Chapter IX: THE DRAMATIC STORY is the highest type of the short story. It (3)

Again, novices err frequently through introducing a multiplicity of narrators, either writing a patchwork story in which all take a hand, or placing narration within narration as in the "Arabian Nights." The method of allowing a number of persons consecutively to carry on the plot is very attractive, since it offers a way of introducing a personally interested narrator without making him preternaturally wise; and it also affords opportunity for the author to exhibit his skill in viewing events from all sides and through the minds of several very different persons. It is, however, open to most of the first person objections, and it is liable to produce a disjointed narrative; but it is particularly unhappy in the short story because it necessitates the introduction and disposition of a number of important people.

The use of narration within narration is more objectionable. It is of little importance who tells the story, or how it came to be told; the less the narrator appears the better. It is seldom that more than one narrator is necessary, yet two, three, or even more are often introduced, with full descriptions of persons and circumstances. "It is a frequent device of the unpractised to cover pages with useless explanations of how they heard a tale which is thus elaborately put too far off from the reader to appeal to his sympathies. One writer, after describing a rural station, his waiting for the train, its appearance when it arrives, the companions of his journey, and so on, is wrecked, and spends the night on a log with an old farmer, who spins him a domestic yarn that has nothing to do with what went before. Why not give the tale direct, in the character of the old farmer? There is no law against that."[33]

This practice is due to the fact that amateurs usually begin by writing strictly true stories, and they always consider it of prime importance that they had the tale from grandmother, or that it actually occurred to John's wife's second cousin's great aunt; forgetting, in their unconscious egotism, that the reader cares only for the narrative, and nothing for the narrator. Stories told to interested listeners by "grandma," an "old hunter," or some loquacious "stranger," usually need to be so revised that the intrusive relater will disappear, merged in the unobtrusive author. Indeed, it is policy so to revise them, for the editor usually considers the author who begins thus too amateurish for him:

"Your turn now, Captain," was the exclamation of several
gentlemen who were seated around a table, telling stories,
narrating adventures, playing cards and drinking each others'
healths.

"What will you have, gentlemen?" inquired Captain R----, a tall,
handsome man of middle age, who had been in command of a large
ocean steamer many years.

"Oh, one of your adventures," said one of the party; "for surely
you must have had some."

"Ah, very well, gentlemen--I remember one that will no doubt
interest you; here it is:"

For at the outset he knows, and he knows that his readers will know, that the tale ends thus:

"So ends my story, gentlemen; now let us have a drink to the
health of the young sailor's wife, the dearest woman in the
world."

"And why not the sailor's health, too?" asked one of the
gentlemen.

"All right, sir, just as you please, gentlemen, for I was
that sailor."

and that the intervening story is apt to be every whit as stale and conventional as its beginning and its end. Irving's "Tales of a Traveller" show how this method may be used successfully; yet it required all of Irving's art to make the extra-narrative passages readable, and it is an open question if the stories would not have been improved by isolation.

The best method of narration, the simplest and most natural, is to tell the story in the third person, as if you were a passive observer; to make the characters active and conversational; and to permit nothing, not even your own personality, to get between the reader and the story.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: "The Short Story," by Frederick Wedmore. _Nineteenth Century._ Mar., '98.]

[Footnote 32: "The Epistolary Form." _Literature._ Apr. 7, '99.]

[Footnote 33: "Magazine Fiction and How Not to Write It," by Frederick M. Bird. _Lippincott's._ Nov., '94.]

VIII

THE BEGINNING

The crucial test of the short story is the manner in which it begins. Of three-fourths of the MSS. submitted to him the editor seldom reads more than the first page, for he has learned by experience that if the story lacks interest there, it will in all probability be lacking throughout. Therefore it behooves you to make the beginning as attractive and correct as possible.

The beginning of a good short story will seldom comprise more than two or three paragraphs, and often it can be compressed into one. If it cannot get to the story proper in that space there is something radically wrong--probably in the plot; for the conventional brevity of the short story requires particular conciseness in the introduction.

In every story there are certain foundation facts that must be understood by the reader at the outset if he would follow the narrative easily. These basic truths differ greatly in different stories, so that it is difficult to give a complete list; but they are usually such details as the time and scene of the story, the names, descriptions, characteristics, and relationships of the different characters, and the relation of events prior to the story that may influence its development. You must make sure that the details which you select are fundamental and that they do have a definite influence which requires some knowledge of them. Any or all of these facts, however, may be introduced later in the narrative when their need appears; or they may be left in abeyance to enhance the element of suspense or mystery.

But because they are necessary these facts need not be listed and ticketed like the _dramatis personae_ of a play bill. They should be introduced so deftly that the reader will comprehend them involuntarily; they must seem an intrinsic part of the warp and woof of the narrative. In themselves they are commonplaces, tolerated only because they are necessary; and if they cannot be made interesting they can at least be made unobtrusive. To begin a story thus is to make a false start that may prove fatal:

This happy family consisted of six; a father, mother, two sons,
and two daughters. Clara, the eldest, had completed a course at
college, and during the past few months had been completing one
in cooking, guided and instructed by her mother. Bessie, the
youngest, was five years old. She sat rocking Amanda, her new
doll, and was asking her all manner of questions. John and
Henry, aged respectively ten and fourteen years, were helping
their father.

