The Technique of Fiction Writing Part 8

The process of making speech reveal character strictly is not difficult in itself, though it may be difficult to do so un.o.btrusively. A sentimental man will reveal his sentimentality when he says sentimental things, just as a hypocrite will reveal his hypocrisy in hypocritical words. Cruel words will reveal cruelty in the person who utters them, and generous words will indicate that their speaker is generous. So far as possible, the speech of any character should have relation to that phase of his character which is significant in the story. The cruel man may be avaricious also, but, if his cruelty and not his avarice is the trait which has influence upon the events of the story, his words should reveal his cruelty rather than his avarice. The content of his speeches should indicate his possession of that trait of his character which is influential as to the events of the story.[M]

The difficulty will be to find a natural place for these indicative speeches. The primary necessity in fiction writing is to be unforced and natural, and a character cannot be made to say words indicative of his inner nature unless he would naturally utter them under the influence of the circ.u.mstances of the moment. Here, again, the way to write is to get into the skin of the person involved, to live the story vicariously in his person, and, when events would naturally call from him words revealing his pertinent trait, to transcribe them. Primarily, a story is a story, and its writer must meet all its necessities within its limitations.

Lack of s.p.a.ce forbids giving examples of the revelation of character by speech. d.i.c.kens will prove a profitable study in this connection. The words of Pecksniff, for instance, reveal as much of the soul of Pecksniff as we need to know. All good stories, in greater or lesser degree, display the method in use.

The second use of his characters' words to the writer of fiction is to individualize them. It is not a matter of content, but one of manner.

Irrespective of what the person says, the way he says it, if unique, will serve to increase the definition of a reader's conception of him.

If a character is made to stutter, he will gain in actuality and concreteness for a reader. The instance is coa.r.s.e, but will serve to indicate what is meant. d.i.c.kens is unrivalled in his capacity to employ this device, although the writer of a short story or relatively compact novel will meet difficulties in following d.i.c.kens' technique of characterization. The "demmit" of Mantalini, the "dispoged" of Sairey Gamp, the greasiness of Chadband's words, the rounded periods of the immortal Micawber give a reader the greater part of his idea of each person.

This sort of characterization may well be called description. The aim is not to reveal the person's inner nature--though the content of a mannered speech may do that, of course--but to add to the definition and reality of any attempted picture of the person by calling in the sense of hearing. Unlike the effect of descriptive words on a reader, the effect of written speech is nearly primary, though it lacks something of the freshness and impressiveness of the spoken word. Writing descriptive of a character and his mannered words function together to individualize the person for a reader. The people of a story must be made to appear to be real men and women, if the fiction is to have its necessary verisimilitude and consequent effect, and mannered speech will do much to invest the speakers with reality.

The process must not be carried beyond the bounds of naturalness. A mannerism of speech may be too p.r.o.nounced, in that it tends to arrest a reader's attention and distract it from the flow of the story.

Unnecessarily distorted spelling, for instance, employed in an attempt to be too strictly phonetic, will call attention to itself rather than individualize the speaker, that is, it will destroy the illusion of the story. "Yuh" for "you" is an instance. We all "yuh" more or less, I think, and for the writer of a story to insist thus pedantically on strict phonetic accuracy tends to make the whole fiction labored and unnatural. The whole trick is to suggest any particular distortion, and yet to have the words as intelligible for a reader as if the spelling were normal.

Misp.r.o.nunciation, of course, is not the only mannerism of speech that may be availed of. In fact, the tendency is to abuse it. An open ear toward the casual talk he hears will give the writer many useful hints, and so will reading the work of others.

The speech of cla.s.s and cla.s.s varies, as does the speech of man and man.

A lawyer in a story should be distinguishable from a sailor by the very content of his vocabulary. So should a doctor from an engineer or a brakeman, or a musician from an artist. But it must all be done naturally. The writer cannot drag in by the ears technical terms of any profession solely that a reader may be informed indirectly of the speaker's profession. But a doctor or lawyer, for instance, will generally be in a story because it requires the presence of a lawyer or doctor, and therefore the story will offer opportunity for him to reveal his place in society by his speech. Incidentally it may be noted that this matter emphasizes the necessity that the writer of fiction be observant in life and omnivorous in reading. He should know the manner of speech of any considerable cla.s.s of men. It is true, of course, that no two lawyers talk precisely alike, but it is also true that it is possible to suggest a lawyer speaking by a proper choice of words, and that is the thing to do, naturally and un.o.btrusively. If the speech of a character is individualized in some manner, and if, in addition, a reader can gather his business or profession from his words, he will gain much in reality and definition.

