Short Story Writing by Charles Raymond Barrett (inspiring books for teens .TXT) ๐
It is this isolation, this magnifying of one character or incident, that constitutes the chief difference between the novel and the short story.[8] In the novel we have a reproduction of a certain period of real life: all the characters are there, with their complex lives and their varying emotions; there are varied sce
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The dramatic trend of the short story is responsible for its tendency to advance action by speech. Good short stories have been written and will be written which contain little or no dialogue; they succeed through vividness of plot, skill in character depiction, ingenuity of construction, or some such quality; but they would be more interesting and more natural if they held more conversation. A short story should be full of talk of the proper kind; there are few people who preserve silence at all times, and in the exciting moments which a short story usually presents, most persons would find tongue to voice their teeming thoughts. Speech adds naturalness and vividness to the actors, it lends them a personal interest, it gives insight into character, and it aids the development of the plot.
This is a modern tendency, for the stories of Kipling, Stevenson, Wilkins, Davis and Doyle contain much more of the conversational element than those of Poe, Hawthorne or Irving. Where the latter would present a mental struggle or a crisis by some paragraphs of description, the former express it in the short exciting words of the actors themselves; even soliloquies and asides and other of the most mechanical devices of the drama are forced into the service of the short story, to replace the long explanatory passages such as were used by Irving. It has been predicted that in the short story of the future the characters will be briefly introduced and then will be allowed to speak for themselves; if this prophecy comes true we shall have stories similar to Hope's "The Dolly Dialogues," or Howells' little dramas, where there is almost no comment by the author. It is more probable, though, that there is something of a "fad" in the present liking for pure dialogue, and that the short story will never attain the absolute purity of the drama.
If these fictitious personages are to talk, however, they must talk naturally and interestinglyโand "there's the rub!" As in real life a man often shows himself to be a fool when he begins to talk, so in fiction a character frequently proves to be but a poor puppet of straw when he opens his mouth. The only way to make your characters talk naturally is to imitate the speech of the persons whom they in some degree represent. People in general do not talk by book: they use colloquial language, full of poor grammar, slang, and syncopated words; and their sentences are neither always logical nor complete. In reproducing this, however, you must "edit" it a little, using your own judgment as to which are the characteristic idioms; for the speech of the people in books is admittedly a little better than in real lifeโexcept in dialect stories, where it is usually worse; and you must avoid equally the heavy rhetorical style of the extreme romantic school, and the inane commonplaces of the radical realists.
Conversation like the following is commonly termed "bookish"; it is painfully correct and laboriously profoundโbut it is not natural. If it were meant for a burlesque upon polite and "cultured" society it would be exquisite, but it is the manner in which the writer believes people really talk, though it is easy to guess that he himself is far from such absurd affectations in his familiar speech.
"By way of preliminary, I have to say that my name is AthleeโFelix Athlee, and yours is Miss India Lemare. I've seen you before."
"In the flesh, I hope," she answered.
"Yes, I like you better that way, though you now wear the expression of one older in years and experience. Wherefore, may I ask?"
"Shadows fall on the young as well as the old. One is fortunate, indeed, to keep always in the sunshine."
"And flit like the butterfly, without volition or effort? Human appointments are different. Work is the inevitable, and with the proper tools, it is pleasant enough."
"They must, long ago, have rusted, for the want of use."
"No, we have simply to consider our specialty and we find them ready at hand. Have you done so?"
"I am dazed, and my brain works capriciously."
"Except in the interest of your desires. What are they?"
"Wealth for independence, leisure for indulgence, and fame, the outcome of talent."
His luminous eyes looked out over the water, as he said: "The universal hunt of mankind is for happiness, and he searches for it in as many ways as there are peculiarities of disposition. Does he ever really find it? Many weary hearts are covered with the soft down of wealth. Mischief lurks in indulgence, and fame dazzles but to elude. It is wiser to accept what the gods give, and use the gifts for the betterment of others as well as ourselves."
"Meaningless words, when one is at enmity with the gods for withholding. What fine spun theories we mortals have!"
To the listener every conversation contains a deal of commonplace: it may be that the speakers really have nothing interesting to say, and it may be that their conversation is so personal as to interest themselves only. The reader occupies the position of a listener, and it is the duty of the author to suppress all commonplace dialogue, unless, as sometimes happens, it assists in plot or character development. Conversation like the following isโlet us hopeโinteresting to the parties concerned, but the reader would be delivered from it as from a plague.
"I am so glad to get one desire of my heart."