Grandma and grandpa were expected to dinner; also Mr. Draco, or
"Harry," as every one called him. He was a friend of the
family's, and Clara's lover.

Note how Hawthorne handles a very similar family group in the initial paragraph of "The Ambitious Guest." He inserts his details without apparent effort; and yet he makes the persons individual and distinct. He does not say:

This family was happy, and comprised father, mother,
grandmother, daughter of seventeen, and younger children.

but:

The faces of the father and mother had a sober gladness; the
children laughed. The eldest daughter was the image of Happiness
at seventeen, and the aged grandmother, who was knitting in the
warmest place, was the image of Happiness grown old.

Sometimes, in stories which consist largely of conversation, as so many of our modern stories do, the author never directly states the situation to the reader: it is made sufficiently plain either directly in the conversation itself, or indirectly in the necessary comments and descriptions. Or it may be presented as a retrospect indulged in by one of the characters. On the stage this takes the form of a soliloquy; but since few men in their right minds really think aloud, in the short story it is better for the author to imagine such thoughts running through the mind of the character, and to reproduce them as indirect discourse. We are so used to consider the author as omniscient that we experience no surprise or incredulity at such mind-reading. Such stories approach very nearly to the pure _Dramatic Form_. These are at once the most natural and the most artistic methods of introducing essential facts, and they are methods which can be advantageously employed to some extent in almost any story. With this method in mind read carefully any one of Hope's "Dolly Dialogue" stories and note how cleverly the facts are presented through the words and actions of the characters.

In the novel essential details are frequently held in suspense for some time, in order that the opening pages may be made attractive by the introduction of smart conversation or rapid action. A similar method is often followed in the short story, and it cannot be condemned offhand, for if used skillfully it is a clever and legitimate device for immediately fixing the reader's attention; but it holds danger for the uninitiated, for the amateur is liable to postpone the introduction of the details until the story is hopelessly obscure, or until he is reduced to dragging in those essential facts in the baldest manner. Even if he is otherwise successful, he runs the risk of destroying the proportion of his story by practically beginning it in the middle and endeavoring to go both ways at once. The conventions of the short story allow of little space for the retrospection necessary to such an introduction; and when the writer begins to say, "But first let me explain how all this came about," the reader begins to yawn, and the charm of the opening sentences is forgotten in the dreariness of the ensuing explanations. This method is of the modern school of short story writers, but Hawthorne, in "The Prophetic Pictures," gives us an excellent example of how it may be used to advantage; and the following well illustrates the absurd lengths to which it may be carried, and the desperate means to which the writer must then resort to patch up the broken thread of the narrative:

Joseph Johnson was a young man whose name appeared in the list
of the dead heroes who had fallen at Santiago.

When Mamie Williams read the startling fact, her eyes filled
with tears, as past history was unfolding itself in her mind,
presenting one event after another. She thought about their
early love, how she had clasped his hand and how his lips
lingered long upon hers when last they parted before he started
to the cruel war.

With a wounded heart and tear-stained eyes, she sank into a
chair, and with her hands over her face, many reflections of the
past chased each other through her mind.

She tried to console herself and smooth out the wrinkles in her
troubled mind with the thought that God knows and does all
things well. She was an intelligent girl, and reasoned farther
with herself, "As all hope for Joseph has fled, I ought to marry
some one else, and make most of what I have. There is Thomas
Malloy, who loves me almost as well; however, my affection for
him is not very great, but I think I shall unite my life with
his, and do my best to make myself and the world around me
happy."

Her mind, moved by an emotion of a noble heart, caused her to
make the last remark.

Soon they were married, but there was no happiness in life for
her; for the one she lived for was gone, and had carried off her
affection with him.

Returning to the war we find that Joseph was not killed in the
battle but was taken prisoner by the enemy.

There is a questionable sort of beginning, which might be called dilatory, that consists in carrying the literary aspect of the essential facts to the extreme, and making them occupy a deal more valuable space than is rightly theirs. This is generally the method of a past school of short story writers, or of the writers of to-day who are not yet well versed in the technique of their art. Of this class Washington Irving is a great example. In "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" he devotes to the introduction almost as much space as a writer to-day would give to the whole tale. He is so skillful in gently urging the narrative along, while he introduces new essentials and interpolates literary but non-essential matter, that in neither story can one exactly fix the bounds of the beginning; but in each a modern story teller would combine the first ten paragraphs into one introductory paragraph. I do not mean to say that this is a fault in Irving: if it is a fault at all it belongs to his time; then, too, these tales were supposed to be written by the garrulous antiquarian, Diedrich Knickerbocker; but their discursive style is not in vogue to-day, and is therefore to be avoided.