The content of the talk of the characters of a story, then, should reveal their inner natures, and their idiosyncrasies of utterance and word-choice should be devised and set down to intensify the impression of their individuality initiated by the writer's strictly descriptive touches. Characterization is a double process, and neither aspect of it should be neglected, whether the writer is narrating, describing, or transcribing speech.

CHARACTERIZATION BY STATEMENT

So far as characterization by direct statement is a matter of individualizing the persons of a story as mere physical objects, apart from their inner natures, it has been discussed in stating the technique of the description of persons. It was there stated that the writer's endeavor should be to catch and fix in words the most salient attribute of the character. And usually it will be the case that a person's most striking physical attribute will have relation to some fact of his spirit, as in Stevenson's description Villon's sensual face hints of his sensual soul. The fact serves to make more obvious the truth that characterization is a double process of individualizing superficially and of revealing the person's nature, and Stevenson's description of the medieval French poet is an instance of how the writer of fiction may attain both ends in a single phrase, and avoid the suggestion of artificiality in directly stating that a character is good or bad or brave or cowardly, as the case may be. Instead of stating that Villon was sensual and cruel, Stevenson states that the wolf and pig struggled in his face. A reader sees the man's face and comprehends his nature, and comprehends the spiritual fact the more thoroughly because reaching it inferentially from a mere picture. The point is worth noting.

However, the writer of fiction frequently must state his characters'

moral attributes directly. Not all conceivable persons wear their souls in their faces; if some ruddy, bluff old gentleman is a villain at heart, the writer can only say so, unless he is willing to depend wholly on the revelation of spirit worked by the character's deeds. And sometimes such a revelation comes too near the end for the other purposes of the story. Much of the interest or suspense of a tale may depend upon the reader having knowledge of the natures of the people who struggle with one another singly or in groups. Or direct statement as to a character's nature may be necessary to emphasize the significance of his acts. Stevenson's "The Ebb Tide" is an example. The book is concerned with the unavailing struggle of a weak man to be other than weak, and the author prefaces the course of events with a thumbnail biography of the weakling that invests the progress of the story with something of the inevitability of fate. The method is a favorite one of Stevenson's, and is employed in most of his longer work. Each brief sketch is directed to bring out the character's trait or traits of significance in the story, and the whole fiction gains point thereby.

Turgenieff composed a biography of each of his characters to deepen and clarify his own realization of them, and incorporation in a story of a swift and significant sketch of a character's previous life likewise may serve to deepen and clarify a reader's realization of the person.

Stating directly that any person is good or bad or brave or avaricious may give a reader a key to his acts, lending them point, but direct statement is the most infirm mode of characterization. Any mere statement is less impressive and less compelling than a demonstration.

And direct statement of a character's nature must be reinforced and proved by his words and deeds. It is difficult enough at best to invest a fict.i.tious person with reality, and the writer can afford to neglect no device.

As in fulfilling all other necessities of his story, in characterizing by direct statement the writer must be easy and natural. The requirement is somewhat indefinite, as stated, but real. Statement should not be too bald; a little subtlety will be profitable to employ. To state that a character is bad, simply, is too childlike, unless the story is told from the viewpoint of a child. The matter of viewpoint must always be considered in characterizing by direct statement, for obvious reasons.

If the writer takes the position of an impersonal observer, to whom the souls of all characters are open, he can write pretty much as he wills.

If he writes from the viewpoint of a single character, whether in the first or third person, he cannot a.s.sume too inclusive knowledge of the souls of the others. The matter has been discussed elsewhere.[N]

CHARACTERIZATION BY ACTION

The value of action as a means to give a reader realization of the physical appearance of a character is somewhat slight. To show the person as performing a feat of strength will suggest that he is a powerful man, but physical prowess is not a visually definite quality.

Powerful men are not always even large men. Action is greatly useful to reveal the soul, but not very useful to reveal appearance.

