The Technique of Fiction Writing Part 10

The broad outlines of the technique of the dramatic short story were implied in the statement that it will tend to involve relatively few s.h.i.+fts of setting, relatively short s.p.a.ces of time, relatively few and relatively simple events, and relatively few persons. Its unity of tone--which is characteristic of the short story, dramatic and of atmosphere--results from its simplicity as to persons, events, and setting, and its unity of style results from its unity of tone. The elements of the short story are less complex than those of a longer fiction, and the fact causes all the modifications in the general technique of fiction as manifested by the short story. In the short story, for instance, there is less opportunity than in the novel to manage secondary events to build up character or personality. The whole process must be swifter, and the writer must depend largely on direct statement and description.

This matter is of some importance. As to setting, the technique of the short story and of the novel are identical; there is merely less setting in the short story--speaking quant.i.tatively--because the type involves fewer s.h.i.+fts of place, even if the action does not happen in one place.

And the technique of the short story and of the novel are identical as to action; the short story merely involves fewer episodes. But as to the people, the technique of the short story and of the novel differ. It is true that the short story involves few persons, relatively to the novel, just as it involves relatively few s.h.i.+fts of setting and relatively few events, but the difference is more than quant.i.tative, and so affects the technique of the type. It affects the technique of the short story because characterization is a matter achieved by showing the person in action, by describing him, by transcribing his speech, and by stating his qualities directly. That is to say, characterization goes on in every part of the story, except where setting is being touched in. And it will go on there, to a slight extent, if the environment is given in terms of the impressions received by the character affected. On the other hand, narration, or verbal treatment of the event, and the description of setting, or verbal treatment of the environment, are more or less distinct and separate elements of a story. The matter is delicate, and I run some risk of being obscure here, but the net result of the simplicity and separateness of both the narrative and the descriptive process is that the narrative and descriptive technique of the short story is the narrative and descriptive technique of fiction generally. Writer of novel and writer of short story can narrate a murder in much the same way, or touch in a countryside with identical technique, but they cannot handle their people similarly.

Perhaps the point can be made clearer. The writer of a novel and the writer of a short story alike must invest their people with the vivacity, distinction, and concreteness of real men and women, but where the one has five hundred pages, let us say, the other has only five thousand words. It is a task difficult enough at best to precipitate a man in a few drops of ink. It is also difficult to narrate the man's actions with some of the vividness of reality, or to touch in a real world for him to move in. But note this. Where the novelist must deal with a large number of events and scenes, the short story writer has only a few to handle; he has about as many words available for each of his few as the novelist has for his many. That is not the case in creating characters. The process of characterization must permeate any fiction, forwarded by the narrative matter, the dialogue, the expository matter, and the descriptive matter alike. And the novelist has five hundred pages to initiate, reinforce, and complete the illusion of personality where the short story writer has but five thousand words.

The novelist has more people to vivify, it is true, but not enough more than the short story writer to give the latter an equal chance if he follows the same technique.

It all comes down to this: a story, long or short, can be broken up into its several episodes and scenes, which are mechanically separable, but its people move through the whole. Since any event or any scene is in a sense a mere item of a story, not universally influential, the technique of handling event or scene simply as such is much the same, whatever the type of story. But since the element of personality is universally present and influential in a story, the technique of characterization varies with the essential nature of the story as a whole.

The result of the condition upon the general technique of characterization as applied in the short story must now be stated.

I have said already that the whole process must be swifter, but that is not very definite. Expanded, the statement amounts to saying that the short story writer cannot develop personality with the fullness and diversity of the novelist; he must concentrate his verbal resources upon the trait developed by the few events of the story and upon a few striking peculiarities of appearance and speech. As to the strict trait of character, the story itself will point the way. It will have one main situation, and probably that one will be of such a nature as to involve relatively simple attributes of soul in the persons concerned. As to the more superficial matter of making the persons seem real and lifelike, the writer must describe sharply, rather than at length--as Stevenson did in "A Lodging for the Night"--and must make his people talk as individually as possible. The general aim, of course, is the same as in the longer story, to present real characters of unique appearance and speech. And the writer's resources--again of course--are the same, but the brevity of the short story forces him to concentrate upon one matter of soul, one matter--or at most a few--of appearance, and one matter of speech. The whole art of fiction is selective; even the novel cannot present justly the complete man; and the short story, simply because it is short, is the most highly selective fiction of all. It cannot present the whole man, but it must seem to. A reader will not feel the absence of traits not involved in the events, and by vivid and brief descriptive touches, reinforced by unique speech, any character can be invested with what will be accepted as a complete physical presence.