"And that is?" said Al.
"Snow!"
"So glad that is all. I thought you had spied my new tie and was planning some 'crazy design' upon it."
"Oh, let me see! Now, really, that is becoming to your style, but I think it would suit mine better. 'Brown eyes and black hair should never wear blueโthat is for grey eyes, the tried and true.' See?"
"Neither the eyes nor the tie," said Al, as he turned his back and looked up at the ceiling.
The real difficulty with this dialogue is that the writer attempted to make his characters "smart" and so permitted them to indulge in repartee; but as they were only commonplace people the privilege was too much for them and they merely twaddled. They did succeed in being humorous, but the humor is unconscious.
Yet unconscious humor is preferable to the forced and desperate attempt at fun-making which we have in this extract:
"I don't believe he is proud," said Joe to Tom, his younger brother. "But you know he has been to the Holy Land and cannot now associate with such wicked sinners as we are. Or else he has turned Jew and thinks we are Samaritans."
"You two are getting no better fast," said the doctor, after a hearty laugh. "Wait until you get sick, I'll give you a pill that will make you repent."
"We are never going to get sick," said Joe, "but expect to live until we are so old that we will dry up and blow away with the wind, or go to heaven in a 'Chariot of Fire.'" Turning to the doctor Joe continued: "You know Will has a girl, and he is awful pious. If one looks off his book in church, even to wink at his best girl, he thinks it an awful sin. And that the guilty one should be dipped in holy water, or do penitence for a week."
It is a common trick for the novice to put into the mouths of his characters just such stale jokes and cheap jests, with the idea that he is doing something extremely funny. He is, but his audience is laughing at him, not at his characters.
But most exasperating of all is the author who, while making his characters suffer the most dreadful afflictions, lets them think and talk only commonplaces still, like the poor sawdust dolls that they are:
"What is the matter with you, Annie?" I said one day, about five months after she had come home....
"You will know some time, Cicely," she answered....
"Why can't you tell me now?" I asked.
"You will know soon enough," she answered. "By the by," she went on, "I am going to Mr. Denham's to-morrow."
"Alone?"
"No, I am going with Cousin Ivan."
"When will you be back?" I asked, for Mr. Denham lived twenty miles away.
"I don't know," she answered sadly.
The next morning I went over to see Annie off. I had been there but a few minutes when her cousin, Ivan Carleon, came. He was about six feet high, with dark, brown eyes, and black hair and moustache. He was a quiet man and I liked him. When they got ready to start, Annie came and kissed me.
"I am ready now, Ivan." And then he helped her into the buggy, and they drove off.
Two days afterwards, as I was sitting under the shade of a tree, where Annie and I had played when we were small, Miss Jones, an old school fellow, came along.
"Have you heard the news?" she asked, before she had got up to me.
"What news?"
"Why, Ivan Carleon has killed Annie."
"Explain yourself, Daisy," I answered anxiously.
"Well," she said, "we ain't sure Ivan killed her; but every one thinks so. You know that big gate, about a mile this side of Mr. Denham's? Well, day before yesterday Ivan came running up to Mr. Denham, and said that Annie had shot herself, down at the big gate. They all went down and found Annie stone dead. A note in her pocket merely stated that she was tired of life. But every one thinks Ivan killed her, and that he wrote the note himself. I hope Ivan didn't do it," she said, as she started off, "for I liked him."
The evening of the third day, as I was sitting under the same tree, I was startled to feel a hand on my shoulder. Looking up, I saw Ivan Carleon standing by my side. I gave a low cry, and shrank from him. He turned pale to his lips.
"Surely you don't think I murdered her?" he said.
"I don't know what to think," I answered, bursting into tears.
"Sit down and tell me all about it," I continued, moving for him on the bench.
He sat down beside me; and laid his head in his hands.
Imagine, if you can, the bearer of terrible news who would unburden herself with as little excitement as Miss Jones exhibits; or a real girl who, on hearing of the tragic death of her bosom friend, would be merely "anxious" and bid her informant "Explain yourself!" The author of this could not have had the slightest conception of the tragedy which he had created, or even his poor lifeless puppets must have been galvanized into some show of real feeling.
It is neither necessary nor desirable that you should report every conversation at length, even though it bear upon the story. Do not reproduce long conversations simply to say something or to air your views on current topics. It is just as much a fault to introduce useless chatter as it is to fill page after page with descriptions of unused places. If the hero and the heroine, by a brief bright conversation, can put the reader in possession of the facts concerning the course of their true love, they should be
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