However, between narrative and strict descriptive writing a borderland exists. A person may be described as having a sneaking look. That is strict description. But the writer also may relate how the person slunk down an alley to avoid meeting someone he dared not face. The descriptive value of the word "slunk" as to the person will be as great as the narrative value of the word to the event. It is merely the matter of vivid and effective narration approached from a new angle. Narration consists in stating what happened to certain persons and what they did, and a descriptive quality, both as to the persons and the events, should permeate it. Visualization of the story in imagination will show the way.

If action is the least effective way to hint of the characters'

appearance, it is by far the most effective way to display their natures. The whole purpose of the story of character is to display the fact and demonstrate the consequences of the possession of certain traits by a group of persons or even by one person. And in any real story, that is, in any fiction built about a plot, the traits of a character and the events will be mutually influential. Either the characters will be devised to develop the events, or the events will be devised to develop the characters. The moral quality of an act is a sure index to the moral quality of the person who commits it. A story must reveal character simply because it consists of a series of events involving and produced by men and women. The writer's endeavor is not merely to narrate the events for their own sake, but also to realize just what sort of people must inevitably have acted so under the given conditions, and to employ his subsidiary means of characterization so as to bring out no trait unnecessary to the events.

There is one exception to the rule that the writer should endeavor to bring out only the traits of character strictly material to the events.

Of course, the primary necessity in fiction writing is to develop the whole story naturally. But a story is for its readers. To give some stories full effect upon a reader it is necessary to invest one or more of the characters with a trait or traits not strictly necessary to the development of the story. Usually the aim will be to awaken the reader's sympathy that he may follow the fortunes of the person or persons with greater interest than the bare content of the story would evoke. For instance, if a story shows a character whose unlovely traits lead him into difficulties, investing him also with some pleasing attribute will deepen a reader's interest in his fate by arousing active pity for him.

I have touched upon this matter before and from another angle in discussing the necessity that the writer select a mode of narration which will permit him to express his sympathy for a character that he may evoke a reader's. Stevenson's treatment of Herrick in "The Ebb-Tide"

was instanced, and one who has read the book will recall that its author gave Herrick attributes of mind and soul more pleasing than inefficiency and weakness, though weakness was the single quality demanded in Herrick to render inevitable the course of events.[O]

No specific technique of characterization by action can be stated; it is a matter of conceiving and elaborating the whole story justly. The fact for the writer is that a person's acts reveal his inner nature, and the necessity that the writer must meet is to devise events and characters having a natural and plausible relation. If this is done, the essential substance of the story will be sound, at least, so far as character is concerned. Then the writer must meet the other necessity to make his people appear to be real men and women apart from any distinction of their inner natures. If both necessities are met, a reader will be faced by real people doing things for real and adequate reasons, which is a great part of the art of fiction.

All the acts of a person's life, great and small, would reveal his whole nature. But a story usually does not take a person from birth to death, and, if it does, it is concerned with a phase of the life rather than with the whole life. The art of fiction is highly selective, and necessarily so. Not only must the writer of fiction produce his effects within a limited s.p.a.ce, but he must consciously eliminate here and suppress there in order to make apparent the real significance of his picture of life. The significance of one man's life may lie in his constant loyalty to and sacrifice for his family; the significance of another's in his complete disregard of his obligations as a husband and father. In either case, the writer who sees material for a short story or novel in such a life must select for reproduction chiefly those acts of the character which are significant as to the trait sought to be brought out, otherwise the story will be without point and meaning.

Viewed superficially, a story is a mere string of events that happened to happen, a thing easy to write without forethought and calculation.

But the truth is that a story is a chain of events at least influenced and sometimes even determined by character. If the influence of character in the fiction is predominant, it cannot be written justly without careful weighing and selection of the incidents that suggest themselves to the writer.

Having conceived a plot and devised characters to enact it, or having conceived characters and devised a plot to develop them, the writer should outline the main course of the story, mentally or on paper. He then should realize definitely and precisely what traits of character are primarily significant in the story, and should prepare to develop them so as to reinforce the effect of his people's acts upon a reader by characteristic dialogue and description and direct statement. The writer should consider next whether a due regard for a reader's interest requires that he invest his people with attributes not strictly necessary to the main events of the story, and therefore not to be revealed by each person's part in such events. Finally, the writer should realize that he must give each person a definite physical presence and illusion of actuality, and should prepare to do so by visualizing them in imagination. If all this is done at all, it is certain that the story will be a better piece of work than if the writer set to work with only a vague prevision of the course of events as his material. And if it is done justly, and the writer has adequate executive powers, the story will be worth while, at least in relation to character.

