Analysing an Author's Methods

It is not possible to suggest any definite course of reading for the study of technique (or methods of authorship). The ground is too wide to be covered by any prescribed set of books.

In order to understand, even a little bit, "how the author does it," you need to study each book separately, as you read it—deciding, if you can, what was the author's central idea in writing it; disentangling the essential framework of the story from the less important accessories; analysing the plot; assigning to the various characters their degree of importance; accounting for the introduction of minor episodes; noting how the author has obtained a fair proportion of light and shade, and secured sufficient contrast to ensure a well-balanced story; and how all the main happenings combine to carry one forward, slowly it may be, but surely, to the climax the author has in view.

These are a few of the points you should observe. Now look at them in detail, and at the same time apply them to your own work.

One Central Idea Should Underlie every Story

Every author of any standing has one central idea at the back of his mind when he sets out to write a novel; this is the pivot on which the plot turns—it may be called the keynote of the book, Sometimes the author's "idea" is obvious or avowed, as in the case of much of Dickens's works, and Uncle Tom's Cabin. Sometimes it is so deftly concealed that you may not realise a book is giving expression to any one special idea, so absorbing is the general interest.

One great advantage of this keynote is the way it gives cohesion to a story as a whole, a motive for the plot, a bed-rock reason for the story's existence.

The central idea which is invariably behind a well-written story must not be confused with the "moral" that adorned all the praiseworthy books of our grandmothers' day. The idea may be a very demoralising one, and anything but a wholesome pill administered in a little jam, as was the "moral" of by-gone story-books. But the point I want you to notice is this: every author who is an experienced worker starts out with a definite object in mind—good or bad, or merely dull, as the case may be; he does not sit down and write haphazard incidents with nothing more in view than the stringing together of conversations and happenings that arrive nowhere, and illustrate nothing in particular, and reach no climax other than a wedding.

A Wedding need not be the Chief Aim of a Novel

Possibly it will come as a surprise to many amateurs when I tell them that the inevitable uniting of the lovers (or their disuniting, as the case may be) in the last chapter, is not necessarily the chief object of an experienced writer; often it is merely incidental.

The average beginner—more especially the feminine beginner—has but one aim when she embarks on fiction, viz., the marrying of her hero and heroine. That the wedding bells ringing on the last page may be an episode of secondary importance, so far as a book is concerned, seldom occurs to her. The result is the monotonous character of thousands of the MSS. offered for publication; and the weary reams of paper that are covered with pointless, backboneless fiction, that amounts, all told, to nothing more than the engagement (or the estrangement) of two colourless, nondescript individuals!

The Ideas behind Books are as Varied as Human Nature

Sometimes the author aims to show you either the inhabitants and manners and customs and scenery of some definite locality! or one particular class of society; or the virtues or failings of an individual type; or the beauty of an abstract virtue; or the pitiful side of poverty; or vice decorated with gloss and glamour.

But whatever the idea may be, one of some sort lies behind every novel of recognised standing.

Begin your study of a book, therefore, by looking for its central idea; then observe how this permeates the whole, and how the author utilises his characters and his incidents to demonstrate the idea.

Some writers explain themselves in the title they give to a book. The Egoist tells you at once what to expect. But whether the motif of a book be obvious or not at first apparent, it is important so far as the staying quality of a story is concerned. And it is not until you have studied standard authors, with this particular matter in mind, that you realise how much more important it is that a book should have a keynote, than that the hero should be handsome, or that the heroine should be dressed in some soft clinging material that suits her surpassing loveliness to perfection.

Look for the Framework of the Story

Having decided what is the central idea behind the book you are studying (I am not suggesting any particular book; choose any work of recognised merit by a dead or a modern writer and it will serve), next try to find the framework of the story—the plot if you like, though the framework is not always the plot.

Each complete story is composed of an essential skeleton, with a certain amount of secondary matter added to it to take away from its bareness. It is well to notice that with the greatest writers the framework is usually something fairly solid and substantial that will stand the addition of other matter; and it often deals with some great human truth that is world-old. It is not much good to have a framework composed of trivialities.

But suppose the framework be something like this—

Worthy John Jones becomes engaged to good Mary Smith; they quarrel, and become disengaged. J. J. falls a temporary prey to the sirenical wiles of Elsienoria Brown; M. S. lends a temporary ear to the insidious suggestions of Adolphus Robinson. Elsienoria Brown inadvertently listens to the innocent prattle of a little orphan child, and forthwith mends her wicked ways and dies of consumption; Adolphus Robinson is condemned to penal servitude for life after absconding with the Smith family plate. J. J. and M. S. are finally restored to each other through the kind offices of the same innocent orphan child.

It may take you a little thought and time to detach this framework from the author's wealth of additional incidents or secondary matter.

