editor.
There is a wide-spread feeling that many manuscripts are rejected
only because they are read, not by the editor himself, but by {238}
some assistant. There are two "schools" of manuscript-reading. One
method is to let the most inexperienced readers weed out the bulk of
submitted manuscripts, thus saving the more experienced readers much
time. The other method reverses the process; a more experienced
reader does the first sorting. The latter seems to be gaining
ground; personally I believe in it strongly. My own experience may
serve to illustrate the situation. For years every manuscript came
to my hands first. As their number increased this became a physical
impossibility. Manuscript-reading is only one of an editor's many
duties, a fact that many lose sight of. At present from one to two
working days per week is probably a generous estimate of the time I
give to manuscript-reading. The reading is done mostly in bits--in
the evenings, on trains, in days spent at home for the purpose. In
the office itself I can't get time to read a dozen manuscripts a
year. And much of the other kinds of work also is done outside.
Many other editors are in similar case.
But in delegating the bulk of the work the most experienced editor on
the staff is the one who first reads the stories from {239}
"unknowns." Except in cases of appeal, stories by our "regular"
writers do not pass through his hands at all, but go first to editors
of less experience and from them to me.
Some magazines have a special "fiction editor," who is often the
court of final appeal, may have been chosen by the editor as superior
to himself in this branch of editorial work and may or may not be the
first to read manuscripts.
The thing to remember is that if the editor delegates the first
reading it does not follow that he minimizes its importance and he
generally takes care to put it into as capable hands as he can.
Remember, also, the general rule is that a first reader is instructed
to mark all doubtful cases for a second hearing; also that it's to
his own personal interest to "find" every good story he can if he
wishes to hold his job.
How much of a manuscript does a reader read? A sentence, a
paragraph, a few pages, maybe all of it. Unfair and inefficient not
to read all of each? My personal opinion is that manuscript-reading
is one of the things that can be learned by experience only. But,
having the experience, an editor can reject {240} the "culls" very
swiftly and with a good deal of sureness. He can tell all the hack
plots at a glance, knows the kinds of opening that are never followed
by a good story, can tell in a few sentences or paragraphs whether a
writer has sufficient skill in handling his tools to be able to turn
out an acceptable story and--has at his finger-ends all the kinds of
material, setting, plot, treatment, etc., that his particular
magazine does not use. If in doubt, he reads further or samples it
out here and there and glances at the end. If still in doubt, he
reads it all. Sometimes knowing the story to be unusable, he reads
it all because the author's possibilities are worth serious
consideration even if the story in hand isn't.
As to the final reading I think, from what data I chance to have,
that I'm not in accord with the majority custom. When I'm familiar
with a writer's work and he's fairly steady, the endorsement of the
man who passed it over to me is often sufficient, since he too knows
that writer's work and would have noted any let-down or doubtful
points. In other cases, sometimes a few pages--with maybe a glance
at the remainder--is {241} sufficient for rejection, unless the other
editor, having read it all, has voted for it or makes the point that
we can help the writer revise it into suitable shape. But what I do
read I read word for word page after page until I find definite cause
for rejection, for I can't believe that I can judge from the reading
public's point of view unless I read as I think most of the reading
public reads--word for word. Maybe other editors can, but, at least
in most cases, I can't.
But be sure of this--whatever their reading methods, editors are
trying to find good stories, not to reject them.
Many magazines contract in advance for stories by well-known writers,
buying sight unseen and trusting wholly to the writer's steadiness,
conscientiousness and popular following. In some cases this is
perfectly safe; in others decidedly not. It means, essentially, that
the writer has left the merit system and works on a sure-thing basis,
which is not good for most writers.
Do not decide that your story was rejected because an editor read it
when he was tired or his liver was out of order. Editors get tired
and their livers are as undependable as {242} anybody's liver, but
they know this and make allowances accordingly. In fact, it's a
pretty safe rule to decide that your story was rejected for lack of
merit or for unsuitability to the particular magazine. If not
convinced of the former reason, keep sending your story to other
magazines. Many a story has been rejected by five, ten, twenty,
fifty magazines and yet found an acceptance, perhaps by a better
magazine than some of those that rejected it, though the majority of
manuscripts submitted probably never find a taker.
Oh, yes, the editor is fallible like everybody else including
yourself. But after all he's an expert of experience in his own
particular line, experience has given him a perspective you lack, and
he has an understanding of his magazine's particular needs that no
outsider can have. In the long run you'll make progress faster if,
allowing for the fallibility of the genus editor, you decide to
accept his verdict as more dependable than that of your friends or
yourself. Anyhow, there's more to be gained from looking for weak
places in your work than from striving to prove its excellencies by
argument.
{243}
This is a rambling, hop-skip-and-jump chapter, but there are a
thousand little points that bob up one after the other and choosing
among them is haphazard work at best. All I've tried to do is to
give you a sketchy idea of editorial offices and their working so
that sending manuscripts to them will not be quite so much like
sending them out into a hostile unknown.
