The modern short story, a study of the form: its plot, structure, development and other requirements

Front matter

Book . l. _

GoRyriglit^

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm

Preface

The object of this book is to state as clearly as may be, just what the modern Short-story is, and to enumerate and expound the principles underlying the most typical examples of this distinctive kind of fiction. An experience of several years as a teacher of college classes in Short-story writing convinced me that in the case of my own students I could secure better results by the use of a text-book different in type from any of those available. Some of the existing works on the subject treat in elaborate detail the development of the Short-story from the time of the narratives of the Egyptian papyri; others confuse the student by discussing at too great length many related forms of merely short fiction. In regard to other more or less admirable texts, I have only to say that my method differs from that laid down in any of them. In teaching the writing of the Short-story, I have thought it best to hold to the strictly modern form, and to leave the history of its evolution as matter for a separate and distinct course of study. I soon became convinced that I should have to make vi PREFACE

a restatement of what is known about the Short-story in the order which experience taught me was most serviceable from the teacher's point of view.

When this conviction came to me, I found myself too closely occupied with other imperative duties to undertake such a work. It was my good fortune to be able to turn, at this time, to one of my former students, Miss Lucy Lilian Notestein, a graduate of the University of Wooster. She brought to the work a broad and thorough knowledge of the subject, an enthusiastic devotion, and a carefulness of detail which I myself could scarcely have summoned. Thus it is that, although the idea of this book originated with me, the actual work has all been done by Miss Notestein. Together we have agreed upon the plan and the contents of the volume, and together we have read it in proof.

It will be noticed that, in the main, the text is based upon a few modern Short-stories which have earned for themselves an established place in literature. We have felt that it is a distinct gain to illustrate all points by reference to these few examples. Teachers may require students to become thoroughly familiar with the stories herein referred to, and students will find a distinct gain in power in actually mastering these specimens. Moreover, the principles underlying these Short-stories will be found to be the principles underlying all good Short-stories. Although in the preparation of this book

PREFACE vii

many hundreds of stories have been read, we have refrained from burdening the text with titles. The restriction of examples is a part of our method.

Those who desire histories of the Short-story may select from a number on the market. Bibliographies of the subject are now easily accessible. We have therefore burdened this volume with neither history nor bibliography. We have made an effort to hold to the original purpose: to set forth a study of the Short-story in its typical modern form. We have consulted at first hand all the published literature bearing upon this fictional form, and have used it as best suited our purpose. We have tried to indicate in all cases direct indebtedness to previous writers on the same subject.

It is our hope that this book may prove of much value to the rapidly increasing number of private readers and students who are finding in the Short-story that high degree of satisfaction which comes from a study of finished art. Although prepared primarily for use as a college text-book, the volume is not, in our opinion, for that reason less adapted to the use of the general reader, but more so. Every attempt has been made to avoid vagueness and obscurity of statement: no attempt has been made to employ technical or unusual terms for the sake of the terms themselves. We have tried to be honestly, transparently straightforward and unostentatious.

Vlll

PREFACE

There remains only the pleasure of acknowledging the unusual debt of gratitude we owe to Jonas 0. Notestein, Aylsworth Professor of the Latin Language and Literature; to Mr. Walter E. Peck, of the department of Rhetoric and English Composition, in the University of Wooster; and to Mrs. Fern Greenwald Dunn. For helpful suggestion, sympathetic criticism, and aid in seeing this volume through the press, we can render to them no

adequate return.

WALDO H. DUNN

University of Wooster, October 4, 1913

Contents

I.-THE MODERN SHORT-STORY Page

A distinct form of art. It does not necessarily treat of a turning-point in the life of an individual. Its material, incidents, and situations. Has a climax; hence plot with interweaving character and action. Should give a single impression. Differs thus from the novel. Relation of single impression to climax. Impression emotional rather than intellectual. Length of story varies, as also, number of characters, the time, and the place necessary to action. Definition of the Short-story. Comparison with principles laid down by Poe. Types of stories: Character; Action; Setting. Kinds classified: Mystery story; Problem story; Story based on social and economic questions; Story of special class or locality; Of special mood or emotion; Adventure story; Story of symbolism. Possible value of Short-story . . 3

II — THE GERMINAL IDEA

II

More or less indefmiteness frequently attaches to the term germinal idea. It is made synonymous with motive, theme, purpose; with the subject of a story; and since subject is loosely used, it may even be confused with title. It is regarded as almost an abbreviated plot; in short, as the kernel of the story. It is true that the germinal idea may take any of these forms; that it may suggest them or develop into them. Yet theme, motive, subject, title, purpose, are not synonymous, either with each other or with germinal idea. To clear up this vagueness it may be well to explain each of these terms by illustration in a single story.