As stated, the story itself, if a true story and not a tale, will show its writer that his expository matter or direct statement as to character must bear only upon the traits involved in the plot-situation of the story. The necessity is not peculiar to the short story, but it is more insistent than in the case of the novel. The other points of the technique of characterizing in the short story are purely verbal, and the writer's success depends upon his faculty in pungent description and in handling speech.

The remainder of the technique of the short story, apart from the matter of creating real men and women, is not verbal, but constructive, and is implied in--as it results from--the brevity of the fiction. Unlike the novelist, the writer of the short story has s.p.a.ce for nothing but the story. He cannot drag in by the heels episodes unessential to the story solely for the sake of their intrinsic interest; he cannot waste words upon unessential persons. He is faced by two facts--that his story must be interesting, so that it will probably have to involve considerable complication as to persons, events, and setting, and that it must be told with enough verbal fullness and elaboration to give it the body and seeming of life. Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g between the necessity to interest and the necessity to invest his story with reality, the writer first must find an interesting story, and then, in writing, or in developing and writing, must be vigilant to transcribe nothing unessential to the story, or he will be forced to exceed his s.p.a.ce-limit.

The process comprehends most of the technique of the short story. The whole difference between it and the novel is that the novel is more discursive. Much of the novel's interest, quite permissibly, may inhere in persons, episodes, and matter generally without relation to the main thread of the story. But a short story's interest may not inhere in matter foreign to the thread of the story. That is the case not because of any arbitrary requirement that it be a "unity," but simply because a short story cannot be told adequately as to the story without exceeding the word-limit if unessential matter be incorporated with it.

The fallacy, whether on the part of commentator on technique or writer of fiction, in approaching the short story as some sort of artificial fictional unity lies in the implicit disregard of the necessity to interest. The first necessity is that a story interest, and to meet it the writer must devise some complication of persons, motives, and events, and usually that will involve some diversity of setting, or change of place. The second necessity is that the story be told so as to create the illusion of reality, and to meet it the writer will be forced to exhaust his few thousand words. The necessity that the story interest can be met only rarely without violating the unities of the drama; therefore they are not a convention of the art of the short story. Apart from the matter of unity of tone and style, the short story is a unity only in that it is one single story, nothing more, nothing less. That is, each word is essential to the fiction as such. But that does not mean that the story or plot is a unity in itself. It may involve much diversity in the three fictional elements of personality, event, and setting, the last of which includes time.

I emphasize the matter because the beginning writer is apt to devise stories too simple to present a real problem to awaken a reader's interest. There is also the converse fault, of course, that of devising a story too complicated to be given adequate expression in few words, but this fault will tend to correct itself through the difficulties the writer will meet in execution. The other will not tend to correct itself. The more simple the story, the easier it will be to write with some approach to adequacy. The writer who fancies that a short story must involve as little as possible diversity of people, events, and places may very well continue to devise stories too simple to awaken interest, however effectively they may be told. He will have no trouble in writing each one within his s.p.a.ce, but he will have trouble in getting them published, for each will be lacking in essential fictional value, the capacity to interest. Here I can make only general statement, and it is impracticable to dwell on the fact that real and highly individualized characters will invest a simple story with all the interest of a more complicated fiction. The general truth, however, is that the interest of a tale lies in the problem it presents and solves, that a problem involves complication and diversity, and that a writer may go astray who seeks only the dramatically unified and simple plot.