{247}
INDEX
Academic methods of teaching fiction: 5, 10-4, 38-9, 42-4, 51, 108,
134-5, 154-5, 168-9, 171-2, 180-96.
Action: 96, 129-30, 135-7, 205-16.
Ambiguity: _See Words._
Art Process, The: 17-25, 217-26.
Art: 17-21, 127-32, 217-26.
Beginning a story: 75-6, 167-9, 176.
Big words: _See Words._
Brackets: _See Frames._
Brevity: 87, 113-7, 147.
Chapter headings: 110-1, 119.
Characters: 76, 168-9, 170-1, 175-6, 179. (_See also
Characterization, Proper Names._)
Characterization: 100-1, 113-4, 117-8, 127-32, 132-9, 143-5, 170-81,
212-3.
Classical references: _See References._
Classics, The: 208-10.
Clearness: 21, 70-86, 88.
Coincidence: 104.
Color: 57, 58-9, 59-62, 75, 77, 89-90, 105, 117-8, 197-204.
Condensation: _See Brevity._
Contrast: 150-1, 160-5. (_See also Relief Scenes._)
Convincingness: 38, 52, 94-108. (_See_ also Illusion.)
Copying: _See Imitation._
Dialect: 62, 77, 89, 105, 106.
Dialogue: 76.
Distractions: 52-69, 88.
Dramatic element: 109-19.
Editorial offices: 227-43.
Ending a story: 147-50, 165-7.
Fiction, What it is: 17-24, 32-4, 64-6, 127-32, 140-2, 154, 212.
Fiction as a vehicle: 24, 32-4, 64-6.
Fictional references: _See References._
First-person narratives: 68, 104-5, 151.
Force: 22.
Foreign words: _See Words._
Frames or brackets: 68, 91-2, 104-5.
Friends as critics: 55, 63, 72-3, 198.
Happy endings: 123-5, 165-7.
Historical references: _See References._
Horror story, The: 123-5.
Illusion, Imposing and preserving the: 10, 23-5, 30-45, 52-181,
197-204.
Imagination response: 197-204.
Imitation, Evils of: 102-3, 104, 187-8, 191-5.
Improbabilities: 95-101.
Individuality: 118-9. (_See also Imitation._)
Individuality _vs._ technique: _See technique, Academic methods._
Literary, Being: 51, 195-6, 205-12, 214-5. (_See also Literature._)
Literature: 1-3, 25-9, 80-2, 85, 195-6, 215. (_See also Literary._)
Literature _vs._ Magazine fiction: 25-9.
Manuscript reading by editors: 182-4, 227-43.
Manuscripts, Preparing and submitting: 227-43.
Market, The: 227-43.
Material: 88, 95-101, 105-7, 117-8, 123-7, 143-5, 217-26.
Mistakes, Effect of on reader: 62-3, 77-9, 105-7. (_See also
Convincingness, Improbabilities._)
Models: _See Imitation._
Moral values: 136, 139-45.
Motion pictures, Effect of: 115-7, 140.
Mystery stories: 92-3, 111-2.
Obtrusion of author: 66-9.
Overstrain of reader: 7, 87-93, 112.
Plot: 39, 79, 88, 93, 96-100, 101-3, 109-19, 145-7, 149, 154-69, 171,
212-3.
Plot, positive _vs._ negative: 145-7.
Proper names: 59-62, 73-5, 75-6.
Readers, Your: 7, 20, 22, 46-51, 71-3, 105-6, 120-3, 150, 151, 153,
160-5, 197-204, 215-6. (_See also Illusion, Imagination Response._)
Realism: 126-32, 133-4, 140-1, 161-5.
References, Classical, historical, etc.: 59, 75, 89.
Rejections: 227-43.
Relief scenes: 90-1, 112-3.
Repetition: 86.
Repression: _See Brevity._
Rules: 44-5, 51, 121-3, 134-5, 150-1, 154-5, 160-5, 172-5, 181,
182-96, 226. (_See also Technique, Academic._)
Sentence length: 88, 117, 220.
Setting: 117-8, 152.
Simplicity: 1-2, 8, 22, 79-86.
Slang: 77, 89, 105, 106.
Structure: 23, 156-7. (_See also Plot._)
Style: 27, 38-43, 44-5, 63-4, 64-9, 79-85, 104, 117-9, 121-2, 150,
191-6, 217-26. (_See also Technique._)
Surprise: 111, 160-6.
Suspense: 110-1, 151.
Sympathies, Enlisting readers': 22, 120-53.
Tags: 175-80.
Technique, Over-emphasis on: 10-4, 38-44, 182-96. (_See also
Academic._)
Titles: 119.
Unconvincingness: _See Convincingness._
Unity: 23, 157-8, 222-4.
Unusual words: _See Words._
Words, Ambiguous: 73.
Words, Big: 55-8, 79-85, 117.
Words, Foreign: 58-9, 75, 89, 105, 106.
Words, Technical: 75, 89.
Words, Unusual, 55-62, 89.
Words, (_See also under Slang, Dialect, Proper Names._)