As an awful example of the extent to which this dilly-dallying may be carried, let me introduce the following:

The train rolled onward with a speed of twenty-five miles an
hour, the great iron engine puffing and screeching as if its
very sides would burst. In the rear car of the six coaches which
seemed to follow the monstrous iron horse with dizzy speed, sat
an aged man holding a pretty child of four summers, who was fast
asleep. The grandfather gazed on the sleeping face and deeply
sighed. His thoughts returned to the long ago when his only
child was the same age as the little one he held so fondly
clasped in his dear old arms. He thought how years ago he had
held his own darling thus; how happy and bright his home had
been in those sweet bygone days. He recalled how she had been
reared in a home of plenty, how she had everything which
constitutes the happiness of a young girl.

_The Story._

The time was a warm summer evening in August, the place one of
those quiet little towns west of the great Mississippi, and the
scene opens in a neat little parlor where a number of young
folks had gathered to tender a fitting reception to a newly
married couple. A few days previous a stranger had arrived in
the town to visit some former friends; these friends attended
the reception and were accompanied by their guest. The stranger
was formally introduced to the crowd of merry-makers as Elmer
Charleston. He was a tall, splendidly formed, intelligent
looking young man. Among the young women present was one Jennie
Shelby, who was but little more than twenty; she was a blonde,
of graceful figure, with a peculiarly animated expression of
countenance. Her complexion was beautiful, her dimples deep and
mischievous, her large blue eyes full of latent fire, and her
features would pass muster among sculptors. Suitors had she by
the score. At last she had met her fate. Elmer Charleston
accepted a position in the town and at once began to court the
only daughter of Squire Shelby.

It seems almost incredible that any writer, however inexperienced, should begin his narrative in this fashion. The introductory paragraph is of course entirely unnecessary--even the author had some inkling of that fact, for he takes pains to specify when "the story" proper actually begins; but even after he is supposed to be in the midst of his narration, he stops to give us wholly gratuitous information concerning the time of day, the state of the weather, and the occasion when Elmer Charleston first met Jennie Shelby--all of which was apparently introduced for the purpose of discouraging further interest: at least, that is what it certainly accomplishes.

The short story has no space for the "glittering generalities" with which young writers delight to preface their work. A tale which requires a page or even a paragraph to elucidate its relation to life and things in general is seldom worth the perusal, much less the writing. These introductory remarks are usually in the nature of a moral, or a bit of philosophizing; but if the story has any point it will be evident in the narrative itself, and no preliminary explanation will atone for later neglect to make it of human interest. There is no good reason, unless it be the perversity of human nature, why you should begin a story by making trite remarks about things in general, as this writer did:

Love is a very small word, but the feeling that it expresses
bears the richest and choicest fruit of any vine that curls its
clinging tendrils around the human heart. And a bosom without it
is a bosom without warmth; a life without it is like a
honeysuckle without its nectar; a heart that has never felt its
sweet emotions is like a rosebud that has never unfolded. But in
some people it remains latent for a number of years, like an
apple which remains green and hard for a time, but suddenly
ripens into softness, so when love flashes into the human
breast, the once hard heart is changed into mellowness.

Mary Green was just such a character as the one last described,
etc.

It would be wrong, however, to say that the prefatory introduction is the sign of a poor story, for many good writers produce such stories, and many critical editors accept and publish them. A large majority of Poe's tales begins so; yet in nearly every case the beginning could have been cut and the story improved. Kipling, too, has a liking for this method of beginning; usually he states his abstract idea, as a preacher announces his text, and then proceeds to make the practical application. With these masters the transition from the general to the specific is usually easy and gradual, but in the following example from Kipling's "On the Strength of a Likeness" the line of demarcation is well defined:

Next to a requited attachment, one of the most convenient things
that a young man can carry about with him at the beginning of
his career is an unrequited attachment. It makes him feel
important and business-like, and _blasé_, and cynical; and
whenever he has a touch of liver, or suffers from want of
exercise, he can mourn over his lost love, and be very happy in
a tender, twilight fashion.

Hannasyde's affair of the heart had been a godsend to him. It
was four years old, etc.

There is no real abruptness here, and the author's observations are apt and sound; but the fact remains that they are not essential and so a strict observance of conventions requires their elimination.

"The background of a story should always be the last thing to be chosen, but it is the first thing to consider when one comes to actual writing out. A story is much like a painting.... In story writing it appears to be simple portraits that need least background."[34] Scenes may play an important part in a story by influencing the actors or by offering a contrast to the events; in such cases they must be made specific, but rather after the broad free manner of the impressionist. The employment of the contrast or harmony of man and nature is one of the oldest devices of story telling, but also one of the most artistic and effective. It is not an artificial device, though it occasionally appears so from its misuse: it is a fact that all of us must have experienced in some degree, for we are all, though often unconsciously, influenced by the weather or by our environments; and though our emotions may be so intense as to counteract that influence, we are sufficiently self-centered to think it strange that all nature should not be in harmony with us.