The story is briefly as follows: Four outcasts, among whom as leader is a well-known gambler, on their way from one village to another are held for a week snow-bound on a mountain on which they had unnecessarily stopped to rest. They all meet death before help reaches them. The title of this story is The Outcasts of Poker Flat; the subject, how four outcasts met their death in a mountain snow-storm. The purpose is to show the essential soundness of heart which may coexist with outward, conventional badness. The theme is the acceptance of chance as a controlling motive. Motive is that which controls the individual actor. The Duchess had a motive in halting the journey; Oakhurst had a motive for wishing the continuance of the journey; Uncle Billy had a motive for departing with the mules; Mother Ship ton had a motive in refusing to eat her share of the provisions. The germinal idea may have been one of several things; perhaps an incident, perhaps an impression of the wild lawlessness of a California mining camp, or of the calculating nature of John Oakhurst. The difference between these terms is, perhaps, now obvious. The title is the name by which a story is distinguished. The subject is the statement, in narrative terms, of what the story is about. The purpose is the writer's object in telling a particular story. The theme is the basic fact upon which the plot of the story hinges. Motive, sometimes the borrowed musical term motif, is commonly used as the equivalent of theme. Yet motive in this sense is misleading, for it is applied as well to the unseen spring of action for an individual. Motive is that which leads a certain person to act in a certain way under certain given circumstances. Yet the so-called motive of a story involves an interplay of motives of the characters. Thus title and subject, purpose, theme, and motive, though allied, are essentially distinct.

The germinal idea is, however, none of these.- It is the bare, undeveloped idea 1 from which the

1 "An idea arrives without effort; a form can only be wrought out by patient labor." Henry van Dyke, Preface to 1901 edition of The Other Wise Man.

imagination receives its original thrill. It is essentially the starting-point of a story. It is not the beginning of the actual plotting any more than it is of the actual writing. It is that which first awakens the consciousness of a writer to a possible story. It is a mere suggestion from which a story may in time grow. One cannot be sure that a germinal idea will ever be fruitful. Occasionally, it may be utilized at once; frequently it will be dormant in the mind for weeks and then suddenly become active; sometimes it must be coaxed into activity by long reflection. Rarely does the germinal idea reveal just what sort of story may result, since it is but seldom that a whole story presents itself at once. The germinal idea may or may not be presented along with certain features of its development. It is indefinite in quantity; perhaps a word, possibly a whole plot. Sometimes, too, it may prove mistaken seed, — very good, perhaps, for an essay or a sketch, but unavailable for a Short-story. Not every germinal idea has its Short-story, but every Short-story has its germinal idea. For such productive idea, search must be painstakingly kept up. In this chapter, then, we shall try to treat of the germinal idea in its variety and sources, and of the principles which will govern its possible growth toward plot.

The beginner's first question is always, What shall I write about? It is, indeed, a vexing question. Seated comfortably in his chair, he stares for an hour blankly at ceiling and side-wall and carpet;

then turns to gaze distractedly out of the window into the tree-tops. Or a maiden wistfully watches a sunset and expects something astounding or beautiful to flash across her mind, — a well-developed story idea. It is little wonder that these amateurs grumble, for they have failed to look understandingly. Beside the one, there may lie, spread out on the floor, a daily newspaper, and on the front of it there may be a cartoon with the picture of a man pleading for re-election, and against all charges of indiscretion and unfitness urging simply, "I want to die in the harness." The girl, too, failed to catch the scrap of conversation of two women who passed the window, and she did not notice the pained expression on the face of the delivery man as he hurried around the house. There is no repository in ceiling or carpet, in sunset or tree-tops, from which the aspiring young Short-story writer may draw at will. He may not scrutinize a catalogue and then order C.O.D. ten pounds of Early Grand Success Short-story seeds. These seeds are free to him who seeks them with open eyes and zealous carefulness, for they are scattered all about him.

If, then, the writer will train himself in thoughtfulness and observation, he will soon have story-germs of all kinds. An incident, an imagined situation, a statement of abstract truth, some title, some passing impression, — any one of these may serve as a germinal idea. Although the usual method of finding story-germs may vary for different people, perhaps the most frequent story-germ for all people alike is incident. It appeals because it is already narrative. To imagine its story possibilities is generally easier than to see possibilities in something which does not of itself make a narrative appeal. This incident may be some personal experience or the experience of a friend; it may be actual fact; it may be an imagined occurrence; it may be a suggestive historical event or incident — such as the hanging of a spy during the Civil War, or the quelling of a riot on a city street.