His work will interest a reader if he creates real people, but the capacity to do so is a rare faculty. At the bottom of it, a story, long or short, is a sequence of events; they should not be too simple, for, apart from the human element, simplicity presents no problem to awaken a reader's interest.

The sole limitation upon the complexity and diversity of the short story as a whole is the difficulty to develop in few words a plot complicated as to personality, event, place, or time. Accordingly, the plot suitable for a short story will tend to be simple, but it need not be so simple that the events, apart from the people, will not awaken interest.

Moreover, the unskilled writer who has experienced the difficulty to develop an interesting plot in few words will be astonished by the results of a little forethought and careful planning before writing.

Elimination and suppression of inessential and relatively unimportant matters will enable him to set forth adequately, though in a few words, a story of real body and interest.

The whole discussion should awaken realization of the fact that the short story is the most difficult form of prose fiction. To the general difficulty of all fiction it adds the difficulty that whatever is done must be done in a few words. The writer of novel or romance has only to interest, and his s.p.a.ce is practically unlimited. The short story writer must interest, and he must interest in few words and pages. He must depend solely on his story; he has s.p.a.ce for nothing else. He should remember that each item of unessential matter given place by him will lessen by just so much the number of words available to give the real story verisimilitude and consequent interest and appeal. To take the conceptive aspect of it, in devising a short story he should remember that inclusion of any accidental and unessential matter must lessen by just so much his power to awaken interest by some diversity and complication in the real story.

When a story idea is found, the writer should determine precisely what matters must be brought out if the fiction is to have full effect on a reader, who will have only the writer's words to go on. The writer should realize precisely what elements of personality are significant in relation to the main situation, which is the story in little, and should prepare to develop the motives and traits involved. He should determine precisely what will be the most effective physical movement for the story, the nature and order of events, also the setting or environment.

He should consider the essential nature of the main situation, or climax, and, if he cannot manage that preceding events shall prepare a reader for it, he should prepare from the beginning of the story to hint what is to come, as Stevenson does in "Markheim." Finally, he should grasp the developed story as a whole, and be vigilant to transcribe nothing unessential, for if the story is real fictional knot or problem, and worth while, he cannot do so without sacrificing essential matter or exceeding his limits.

The physical brevity of the short story certainly has great influence in the direction of simplicity. But its brevity does not subject the dramatic short story to the conventions of the stage. It must be a unity, so-called, but only in this, that every word must be necessary to develop the story-idea, which, in itself, may be simple or somewhat complex. The short story of atmosphere is another matter.

Coherence is a word much better than unity to express the most significant attribute of the dramatic short story. The form is coherent in that every word, line, and sentence has relation to the story itself.

The novel is relatively incoherent in that it often embodies whole stories without relation to the main story, or matter without relation to any story at all. The most pungent way to put the point of the whole discussion is to state that the short story, viewed merely as a sequence of words, is coherent in that each word serves to forward a single story-idea to its conclusion. That is not to state that the story-idea itself is coherent or a unity. It is a unity in that it is single, one story, but the one story need not manifest unity of time, place, and action. The sooner the short story writer clears his head of any notion that the verbal coherence of the dramatic short story involves some indefinable unity in its matter or story-idea, or some equally indefinable singleness of effect, the better for him, his work and pocketbook.[Q]

There would be no great profit in summarizing here the items of technique treated in other chapters. All are of use in the short story, functioning as in other forms of prose fiction. Apart from the matter of characterization, the peculiar technique of the short story is constructive and supervisory, rather than executive. The writer must make certain that he has one story and nothing else, for only one story can be adequately developed within brief limits. In writing, he must take care to transcribe only story-matter, for the same reason. But in narrating an event, or in describing a setting, after he has determined that event and setting are essential to his single story, the writer may employ the technique of general narrative or descriptive writing.

Whatever the form of fiction, its aim is the same, to show real men and women doing in a real world the things one might expect from their natures and the circ.u.mstances of their lives.