You should, however, take care that the scene is important before you attempt to present it. Unless it does influence the action of the story or is necessary for the understanding of what is to come it has no place in the narrative, no matter how great may be its beauties or how artistic your description of them. Above all things, never clutter your story with commonplaces and details which would serve to picture any one of a hundred different places. "When a tale begins, 'The golden orb of day was slowly sinking among the hills, shedding an effulgent glory over the distant landscape,' the discerning reader, whether official or volunteer, is apt to pause right there. He knows exactly what happens when the orb of day finds it time to disappear, and he does not care for your fine language unless it conveys a fact or an idea worth noting."[35]

The best method of procedure is to suggest the scene, as you do the character,[36] by the few specific features which distinguish it from other similar scenes, and to permit the reader's imagination to fill in the details. Hawthorne gives a very distinct idea of the setting of "The Ambitious Guest;" and yet, from his description alone, no two persons would draw the same picture. It suffices that they would all possess the essential elements of loneliness, bleakness and haunting terror. At the same time he effects a sharp contrast between the wildness and discomforts of the night and the peace and cheer of the tavern.

In locating the story it is absurdly shiftless to designate the place by a dash or a single letter, or a combination of the two. One of your first objects is to make your story vivid, and you will not further that end by the use of impossible or indefinite substitutes for names. If you are relating a true story and desire to disguise it, adopt or invent some appellation different enough to avoid detection; but never be so foolish as to say:

The story I am about to relate occurred to my friend X., in the
little village of Z----, during the latter part of the year
18--.

It would be just as sensible to go through the rest of the story and substitute blanks or hieroglyphics for the important words. Specificness in minor details is a great aid to vividness, and you cannot afford to miss that desirable quality through sheer laziness.

The safest way to begin a story is to begin at the beginning, state the necessary facts as succinctly as possible, and lead the reader into the quick of the action before he has had time to become weary. For it must be remembered that the object of the short story is always to amuse, and that even in the introductory paragraphs the reader must be interested. If he is not he will very likely cast the story aside as dry and dull; if he does read it through he will be prejudiced at the outset, so that the result will be about the same.

In "The Ambitious Guest" the introduction occupies ¶ 1-4, or one-eleventh of the entire story, measured by paragraphs. In that space Hawthorne locates the scene, introduces and individualizes the characters, determines the atmosphere of the tale, and recounts the necessary preliminaries; and all this he does in the easiest way, while skillfully leading up to the story proper. A writer of to-day would probably condense these four paragraphs into one, without neglecting any essentials; but he would hardly attain the literary finish of Hawthorne's work.

To prove further that the beginning of a story does influence its success, I would ask you to consider the following, which is typical of the style of introduction most affected by the novice:

It was a bright, crisp, twilight evening, and two young girls
sat together in a richly furnished parlor of a splendid country
house.

One, tall and slender, with a richly moulded figure; handsome
brunette features, and raven tresses--Edith Laingsford, the
daughter of the house; the other, a girl of medium height, with
a figure perfectly rounded, and a fair Grecian face.

Her eyes were of a soft gray, and her hair a waving chestnut.
She was Marion Leland, a dependent cousin of Miss Laingsford's.

Now, frankly, do you care to read further? Surely there is nothing in the glimpse of the plot here presented that encourages you to hope that the tale may improve upon further perusal. From these three paragraphs you can construct the whole story: you know that the "dependent cousin" and the girl with the "handsome brunette features" will be rivals for the affections of some "nice young man" of corresponding conventionality, and that the poor relation will finally win him--chiefly because it always happens so in stories and seldom in real life. And you know from these specimen paragraphs that there will be nothing in the handling of this poor old hackneyed plot that will repay its perusal. Of course there is always a chance that you may be mistaken in your surmises; but the chance is too slight, and you cast the story aside with a yawn, even as the editor would do. See to it, then, that your own stories do not deserve like treatment.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 34: "How to Write Fiction." Published anonymously by Bellaires & Co., London. Part I, Chapter VII.]

[Footnote 35: "Magazine Fiction and How Not to Write It," by Frederick M. Bird. _Lippincott's._ Nov., '94.]

[Footnote 36: See Chapter VI.]

IX

THE STORY PROPER

The correct short story possesses unity of form as well as unity of plot. In the novel there may be wide gaps of time and scene between adjacent chapters; but the short story allows of no such chasms of thought, much less of chapters. Parts or chapters in a short story are uncanonical. A short story is essentially a unit, and the necessity of divisions indicates the use of a plot that belongs to some larger form of literature; but the indicated "parts" or "chapters" may be false divisions introduced through the influence of the conventions of the novel.