Situations real or imagined, too, are frequently story-germs. These situations may be simply expressed in the abstract with the character a man, a woman, a child; or they may regard some definite person under certain definite circumstances. Hawthorne used both sorts, yet usually his situations were indefinite. A few chosen from his American Note-Books will serve as examples:

"An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of making all the images that have been reflected in it pass back again to its surface."

"A partially insane man to believe himself the Provincial Governor or other great official of Massachusetts. The scene might be the Province House."

"A company of persons to drink a certain medicinal preparation, which would prove a poison or the contrary according to their different characters."

"Some man of powerful character to command a person, morally subjected to him, to perform some act. The commanding person suddenly to die; and for all the rest of his life, the subjected one continues to perform that act."

"A father confessor — his reflections on character, and the contrast of the inward man with the outward, as he looks around on his congregation, all whose secret sins are known to him."

"A person to be the death of his beloved in trying to raise her to more than mortal perfection; yet this should be a comfort to him for having aimed so highly and holily." In this situation, one recognizes the finished story, The Birthmark.

"Two persons to be expecting some occurrence, and watching for the two principal actors in it, and to find that the occurrence is even then passing, and that they themselves are the two actors."

"Two persons, by mutual agreement, to make their wills in each other's favor, then to wait impatiently for one another's death, and both to be informed of the desired event at the same time. Both, in most joyous sorrow, hasten to be present at the funeral, meet, and find themselves hoaxed."

"A change from a gay young girl to an old woman; the melancholy events, the effects of which have clustered around her character, and gradually imbued it with their influence till she becomes a lover of sick-chambers, taking pleasure in receiving dying breaths and in laying out the dead; also having her mind full of funeral reminiscences, and possessing more acquaintances beneath the burial turf than above it."

Hawthorne's story situations were of the morbid and the fanciful. In that respect they are not good examples for the beginner, who would almost surely make a failure of them. Yet they serve to show how slight may be the germinal idea upon which a story may be constructed. To develop a story based upon a bare situation requires a strong creative imagination.

Simple impressions, likewise, of character, of action, or of setting may be germinal ideas. So definitely does character write itself in one's appearance that a face may stir one's narrative imagination. A kindly open face may suggest one thing; a pinched, pale,- but kindly face another; and a dark, lowering countenance and restless eyes, yet another. Each" one of us, however young and inexperienced, has seen some faces, perhaps in the waiting-room of a railroad station, which have remained distinctly in memory and have more than once challenged the imagination. Perhaps it may have been the face of a nun, or of a tavern-keeper, of a peddler, or of a woman whose eyes had gazed so long upon a forest lake that they seemed to reflect its blueness and its dancing wildness. A person's mannerisms, his mode of dressing, his carriage might all suggest stories. For instance, a student who walked with head erect and eyes always directed ahead, whose feet seemed always to be placed precisely on the same two rows of bricks on the walk, who always turned corners sharply, might suggest to his associates a person who could scarcely cope with any great change. Imagine that person then facing some decided change and a story would result. Watch a person's dealings with a clerk in a store, notice passing remarks, and one will often gain vivid impressions of character which may be fruitful for stories. "A face seen in a crowd, gossip overheard in a tavern, a conversation at a street door, the revelations of hostile eyes in meeting or parting, the sudden passing of insignificant men and women across the beam of his questing searchlight — these are enough to excite his imagination, to start the wheels of fantasy; and if he will but continue to see vividly the dramatic possibilities of life, and to report truthfully what he sees, he need never lack material for the warp and woof of the stories he can spin." l

An impression may be of setting. The setting itself might be of use in a story, but it might simply create an impression. A large hotel set in beautiful grounds at a summer resort is deserted. Stacks of dishes stand on the tables, doors are ajar, beds are thrown open, but left unmade, a bottle of whisky, half-used, stands in a cupboard, dishes of dried-up ice-cream are left on stands in the hallways, the registry book lies on the desk, the window-shades are not drawn. This setting might or might not be used in a story, but undoubtedly it stirs one's imagination. Instinctively one asks, What happened here? On the other hand, Stevenson was impressed by the wildness of the sea and rocks in San dag Bay; from the impression he created The Merry Men.