In the chapter on story types something was said as to the current insistence upon the verbal compression of the short story. As stated there, the short story, dramatic or atmospheric, is not the result of mere rhetorical compression, rather of the inherent brevity of the conception. The executive technique of long story and short are identical, except as to the single matter of characterization. The short story develops its fewer episodes with as much rhetorical elaboration as the novel develops its many, and the writer who conceives that a short story can be produced by verbal paring and filing is on the highroad to failure.

FOOTNOTES:

[Q] The root cause of all the unintelligent discussion of the short story's unity in books on technique is failure to distinguish between form and content. The mere fact that no word without relation to the story-idea can be transcribed does not mean that the story-idea--complex of people, events, and settings--is a unity. The short story is a unit in that it is one story, rather than two or ten, but--it is not impertinent to ask--what of it? A single story may involve great diversity and complication of elements. And it is what is known as a short story if it can be presented adequately within some few thousand words, though it begin in a king's palace with tragedy and end in laughter in a Harlem flat. Poe's type of short story is another matter; it does possess unity of content in that setting, personality, and events are subtly alike.

CHAPTER XIII

THE NOVEL

Novel and Romance--Romanticism and Realism--Techniques of Novel and Romance--Incoherence of Novel Relative to Short Story--Novel as Medium of Self-Expression--Interpolation of Personal Comment--Significant Simplicity--Permissible Inclusiveness of Novel--Full Development of Personality-- Variety of Action--Length--Initial Idea--Story--Life-- Society--Singleness of Story--Social Emphasis.

I have a small dictionary on my desk which defines the novel as a "fict.i.tious prose narrative or tale presenting a picture of real life,"

and the romance as "any fict.i.tious and wonderful tale: a fict.i.tious narrative in prose or verse which pa.s.ses beyond the limits of real life." The definitions state a distinction easier to feel vaguely than to justify. One may say with truth that Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility" or Trollope's "The Warden" presents a picture of real life, but can one also say with truth that Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" or Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" pa.s.ses essentially beyond the limits of real life simply because each book states a physically impossible thing--the brand of his sin over Arthur Dimmesdale's heart and the metamorphosis of Dr. Jekyll? Either matter is a mere symbol, devised to give concreteness to a spiritual fact. Is it not true than human life, the material for fiction, has its spiritual actualities as well as its physical facts? and does not the romance--as it is commonly understood--differ from the novel merely in that it narrates a real adventure of the soul rather than a real adventure of the body?

The fact is patent, I think, that the writer of fiction will gain small benefit from conceiving the romance as something separate and apart from the novel; likewise, that a book on technique without confusion may treat the writing of long fiction generally as the writing of novels. It is true, of course, that the essential bent of any particular writer may lead him to deal with the facts of the soul rather than the facts of the body, or that any particular story may be a spiritual rather than a physical adventure; nevertheless the story of the spirit must still develop facts and show their relations, and the technical resources of its writer are precisely the same as those of the writer who deals predominately with the more concrete physical facts of life.

It would be interesting to go at some length into this question of romance, all its connotations and implications. In particular, there is an ant.i.thesis in common thought, with romanticism and realism the two opposed members, which it would not be too dull to discuss. But the discussion would not give much light to one who desires to acquire a knowledge of the mechanics of fiction, long or short. It is permissible to call a realist one who transcribes predominately physical details, and it is permissible to call a romanticist one who transcribes predominated [typo for "predominantly"?] spiritual details, but in both cases the basic technique is identical. The realist can confine himself to physical facts because his story deals largely with the everyday actualities of life, and its subordinate spiritual values will be felt by a reader through inference from the facts. The romanticist must state spiritual facts directly because they are the very stuff and essence of his story. He is none the less a realist if there are spiritual actualities--an indisputable proposition--and if he states them as they exist for him.