FOOTNOTES:

[M] A great deal of close argument might be developed here. A plot is a chain of events influencing and influenced by character, and by character is meant not persons but traits. In some story, let us say, the avarice of one man brings him into conflict with another, also impelled by avarice. The conflict, of course, is not between two disembodied attributes, but between two persons, and the writer of such a story must individualize them. He should endeavor to give a reader an idea of how they look, by describing them, and of how they talk, by individualizing their speech. But he need not emphasize nor even bring out any phase of their spiritual natures not material to the story. That is to say, the writer of a story, in order to give it the seeming of life, should make every effort and employ all means to invest each character with a definite physical presence or illusion of actuality, but he should not try to displace the inner nature of each person in like detail.

[N] It will be instructive to realize why direct statement of a character's outstanding moral quality is less effective than skillful description of his person, though both the statement and the description are fundamentally descriptive writing. One may say that a moral attribute cannot be described, can merely be stated, but that is a statement of the condition rather than of the cause. The root of the matter is that the appearance of a person is the resultant of a combination of details; by stating the significant details in proper relation the writer can force a reader to perceive for himself the totality of the person's appearance. But a quality of soul is unified and undetailed. It is ineffective to say that a person is cruel simply for the same reason that it is ineffective to say that he is handsome.

It follows that any breaking up of a quality of soul into its elements, if possible, will increase the effectiveness of the statement. Thus, cruelty may result from essential virility of soul in combination with insensitiveness, and so forth.

[O] To accomplish this subordinate and strictly unnecessary characterization the writer must employ the same three means of speech, direct statement, and action. But the action will const.i.tute only a secondary event or events in the story, and must not bulk too large at the expense of the primary events.

CHAPTER XI

ATMOSPHERE

Definition--General Atmospheric Value of Fiction--Tone of Story--Preparation of Reader for Climax--Examples--The Story of Atmosphere--Short Story--Setting--Slight Dramatic Value of Type.

Atmosphere--as the term is used by the writer of fiction--is a most indefinite word; it may be well to preface discussion of what it stands for by a definition. And in defining it is often conducive to clearness to state what a thing is not before stating what it is.

In the first place, atmosphere is not setting, although the setting of a story may aid in producing its atmosphere. The frozen wastes of a sub-arctic region or the man-made squalor of a slum may operate powerfully to produce on a reader of a story placed therein an impression of desolation or of misery, but that impression will derive from something other than the setting, and will merely be reinforced thereby. If a slum story is essentially cheerful and light-hearted in content, its reader will not be oppressed by the setting, however truthfully touched in, unless the writer deliberately makes his people seem miraculous in point of their capacity to avoid the contagion of their surroundings. The young girl in "The Dawn of a To-Morrow" is an instance of what is meant by the qualification.

Atmosphere is not setting, nor is it anything at all that is in a story. It is not the quality of the environment; it is not the general quality of the people or their acts; it is not the quality of the theme or plot. What is it? It is the general emotional impression made on a reader by the whole story. It is nothing that is in a story; it is the emotional effect produced by the story on a reader. Just as a scene, an event, or a person, unless very commonplace, will have some emotional effect on an observer, any story that is told so as to create the illusion of reality will have some emotional effect on a reader. As Stevenson said to Balfour: "I'll give you an example--'The Merry Men,'

There I began with the feeling of one of those islands on the west coast of Scotland, and I gradually developed the story to express the sentiment with which the coast affected me."