1 W. J. Dawson (1909), North American Review, 190: p. 805.

The setting became a vital part of his story, not just a stimulation to the imagination. 1 In A Gossip on Romance, Stevenson has said: "One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events and places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it in our mind to sit there. One place suggests work, another idleness, a third early rising and long rambles in the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing water, of lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls up in the mind an army of anonymous desires and pleasures. Something, we feel, should happen; we know not what, yet we proceed in quest of it. And many of the happiest hours of life fleet by us in this vain attendance on the genius of the place and moment. . . . Some places speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck. Other spots again seem to abide their destiny, suggestive and impenetrable, 'miching mallecho.' The inn at Burford Bridge with its arbours and green garden and silent, eddying river . . . still seems to wait the coming of the appropriate legend. Without these ivied walls, behind these old green shutters some further business smoulders, waiting for its hour. The old Hawes Inn at the Queen's Ferry makes a similar call upon my fancy. 1 Hawthorne realized clearly the value of setting as a germinal idea. Here again is one of his notes: "The scene of a story or sketch to be laid within the light of a street lantern; the time, when the lamp is near going out; and the catastrophe to be simultaneous with the last flickering gleam."

. . . So it is with names and faces; so it is with incidents that are idle and inconclusive in themselves, and yet seem like the beginning of some quaint romance, which the all-careless author leaves untold. How many of these romances have we not seen determine at their birth; how many people have met us with a look of meaning in their eye, and sunk at once into trivial acquaintances; to how many places have we not drawn near, with express intimations — 'here my destiny awaits me' — and we have but dined there and passed on ! I have lived both at the Hawes and Burford in a perpetual flutter, on the heels, as it seemed, of some adventure that should justify the place; but though the feeling led me to bed at night and called me again at morning in one unbroken round of pleasure and suspense, nothing befell me in either worth remark. The man of the hour had not yet come; but some day, I think, a boat shall put off from the Queen's Ferry, fraught with a dear cargo, and some frosty night a horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green shutters of the inn at Burford."

Again, the germinal idea may be a mood, a passing fancy, a contrast of some kind, an illustration, even a name appropriate to a main character. A title may come to one with suggestive force and demand for itself a fitting story, for, as we shall see later, 1 every title should be to a certain degree suggestive of the story it heads. To some minds, the 1 For the full discussion of title see chapter VI.

title is frequently the story-germ; others make it even the last touch in the building of a story. The bare statement of a truth; a proverb; perhaps, a moral; the theme, which is the very heart of a story, may at times appear as germinal ideas. These occur, however, not at all frequently, and with good reason; for a truth or proverb is a summation of experience, not an inspiration to experience. It may enforce by causing reflection, but it rarely stirs the imagination creatively. A proverb would have to be analyzed into its facts before it could begin to take shape as a story. To use it as a germinal idea seems a little like the process of pulling an alarm-clock to pieces for the sheer joy of putting it together again. Yet to some, even these abstractions might prove valuable — particularly to those whose aim is to teach a lesson or point a moral.

Experience and reading are the two great sources of material. Under experience, one should include not only that which is actual and personal, but that which is observed. If one is to write, one must see. It is true here as elsewhere that "familiarity breeds contempt." One is generally on the lookout for the striking and interesting away from home. Diaries are full of such records. Yet rarely does one notice the things that are easily under one's eye. Their nearness seems commonly to presuppose insignificance. The Short-story writer, nevertheless, "gets his material from nature and human life," x which are just as true and interesting in the 1 Charity Dye, The Story-Teller's Art, p. 21.

spot where he lives, in the business in which he is occupied, as they would be in a cannibal-inhabited island on the far side of the world. Everywhere man is contending, whether with his fellow-man, or with nature, or with himself. One cannot always witness the struggle, but one can watch the effects, can study the motives, and note the forces gathering for the conflict.