The critical discussion that treats realism and romanticism as opposed artistic philosophies is so confused that it would serve no useful purpose to go into the matter here. What little I have to say on the subject will be said in the next chapter. But it is not inappropriate to call attention to the fact that every story conceived--in Stevenson's phrase--from within outwards, the only genesis for a work of art, is merely a subjective reality; it never happened. Perhaps it is so essentially commonplace that it probably has happened sometime; perhaps it is so little abnormal that very possibly it has happened. Or perhaps it may be of such a nature that it never could have happened. In any event, whatever the nature of the story, its verity and reality as a fiction depend solely upon its writer's elaborative and executive powers. If his hand falter, tangibility and concreteness in the matter of the story will not save it, will not make it seem real to a reader.

The lives of most men are commonplace, but the relatively few lives that are not commonplace are as real and actual as those that follow beaten paths. In the lives of most, the spiritual element is subordinate, perhaps, but in the lives of some few it is enormously influential and supremely real. Realism, the artistic philosophy, a.s.serts that fiction should present only the real. The a.s.sertion is nonsense for two reasons.

First, the commonplace, or, if you please the inevitable, the only reality which realism admits, is not the only reality. Second, the verity or reality of fiction cannot be ascertained by any objective test, cannot be determined by the physical possibility of its matter, its people and their acts, for a fiction is purely subjective, a conception, and conceivability is the sole test of its verity. The writer of a story transcribes what he sees, not necessarily what is.[R]

As stated, the writer of fiction will derive small benefit from conceiving novel and romance as entirely different types of fiction. The distinction between them used to be insisted upon much more pedantically than is the case to-day, and the present tendency to call any story of book-length a novel is a healthy sign. The technique of the novel, in the narrow sense of a picture of society, and the technique of the romance, in the narrow sense of a story not of "real" life, are broadly the same. And where there is no difference in technique the artist should admit no difference in type. If he does admit any difference in type, and allows it to influence him, his conceptive faculty will be hampered and that is artistic death. It is hard enough to find a story that is worth while, a story that will interest, without subjecting one's self to the added and totally unnecessary difficulty to bring all one's ideas to the measure of some fancied type as a first test. The writer of fiction should be warned that it is supremely difficult to avoid becoming artificial and mechanical, and that he will surely become so if he does his conceptive thinking in terms of a.n.a.lysis. In the first place, the a.n.a.lytical habit of mind is directly opposed to the creative; in the second place, the a.n.a.lysis that divides long stories into novels and romances in the special sense is false. The way to find a story is to look for a story, forgetting all that pedants have written and failures practiced. The silly criticism that cla.s.sifies fiction by its content is beneath contempt; the writer of fiction who heeds it is supremely foolish.

In the following discussion the term "novel" will be used simply to denote a plotted fiction of book-length.

Contrasting the short story and the novel, and dwelling on the relative coherence of the briefer form, I had occasion to state that the novel is relatively incoherent in that much of its interest for a reader quite permissibly may inhere in matter with little or no relation to the main thread of the story. Of course, incoherence is not a point of the technique of the novel. Incoherence is not a point of the technique of anything, except of some of the ultra modern schools in music, painting, and verse. The statement as to the incoherence of the novel was made incidentally in developing the argument that the short story cannot be incoherent because its brevity forbids that it present even its single story-idea adequately and also set forth irrelevant matter. On the other hand, the novel may set forth irrelevant matter because its length is not only a greater but a more elastic quant.i.ty than that of the short story; if the interruptions of the story are not too frequent and sustained, the power of the story over a reader will not be lessened to any appreciable extent. That is not to say that the novelist should seek to interrupt himself.

A good many serious writers--so-called--choose to write the novel simply because it does offer an opportunity for direct self-expression greater than any afforded by briefer fiction. They are confined to fiction--may they pardon the remark--because they have met, or feel that they will meet, difficulty in finding a publisher for their various theories stated as such; so they blithely write a novel, with insertions of politics, religion, sociology, what not, and palm it off on the unhappy public for a story. Of course such direct expression of one's opinions is not self-expression through the medium of a work of art. It is only choosing deliberately to do poor work for the sake of money or notoriety or vanity. Writing the "problem novel" is not quite the same thing. If a social problem, as the friction between capital and labor, is utilized as the fundamental plot--or conflict-theme of a novel, a good deal of personal opinion may be introduced by the author without injury to the artistic coherence of the story. But it is well to remember that the primary aim of fiction is to interest, an aim that can be achieved most easily and most completely by telling a good story.