The various divisional signs to be avoided are the separate entries or letters of the diary or epistolary forms, the introduction of stars or blank spaces to indicate a hiatus, and the division of the narrative into parts or chapters. The evils of the diary and epistolary forms have already been discussed and need no further comment. The use of stars or spaces either is due to an improper plot, or is entirely unnecessary. In the first instance the fault is radical, and the only remedy is complete reconstruction; in the second case the difficulty resolves itself into an ignorance or a disregard of rhetorical conventions. Often the story is deliberately divided and forced to appear in several chapters when its plot and treatment make its unity very evident; and solely because the amateur has an idea, caught from his novel reading, that such divisions are essential to a well told story. They are not necessary to many novels, though they may be convenient; and they have no place in the scheme of the short story. There are stories, "short" at least in length, in which divisions are necessary to indicate breaks which do not seriously interrupt the coherency of the narrative; they may be readable stories, but they can never be models.

The ideal short story, from the point of unity, is one which requires the passage of the least time and presents the fewest separate incidents. It is the relation of a single isolated incident, which occupies only the time required to tell it. "The Ambitious Guest" impresses the reader as a single incident and would seem to approach this perfection, but a careful analysis of it resolves it into a number of minor incidents, so closely related and connected that at first glance they appear to form a perfect whole. The component incidents of the body of "The Ambitious Guest" (¶ 5-39) are:

¶ 5-7. The stranger praises the fire and reveals his
destination.

¶ 8, 9. A stone rolls down the mountain side. (Lapse of time
indicated here.)

¶ 10, 11. The characters are described, as they reveal
themselves through their conversation.

¶ 12-23. They converse rather frankly of their several
ambitions.

¶ 24-27. A wagon stops before the inn, but goes on when the
landlord does not immediately appear.

¶ 28-31. A touch of sentimental byplay between the stranger and
the maid.

¶ 32. A sadness creeps over the company, caused, perhaps, by the
wind wailing without.

¶ 33-39. The grandmother discusses her death and burial.

None of these incidents, except those containing the rolling stone and the passing travelers, possess sufficient action or identity to be called an incident, except for some such analytical purpose. They are rather changes in the subject under discussion than separate happenings. With the exception already noted, it may be said that there is no time gap between these incidents, for each one begins at the expiration of its predecessor. The connection and relation of the sub-incidents is not always as close as this. In a longer story they could be more distinct and definite and yet preserve the unity of the work; but they should never disintegrate into minor climaxes,[37] nor into such a jerky succession of disassociated scenes as the following:

On a fair sweet spring morning in the lovely month of May,
Squire Darley finishes an important letter. He reads it over the
second time to see that there is no mistake.

"There, that'll do, I think," he soliloquizes. "And that'll
fetch him, I think. Peculiar diseases require peculiar
remedies." And he chuckled to himself. Then with deliberate care
he addressed it to "Mr. H. C. Darley, New York City."

A few words to my reader, and we will then follow this important
letter. Five years before the time of which we write, Abner
Vanclief, a poor but honorable gentleman, had died, leaving his
motherless daughter to the sole care of his lifelong friend,
Horace Darley, a wealthy country gentleman, a widower, with only
one son.

Squire Darley was quite at a loss to know what to do with this,
his new charge. He did not think it fit and proper to take her
to Darley Dale, with only himself and servants as companions.
Then, too, she was sadly in need of schooling.

At last after much worry on his part, it was satisfactorily
arranged between himself and a maiden sister, that resided in
Albany, that Violet was to remain with her, attend the best
college, pay strict attention to her studies and music, and when
her education should be completed, she, if she wished, was to
make Darley Dale her future home.

Four years passed swiftly by, and then "Dear Aunt Molly," as
Violet had learned to call her, was taken violently ill; and
before her brother came her sweet spirit had flown away and poor
Violet was again alone. But after she became fairly installed as
mistress at Darley Dale, she soon learned to love the place and
also to love the dear old man that had been to her so staunch a
friend.

As for his son Harley, she had heard his praises sung from
morning until night. She had never seen him, for at the time of
her father's death he was attending college, and before she
returned to Darley Dale he had hied himself off to New York
City, there to open a law office and declare that his future
home.

Many times the Squire had written him beseeching him to return,
but always met with a courteous refusal.

When Violet had been at Darley Dale a year she was surprised
beyond measure by an offer of marriage from Squire Darley.

He had enlarged upon the fact that his son was a most obstinate
young man, that he himself was growing old, and that he wished
to see her well cared for before he died.

She had assured him that she could work, and that she was
willing to work when the time came, but the old Squire proved
himself to be as obstinate as his wilful son. And at last
Violet, with a white drawn face, and dark frightened eyes,
consented to become his wife at some future time.

And the letter addressed to Mr. H. C. Darley contained the
announcement of the engagement of Squire Horace to Miss Violet
Vanclief.

It is seldom that even a model short story plot will be a perfect unit, for in the story, as in the life which it pictures, some slight change of scene and some little passage of time are inevitable. Thus in any short story there is usually a slight hiatus of thought, due to these causes, which must be bridged over. The tyro will span the chasm by means of stars or some such arbitrary signs, but the master will calmly ignore such gaps and preserve the unity of his narrative so deftly that even the lines of the dovetailing will be scarcely visible. Thus in "The Ambitious Guest" (¶ 9, 10) Hawthorne had need to indicate the passage of some little time, during which the guest had his supper; but the breach is passed in so matter-of-fact a manner that there is no jolt, and yet the sense of time is secured:

Let us now suppose the stranger to have finished his supper of
bear's meat, and by his natural felicity of manner to have
placed himself on a footing of kindness with the whole family;
so that they talked as freely together as if he belonged to
their mountain-brood.