A distinction should be noted here. "The Merry Men" is a strict story of atmosphere; its author, as he implicitly states, started with an emotional effect, or "sentiment," and devised only such persons and action as would deepen on a reader the emotional impression initiated in this case by the setting. But, as has been stated, any story told so as to create the illusion of reality will have some totality of emotional effect on a reader, apart from its specific emotional effects in various parts, unless the fiction is very commonplace. That is to say, the strict story of atmosphere, which has been touched on briefly in discussing story-types, subordinates its action and its people to its totality of emotional effect; in the normal story, whether it stresses personality or event, atmosphere, or totality of emotional effect on a reader, is a subordinate consideration, resulting from the necessity that an observer of persons and events be affected thereby in some general way. At least it is true that the writer of a story of complication of incident or of character cannot permit any consideration of atmosphere to interfere with the events in the first case or the persons in the other. Whatever totality of emotional effect may reside in his work will be inherent in the conception, as it would be inherent in such a spectacle for an observer, if the story should happen in actuality.

The sensible--because the most profitable--way for the writer of fiction to fit the matter of atmosphere into his general artistic philosophy is to disregard it entirely, except where it const.i.tutes a primary consideration, that is, except in relation to the strict story of atmosphere. The reason for this cavalier treatment of the matter has been brought out. If any story is told so as to create the illusion of reality, some general emotional effect will be produced on its reader, will be inherent in the conception, as it would be inherent in the spectacle, if actual. It all comes down to this: by telling his story justly as a course of events involving real people in a definite environment, the writer will produce on a reader whatever totality of emotional effect is inherent in the conception. If there is no totality of emotional effect inherent therein the writer cannot produce it except by changing the whole conception and writing a different story. In the case of the strict story of atmosphere the writer's att.i.tude is different. He sets out, not with a story, but with an emotional effect, and devises people and events and setting to produce it.

The point can be made clearer by more specific discussion. a.s.sume that a writer has conceived a story with a definite plot, involving definite people, set in a New England village. Anybody who knows New England or has read Alice Brown or Mary E. Wilkins Freeman can testify that such a story, justly told, will have a definite and peculiar atmospheric value.

But its atmosphere, its totality of emotional effect on a reader will be inherent in its setting and people, perhaps even in its events. The story itself will determine its atmosphere, which can be only the peculiar impression that a New England village, its people and their lives, produce on an observer. By choosing to write such a story, or by choosing to write any definite story, a writer debars himself from creating any atmosphere not involved in the story selected for writing.

On the other hand, if a writer desires to put together a story of atmosphere, he starts with an emotional effect as the basic conception, and then casts about for a setting, people, and incidents that will produce such emotional effect. It all depends upon what the writer starts with. If he starts with an emotional effect, he may narrate any course of events, and draw any sort of people, and place the tale in any sort of setting, provided only that events, people, and setting be such as to produce the desired atmosphere or effect. But if the writer starts with a definite story, the only atmosphere he can create thereby is the atmosphere inherent in the conception.[P]

Though it is true that a writer may and should disregard the matter of atmosphere in writing a story which he has conceived as a definite course of events involving definite people, since any atmospheric possibilities of the fiction will be inherent in the conception and will be realized by telling it justly as to people, events, and setting, nevertheless a qualification must be stated. No story is conceived as definitely as it is written; the writer first grasps the plot or main situation, perhaps also the characters, and then expands the outline into a congruous presentation of a phase of life by filling in details as to environment, people, and events. This filling-in process may and should be performed partly at least before writing, but even if the writer postpones it until he is wrestling with the problem of execution, he must remember one thing. Any story has a general tone, largely determined by its climax or main situation. This tone or key of a story is not its atmosphere strictly, perhaps, but the dividing line between the two matters is very faint. The atmosphere of a story is its general emotional effect upon a reader, and its tone is very nearly the same thing, being the result of its writer's having justly performed his selective task by transcribing only such matters as harmonize with the main situation, tragic or comic. And a writer must regard the matter of the tone of a story in developing and writing it, if it is to have the significant simplicity and unity which alone can give the fiction maximum power and effect.

The practical problem can be stated most simply thus: a reader's intelligence and sensibilities must be prepared for the crisis, climax, or main situation by incorporating in the story only such matters of environment, personality, or event as harmonize with the emotional character of the main situation. The necessity is most stringent, of course, in the case of the short story, but it is a consideration to be borne in mind in writing any type of fiction. It is merely another aspect of the general question of preparation, which has been touched upon before. The situations of a story must be prepared in a mechanical sense, that is, the writer must prepare to place his people where each situation demands that they be placed; the people themselves must be developed and individualized, that the situations may have full dramatic value; and the mind and heart of a reader of the story must be prepared for the climax, which is the whole story in little.