Propaganda is apt to be supremely dull anyway, and it is bound to seem dull to one who is looking for a story and nothing else. The practical implications of a work of art must be mere implications, resting in inference, or the work will be feeble and misshapen.

The novelist can indulge in personal comment and yet present the whole of his story, for his s.p.a.ce is practically unlimited. The writer of the short story must sacrifice either the comment or the story. The result is that the typical novel is more incoherent than the typical short story. The finer the book as a whole, the easier it is to forgive or overlook the defect, for defect it is. One can forgive Thackeray his rambling asides and his diffidence in approaching his story, for in all of his books the story is present and in each it is a fine thing. But "Vanity Fair," for instance, is too significant a fiction to suffer constant interruption without causing a reader to become impatient. If a story is essentially weak, interpolating personal comment and unrelated matter generally will make it weaker; if it is essentially fine and significant, pa.s.sages without bearing on the story will irritate the reader.

Whatever the art, whoever the artist, his task is to hold pen or chisel or brush true to the outlines of his conception. If his hand leave its proper course, whether of set purpose or through inapt.i.tude, his work must suffer. The art of fiction is so infinitely difficult that the pract.i.tioner should welcome rather than bewail his obligation to hew to the line, for by concentrating upon the story and nothing else he will be led to leave no gaps in his presentment. A work of art is a thing of significant simplicity. Just because the novelist works in words, just because his materials have some significance for a reader in themselves--unlike the clay and marble of the sculptor, the stone of the architect, and the pigments of the painter, which, unwrought upon, have no message for an observer--the novelist is not at liberty to throw words together without some set purpose. The inherent significance of each word must have just relation to the whole, if the whole is to have the direction and significant simplicity of a work of art. The real condition is that the novelist, unlike the writer of the short story, may tell his story adequately and do something else, but the artistic quality of his work will suffer, that is, its power over a reader will be diminished, if he interpolates foreign matter. Artistry is simply the faculty to realize to the utmost the inherent power of one's conceptions, and the artistry of any fiction lessens as the appeal of the story for a reader diminishes. And the appeal of a story as such must diminish with every interruption, unless its power over a reader be very great, and in that case any break in its movement will irritate and offend.

I have cited Stevenson's "The Ebb-Tide" a number of times already, and the book may be instanced here. It is a tremendously powerful bit of work, considering the nature of its matter, and its power over a reader in large part results from its author's having confined himself strictly to the story. The conception is significant, and the story as written is significant because the conception is set forth whole and unmarred. The reader's attention is not distracted by matter irrelevant to the story.

Its theme, the impossibility that a weak man should be other than weak, however he may be circ.u.mstanced, is developed adequately, and nothing else is developed. No book could be more wisely recommended to the writer of fiction for study of the essential technical processes of fiction. It shows adequate treatment of personality, adequate treatment of events, and adequate treatment of setting, shows fictionally real people doing fictionally real things in a fictionally real environment.

Above all, it is a story, nothing else, and is pointed to bring out its value as a whole; that is it has the significant simplicity of a true work of art. It is coherent as to the story it embodies, and in its coherence lies its power. The bare conception is somewhat weak in that it tends to arouse an intellectual rather than an emotional interest in a reader; moreover, the conception is positively unpleasant and depressing, in the conventional sense; but the book as written is a powerful thing because it realizes to the full the inherent capacity of its matter to interest and impress by telling the story adequately and by bringing out nothing but the story.[S]