When the plot comprises a series of closely related episodes the story should be located in the time of the most important one, and all necessary preliminary matter should be introduced as briefly and casually as possible in one of the several ways already given.[38] Indeed, the whole difficulty is usually due to a poor beginning, and properly belongs to the preceding chapter.

Next to the use of divisions comes the error, also caught from the novel, of making the short story a carryall for divers bits of wisdom, moralizing, description, and literary small talk, which have no part in the narrative, but which the clever and self-appreciative author has not the heart to withhold from the public. The art of omission is an important branch of the art of authorship. It is seldom necessary to tell the novice what to put in; but it is frequently necessary to tell him--and oh! so hard to persuade him!--that to introduce an irrelevant idea is worse than to omit a necessary detail. The young writer must learn early and learn once for all the absolute necessity for the exclusion of non-essentials. Selection of details plays an important part in any literary work, but in the short story extreme care is indispensable, for the short story has too little space to sacrifice any to pretty but useless phrases. Such irrelevant matter is usually called "padding," and its presence is a serious detriment to the success of any story, however clever in conception.

One of the chief causes of padding is the desire for "local color"--a term by which we characterize those details which are introduced to make a story seem to smack of the soil. These details must be eminently local and characteristic--possible of application to only the small community to which they are ascribed--or they are mere padding. The need of local color depends much upon the character of the story: it varies from a doubtful addition to the story of ingenuity or adventure, to a necessary part of the story portraying human life and character. "Without blindly indulging in local color one must be accurate in indicating facts. A work of art must not be crowded with so-called local color, but certain facts must be known and used to give the effect of a true relation.... The atmosphere, the feeling and idiosyncrasy--a word or a phrase which reveals character--are the only true local color, not passing phrases of unkempt speech."[39] The stories of Miss Wilkins, Octave Thanet, Bret Harte, and Joel Chandler Harris are full of excellent examples of local color.

Every perfect short story will contain a strong argument for good, through its subtle exposition of the earning of the "wages of sin," but any attempt to make it a medium for the spreading of ethical and spiritual truths will entail ridicule upon the writer and failure upon his work. The only legitimate purpose of the short story is to amuse, and didacticism in literature is always inartistic. "Novels with a purpose" may find publishers and readers; but no one, except the author, cares for "polemic stories--such as set forth the wickedness of Free Trade or of Protection, the Wrongs of Labor and the Rights of Capital, the advantages of one sect over another, the beauties of Deism, Agnosticism, and other unestablished tenets.... Genius will triumph over most obstacles, and art can sugar-coat an unwelcome pill; but in nineteen cases out of twenty the story which covers an apology for one doctrine or an attack upon the other has no more chance than if it were made up of offensive personalities."[40] "Though ordinary dramatic short stories do not have a moral which shows itself, still under the surface in every story is something which corresponds to the moral, and which we shall call _the soul of the story_."[41] The short story cannot properly be a mere sermon, such as are so often penned under the caption of "The Drunkard's Wife," "The Orphan's Prayer," "The Wages of Sin," and other similar titles. It must teach its moral lesson in its own way--its artistic presentation of the great contrast between the sort of men who work deeds of nobility and of shame. If it be saddled with didacticism or tailed with a moral, it ceases to be a story and becomes an argument; when it no longer concerns us.

Indirectly, and perhaps unintentionally, the short story is a great factor for good. The world is weary of the bald sermons of the Puritans, and of their endeavor to "point a tale" by every ordinary occurrence; it is rather inclined to a Pharisaical self-righteousness; and needs to have its sins, and the practical benefits of goodness, cunningly insinuated; but it can never fail to admire and strive to emulate the noble deeds of noble men, whether creatures of flesh or phantoms of the brain. To be sure, many of our best short stories deal with events so slight and really unimportant that they might be said to have no moral influence; yet, if they simply provide us with innocent amusement for an idle hour, their ethical value must not be overlooked; and when they do involve some great moral question or soul crisis their influence is invariably on the right side.

The point is that religion is not literature. The mere fact that the heroine of a story is a poor milk and water creature, full of bald platitudes and conventional righteousness, does not make that narrative correct or readable; indeed, it is very apt to make it neither, for the platitudes will be irrelevant and the righteousness uninteresting. When this old world of ours becomes really moral we may be content to read so-called stories in which goody-good characters parade their own virtues and interlard their ordinary speech with prayers and hymns and scriptural quotations; but while a tithe of the present sin and crime exists our fiction will reflect them with the other phases of our daily life.

