Short Story Writing by Charles Raymond Barrett (inspiring books for teens .TXT) π
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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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 Zββ, during the latter part of the year 18β.
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 ΒΆ 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 tressesβEdith 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 himβchiefly 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.
[34] "How to Write Fiction." Published anonymously by Bellaires & Co., London. Part I, Chapter VII.
[35] "Magazine Fiction and How Not to Write It," by Frederick M. Bird. Lippincott's. Nov., '94.
[36] See Chapter VI.
IX THE STORY PROPERThe 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" (ΒΆ 5-39) are:
ΒΆ 5-7. The stranger praises the fire and reveals his destination.
ΒΆ 8, 9. A stone rolls down the mountain side. (Lapse of time indicated here.)
ΒΆ 10, 11. The characters are described, as they reveal themselves through their conversation.
ΒΆ 12-23. They converse rather frankly of their several ambitions.
ΒΆ 24-27. A wagon stops before the inn, but goes on when the landlord does not immediately appear.
ΒΆ 28-31. A touch of sentimental byplay between the stranger and the maid.
ΒΆ 32. A sadness creeps over the company, caused, perhaps, by the wind wailing without.
ΒΆ 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
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