The novel, then, should be coherent as to the story it embodies, but that is not the whole of its peculiar technique. The story itself may be widely inclusive, may, in a way, involve a number of stories. The novelist should not seek deliberately to combine the unrelated, but he need not follow a single thread. He can turn aside into bypaths of action that will bring out the natures of his people with more fullness than the straight course of the story itself, and he can involve his minor characters in sub-plots, relatively unimportant stories of their own. Generally, the novelist will seek to develop personality with greater fullness and detail than the writer of the short story, and, as a result, the action of the novel will be more diffused and looser, less pointed, than the action of the short story. Or, conversely, the long story necessarily involves more varied action than the briefer form, and therefore develops more varied traits in the actors. Relative to the short story, the novel is a natural type of fiction in that it can make some approach to presenting the whole man, with all his contradictory and inconsistent traits and impulses; relative to the novel, the short story is an artificial type of fiction in that the comparatively direct and pointed character of its action forbids that it develop more than one or a few significant traits of personality. The writer of the short story cannot qualify and distinguish as to his people's natures, and that is why the fine short story is less humanly significant than the fine novel, for no man is pure saint or pure villain, pure this or pure that. We are all bewilderingly inconsistent, wherein lies most of the interest of life. The novel can show its people blown here and there by the winds of desire, as in life, and that is what the short story cannot do.

Each story is a rule to itself, so far as the question of scope and variety of action is concerned, but the novelist will derive small benefit from introducing unnecessary people and unnecessary events merely to lend a greater illusion of movement or bustle to the whole.

Action, in fiction, is action which plays a necessary part in the story, and the novelist should not interpolate insignificant events any more than he should interpolate his own opinions on life and morals. His task is to tell some particular story, no more, no less.

It is difficult to state the relative inclusiveness of the novel without laying a false emphasis on its permissible scope and variety of content, for the novel should be exclusive as well as inclusive. That is, it should not be a mere welter of people and what they do, but should possess some single human significance, some primary reason for being, by which its writer can test the availability of matter that suggests itself to him. Between the conciseness and singleness of "The Ebb-Tide"

and the unnecessary length and complexity of some of the Victorians lies a golden mean easier to recognize in specific books than to state abstractedly. "The Ebb-Tide," though not a short story in point of length, is somewhat brief, and it is a short story in structure, in point of the singleness of its story-idea, the small number of its characters, and the comparative simplicity of its action. Of course, it is none the less a fine novel, a fine long story; the point is that there are thousands of other stories, equally fine, perhaps more humanly significant, which cannot be written so concisely, but which need not run to the length of "David Copperfield," "The Virginians," or "The Cloister and the Hearth." To attempt to set mechanical limits of length for the novel would be mere silliness, but it is true that the average idea for a long story can be given complete and adequate expression in one or two hundred thousand words. Usually there is no need to write at much greater or inordinate length, unless irrelevant matter is introduced for its own sake. And the introduction of such matter for its own sake can only hinder the effect of the story itself on a reader. It may render the book, the mere sequence of words, more interesting, but irrelevant matter cannot render the story itself more interesting. The distinction should be noted and realized, for the novelist's aim is to interest through his story, not merely to interest.

There is another way to approach the matter of the novel's relative inclusiveness and length, perhaps a better way. Where the novelist first conceives his story definitely as such, as a course of events, he should bring all matter which suggests itself for writing to the test of relation to the story. He has only to write the story, duly elaborated, and thereby he will take care of the matters of length and complexity and inclusiveness without detached calculation to that end. But if the novelist finds his initial idea in terms of a life or of a phase of society, the idea does not plot or diagram the whole story for him. He has yet to evolve the story as such, and he may devise as short and simple a thing as "The Ebb-Tide" or as long and complicated a thing as Tolstoi's "War and Peace." Usually it will be found, I think, that the very long novel--"Tom Jones," "Jean Christophe," "David Copperfield,"

"Anna Karenina," "Les Miserables," "The Virginians"--was first conceived in terms of a life or a society, rather than in terms of a definite story. It is certainly true that only the life of an individual or the life of a society can serve to bind together the motley elements of a very long novel, giving it some artistic coherence. "David Copperfield"

can be called one story in that it consists of Copperfield's life and related matters, but "Our Mutual Friend" is in no sense a single story.

It is merely a number of stories devised to be told together and therefore dovetailing to some extent.