"Queer things are happening all around us, if we have eyes to see them as queer or interesting events." 1 This power to see and understand may be, indeed must be, developed until the writer becomes almost a magnet for Short-story ideas. His imagination must become so sensitive that even commonplaces will set him to thinking in a narrative direction, and this can happen only when the writer moves in the midst of life and responds sympathetically to life's emotions. He must be in tune. "In the very beginning of his work, then, the story-writer must lay his senses open to the world about him. He must observe the speech and actions of his fellow-men, study their expressions, reflect upon their character, sympathetically interpret motives, leaping over the bridge of personality and making common cause with other people's feelings. And eventually he must be able to reproduce on the stage of his own mind something of that wonderful interaction by which we human beings are woven and interwoven into the complex web of humanity." 2 "All the earth is full

1 Sherwin Cody, Story-writing and Journalism, pp. 40-41.

of tales to him who listens and does not drive away the poor from his door. The poor are the best of tale-tellers; for they must lay their ear to the ground every night." l

Much of one's personal experience, also, is rich as a seed-plot of germinal ideas. Experience, be it crucial or trivial, is interesting, — at least, to the person who has had it. One has real emotions with which to deal, undoubted motives, actual events whose causes may be definitely traced. An incident itself may be inspiration enough. Much, however, of one's daily experience becomes suggestive through reflection. Every day we are all turning over in our minds incident after incident. We change here a cause, there a motive; the outcome is different. Suddenly one starts in astonishment; for there, perhaps, is a story one had never suspected. Thus even the details may become significant for material. Even a dream, if vivid and remembered, may contain a germinal idea. Suppose a person be required to serve a jail sentence in three-hour periods, one period each day. It is easy to see how, if the sentence be long, the suffering of the man enduring it might be acute. This situation is, of course, extremely improbable. It is but a dream situation, yet it might have narrative possibilities. Every one has some small store, at least, of vivid and valuable story material within his own experience. One need not be a restless globe-trotter, nor busied with many

1 Kipling, Preface to Life's Handicap. Quoted by J. B. Esenwein, Studying the Short-story, p. 148.

interests, to gain such material. The man who spends all his years in his native village, the workman who day after day guides an electric gimlet in a factory, may also find in actual life the germs of possible stories.

One need not depend entirely upon experience, observed or personal, so long as one can read. The sciences, as physics, chemistry, geology, psychology, mechanics, are rich in suggestions for stories of strange and unusual phenomena. History, especially biography, ought to be valuable as source material. Take in one life all the undeveloped situations — those which never reached any definite result; take the developed situations and realize their possibilities in other lives under utterly different circumstances, and one should reap a harvest of story material. Better than all of these, however, for the hunting of ideas, is the daily newspaper. Its supply is exhaustless. There, one may find an actual incident such as may be in itself useful, an incident which may suggest a situation. Headlines, cartoons, even want advertisements or "lost" notices may be enough to start ideas. From the first page to the last, at the bottom of a page or at the top, in fine print or in bold type — anywhere, except perhaps in real-estate and insurance notes, the obituary columns and marriage-license department, or in the stock-exchange and market quotings, germinal ideas may be hidden. Equipped with a newspaper, even a local newspaper, a notebook, and an imagination, one should not suffer for lack of story-ideas.

To gather story-ideas is one thing; to develop a story from a bare idea is quite another. From among the many ideas that present themselves, one must be chosen. This one may have several manifestations; from it, several different stories might result. One must first test the germinal idea for its possible manifestations and then choose that one which will make the most worthy story. One must ask whether the story might be exclusively of action, of character, or setting; whether it might allow development into a character story, an action story, a setting story; whether it might be a psychological story, a problem story, a story of symbolism. If the germinal idea is a character hint, one should decide what sort of character is to be represented. Could any other sort be suggested by this idea? In what ways would the character be revealed? In what different circumstances might he be placed? Are any of these circumstances essentially dramatic; that is, will they yield a plot? Should the germinal idea be an incident, one should ask a different set of questions. Is this incident the basis of an action story? Is it significant of anything? Is it dramatic? Could it serve as the main incident of a story? Is it perhaps a minor incident of some other story? If so, of what kind of story? What sort of characters would be necessary? Could it be a character story or a story of setting? Thus, whatever the idea, its possible manifestations must be tested before one can conclude what is the one best way of telling the story.

A germinal idea capable of several different story manifestations might, notwithstanding, fail to result in a worthy Short-story. H. G. Wells has said that a Short-story may be "as trivial as a Japanese print of insects seen closely between grass stems or as spacious as the prospect of the plain of Italy from Monte Mottarone." The germinal idea may be trivial. "Yet the Short-story has been raised into literature only in those fortunate times when skill, or the circumstances of the moment, have given its slight fabric a serious purpose, a worthy substance, or consummate art. It can be light, it can be graceful, it can be amusing, it can be airy. But triviality kills it." 1 In other words, one must have for one's story a telling theme, — such a theme as bears closely on some deep-rooted fact of human nature. Without this theme a story might be perfect technically, yet fail to "capture the mind of the reader" or "make his heart really throb with anxiety about the result." 2