Now by this I do not at all mean that religion has no place in literature. Such a ruling would not only be contrary to the practice of our best writers, but would also deprive us of a recognized and important element in human life. The religious influence is one of the most powerful to which man is subject, and as it plays so great a part in our lives it must necessarily figure largely in our stories. But it must be treated there because of the manner in which it influences human life and action, and not from the ethical standpoint: it must be made literature and not religious dogmatism. That it can be so treated and yet retain the full strength of its power for good is best illustrated in the works of Miss Wilkins. Nearly every one of her stories possesses a strong element of New England Puritanism, but there is no attempt to preach or moralize.

The short story must be well proportioned: those parts which are essential differ materially in their importance, and they must be valued and handled in accordance with their influence upon the plot. No scene, however cleverly done, must be allowed to monopolize the space of the story, except in so far as it is necessary to an understanding of what follows; and no incident which furthers the plot, however trivial or ordinary it may seem to you, must be slighted. The preservation of the balance of the story is not wholly a matter of the number of words involved: often a page of idle chatter by the characters makes less impression on the reader than a single terse direct sentence by the author himself; but in general the practice is to value the various parts of the story by the word space accorded them. This rule will not, however, hold good in the case of the climax, which is estimated both by its position and by the manner in which it is worked up to.

The story proper is really only the preparation for the climax. Most stories depend for their interest upon the pleasure with which we follow the principal characters through various trying episodes, and the great desire which we all experience to know "how it all comes out." It is this innate sense, which seems to be a phase of curiosity, that affords the pleasure that the average reader derives from fiction. One seldom stops to consider how a story is written, but judges it by its power to keep him absorbed in the fortunes of its hero and heroine. This is the element of suspense.

However, there finally comes a point when the suspense cannot be longer continued, and the strained attention of the reader is on the verge of collapsing into indifference, when the curiosity must be gratified by at least a partial revelation; and so the element of surprise enters. Too long a strain on the interest is invariably fatal, and the thing is to know when to relieve the tension. Just when this relief should occur depends upon the plot and the length of the story, so that the question must be settled separately for each particular case. As has already been said, the plot of a short story should not be involved; yet it may be permitted some degree of complexity. In such a case it is probable that there must be some preliminary relief of suspense before the final relief which the climax offers. However, because of the usual simplicity of the plot, the length of the story has greater influence in regulating the relief of the suspense. In a story of 3,000 words or less there is neither room nor necessity for any preliminary surprise, and the most effective method is to withhold all hints at the outcome until the actual climax, as Hawthorne did in "The Ambitious Guest." But when the story approaches or exceeds 10,000 words it is probable that there must be some lessening of the tension previous to the climax, as in Henry James' "The Lesson of the Master." This story, which contains 25,000 words, is divided into six parts, each representing a separate scene in the progress of the story; and yet, so skillful is James, there is no hiatus between the parts, and the story as a whole has unity of impression. At the end of each part the reader has made a definite advance toward the point of the story, through the preliminary relief of suspense afforded by that part, as a study of this brief outline will show:

I

At the end Paul Overt first sees Henry St. George, and the
reader receives a definite picture of the great author, who has
hitherto been only a name.

II

At the end the two meet, and the picture is given life.

III

All through this division St. George reveals to Overt his real
character, so that when the end comes Overt has a less exalted
idea of the master than that which he had cherished.

IV

At the end Marion Fancourt tells Overt of St. George's declared
intention to cease visiting her. This relieves suspense by
making Overt's position toward her more definite, but also
involves matters because of St. George's failure to give any
good reason for his action.

V

At the end Overt, by the advice of St. George, sacrifices in the
cause of true art all his natural desires for love and domestic
joys.

VI

In the first part Overt learns of St. George's engagement to
Miss Fancourt.

At the end St. George tells Overt that he has given up writing
to enjoy those very things which he advised Overt to renounce.

A study of this outline will show you the necessity, in the case of this story, of these preliminary reliefs of the suspense. It would have been absurdly impossible to have tried to hold in abeyance until the climax all these matters; nor does the solving of any of these minor perplexities at all lessen the interest in the denouement. Each bit of information comes out at the proper time as a matter of course, just as it would come to our knowledge if we were observing a similar drama in real life.

When the outcome of the writer's meanderings is finally revealed, it should be a veritable surprise--_i. e._, be unexpected. This is a matter that is rather easily managed, for it is a poor plot that does not afford at least two settlements--either the heroine marries the hero, or she marries the villain; and often there is a third possibility, that she marries neither. If he has provided a proper plot, the author has but little to do with making the surprise genuine, and that little is rather negative. He opens the possibility of the hero doing any one of a number of things, and he may even give rather broad hints, but he should take care never to give a clue to the outcome of the story, unless he purposely gives a misleading clue. The most artistic method is to make these hints progressive and culminative, so that though each one adds to the knowledge of the reader, it is only when they all culminate in the climax that the mystery is completely solved.

This preparation for the climax is one of the most delicate tasks required of the short story writer. The climax must seem the logical result of events and personal characteristics already recited. If it is too startling or unexpected it will be a strain on the credulity of the reader, and will be dubbed "unnatural;" for though fiction allows great license in the employment of strange people and situations, it demands that they be used with some regard for plausibility. The ending must appear inevitable--but its inevitableness must not be apparent until the end has come. It is only after the story has been read that the reader should be able to look back through the narrative and pick out the preparatory touches. They must have influenced him when first he read them and prepared him for what was to come, but without his being conscious of their influence.

The novice usually prepares the way for his climax so carefully that he gives it away long before he should. This he does either by means of anticipatory side remarks, or by making the outcome of his story so obvious at the start that he really has no story to tell, and a climax or surprise is impossible. The first fault is much the easier to correct: most of the side remarks can be cut out bodily without injury to the story, and those which are really necessary can be so modified and slurred over that they will prepare the way for the climax without revealing it. The other fault is usually radical: it is the result of a conventional plot treated in the conventional manner. It is beyond help so far as concerns that particular story, for it requires a new plot handled in an original manner; but its recurrence can be prevented if the writer will be more exacting in his selection of plots, and more individual in his methods. It can usually be detected in the beginning, as in the case of the last example quoted in Chapter VIII.

In "The Ambitious Guest" the climax is led up to most skillfully by Hawthorne; indeed, his preparation is so clever that it is not always easy to trace. Throughout the story there are an air of gloom and a strange turning to thoughts of death that seem to portend a catastrophe; and I believe the following passages are intentional notes of warning:

1 ... a cold spot and a dangerous one.... stones would often
rumble down its sides and startle them at midnight.

2 ... the wind came through the Notch and seemed to pause before
their cottage, ... wailing and lamentation.... For a moment it
saddened them, though there was nothing unusual in the tones.

3 ... whose fate was linked with theirs.

8 (Entire.)

9 (Entire.)

10 ... a prophetic sympathy ... the kindred of a common
fate....

12 (Entire.)

14 "... a noble pedestal for a man's statue." (Doubtful.)

16 "... things that are pretty certain never to come to pass."

17 "... when he is a widower."

18 "When I think of your death, Esther, I think of mine too. But
I was wishing we had a good farm ... round the White Mountains,
but not where they could tumble on our heads.... I might die
happy enough in my bed.... A slate gravestone would suit me as
well as a marble one...."

20 "They say it's a sign of something when folk's minds go
a-wandering so."

22 "... go and take a drink out of the basin of the Flume."
(Doubtful; unless regarded as the result of some subtle warning
to fly the spot.)

26 ... though their music and mirth came back drearily from the
heart of the mountain.

28 ... a light cloud passed over the daughter's spirit....

32 ... it might blossom in Paradise, since it could not be
matured on earth ... the wind through the Notch took a
deeper and drearier sound.... There was a wail along the
road as if a funeral were passing.

36 (Entire.)

38 (Entire.)

39 (Entire.)

A novice writing the same story would hardly have refrained from introducing some very bald hints concerning the fate of the ambitious stranger; for the novice has a mistaken idea that wordy and flowery exclamations make sad events all the sadder, forgetting that silent grief is the keenest. Thus the novice would have interlarded his narrative with such exclamations as:

¶ 12.

Ah! could the unfortunate stranger but have guessed the
culmination of his bright dreams, how would he have bewailed
his fate!

¶ 19.

Unhappy youth! _his_ grave was to be unmarked, his very death
in doubt!

¶ 28.

Poor girl! had she a premonition of her awful death?

Such interpolations are very exasperating to the reader, for he much prefers to learn for himself the outcome of the tale; and they also greatly offend against the rhetorical correctness of the story, for they are always utterly irrelevant and obstructive.

The only stories which may properly anticipate their own denouements are what might be called "stories of premonition," in which the interest depends upon comparing actual events to the prophecy of dreams or some other mystical agency. In such tales the real interest is usually in the weirdness of the whole affair--though, to be sure, they do not always turn out as they are expected to. For, after all, this introduction of surprise into fiction is simply an imitation of nature, and "it is the unexpected that always happens."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 37: See Chapter X.]

[Footnote 38: See Chapter VIII for the best methods of introducing foundation facts.]

[Footnote 39: "The Art of Fiction." A lecture by Gilbert Parker. _The Critic._ Dec., '98.]

[Footnote 40: "Magazine Fiction and How Not to Write It," by Frederick M. Bird. _Lippincott's._ Nov., '94.]

[Footnote 41: "How to Write Fiction." Published anonymously by Bellaires & Co., London. Part I, Chapter V.]

X

CLIMAX AND CONCLUSION

If the overworked editor, hastily skimming the heap of MSS. before him, comes upon one which promises well in the opening paragraphs, he will turn to its conclusion, to learn how well the author has kept his promise; and if he finds there equal evidence of a good story, he will put the MS. by for more careful reading and possible purchase. Experience has taught him that the end of a story is second only to the beginning as a practical test of the narrative; and therefore to the author as well the conclusion is of extreme importance.