There may be talk about the lovely old Tudor mansion, Mary's home; the life history of each of Mary's ancestors, whose portraits hang in the long gallery; the eccentricities of Mary's grandfather; the Spartan temperament of Mary's mother, with details about the perfection of her servants, and the thoroughness of her spring-cleaning activities; digressions as to non-successful aspirants for Mary's hand prior to the advent of John; Mary's work among the poor; Mary's love of Nature, and her exquisite taste in garden planning; Mary's patience with a gouty father; the sordid history of the late parents of the prattling orphan child whom Mary recently adopted; Mary's stay in Cairo (after the quarrel), and her meeting there with Adolphus; details of Cairo natives; measurements of the pyramids; a nocturne on moonlight over the desert; a dissertation on flies; prices and descriptions of bazaar curios; sidelights on hotel visitors, their tongues, their flirtations, and their fancy-work——

And much more concerning Mary.

Then there will be Elsienoria; her stage career; her intrigues; her eyes; her interest in bull-terriers and bridge; a descriptive catalogue of her jewels, and the furnishings of her palatial yacht; and a vignette of her poor old mother taking in washing in Milwaukee.

In like manner there will be copious data concerning John, and ditto concerning Adolphus, with all sorts of entanglements to be straightened out, and a legion of simple happenings that lead to confusions.

It is from a mass of incidents such as these that you will have to eliminate the framework, the part that cannot be dispensed with without the rest falling to pieces. Practice in analysing stories will soon make the framework of each clear to you.

Assess the Value of each Character in the Story

The characters should be studied individually, in order to find out why the author brought them on the scene; what position each occupies in relation to the whole; who are the most important folk, and who are brought in merely to render some useful but unimportant service to the story.

Then note how the author keeps the circumstances that surround each character directly proportionate to his or her place in the story. The great deeds are invariably performed by the hero—not by some odd man who appears only in one chapter and is never heard of again. The most striking personality is never assigned to some woman who only has a minor part given her, and who vanishes in the course of a dozen pages, with no further explanation.

In this way assess the value of each character to the story as a whole.

Next study the matter that seems non-essential to you, and decide, if you can, why each episode was introduced.

The Use of Secondary Matter

At first glance you may think that much of it could be done without, and would make no difference whatever to the story, beyond shortening it, if it were omitted altogether.

This is perfectly true of poor work. The unskilled writer will pad out a MS. with all manner of stuff that has no direct bearing on the plot. There will be conversations that reveal nothing, that throw no lights on the characteristics or the motives of anybody, and are obviously introduced merely to fill up a few pages. There will be incidents that in no way affect the movement of the story, that add no particular excitement or interest, and carry you no nearer to the climax than you were in the previous chapter.

But the good craftsman wastes no space on unnecessary talk, even though certain scenes and episodes may be of less importance than others. He knows that secondary matter, such as descriptive passages, dialogues, interludes and digressions are necessary in order to "dress" the framework and give it something more than bare bones; they are also needed to give variety and balance to a book. Some incidents that may not appear to be vital to the story, are introduced to break what would otherwise have been a monotonous series of events; or they are put in for the purpose of giving brightness and a picturesque element as a contrast to some sorrowful or gloomy occurrence.

Minor Details can be made to serve Two Purposes

If the book be written by a master, each character, each conversation, each incident, each descriptive passage, each soliloquy is introduced for a specific purpose; nothing is haphazard, nothing is merely a fill-up.

Moreover, the expert novelist is not content to put his secondary matter to one minor use only; he frequently makes it contribute something to the main issues of the story—and in this case it serves a double purpose.

For instance, take the imaginary story I sketched out just now. Let us suppose that, half-way through the story, there occurs a stormy chapter, in which John and Mary quarrel and part in a scene that is red-hot with temper and emotion. It will be desirable to secure a decided contrast in the next chapter, to give every one—readers as well as lovers—time to cool down a little; besides, you do not follow one emotional scene with another that is equally overwrought, or they weaken each other. The author would, therefore, aim for something entirely different in the chapter following the one that ended with John violently slamming the hall door, and Mary drowning the best drawing-room cushion in tears.

We will assume that the author transports Mary to Cairo for change of air; and, in order to restore the atmosphere to normal, he decides on an interlude, entitled "Moonlight Over the Desert"; this will serve as a soothing contrast to the preceding upset.

But he will not necessarily describe the moonlight himself. If he makes Mary describe it in a letter to a friend, or to her father who remained at home, he will be killing two birds with one stone; he will be administering a pleasant sedative, after the turmoil of the lovers' quarrel; also he will be showing you how Mary's temperament responds to the beauties of Nature, and how appreciative she is of all that is good and pure and lovely. In this way he will be helping you to understand Mary better, and thus the "Moonlight Over the Desert" chapter will be contributing definitely to the main trend of the book.

Then, again, the author may wish to bring the reader back to the everyday happenings in a light and whimsical manner, and he may give you a scene showing the various ladies who are staying at the same hotel with Mary in Cairo, retailing their conversation, with the usual oddities and humours and irresponsibilities that are to be found in the small-talk of a mixed collection of women at an hotel. In this way he can introduce brightness and a light touch among more sombre chapters. But in all probability he will make the conversation serve a second purpose; Mary may, on this occasion, hear the name of Adolphus Robinson for the first time, little realising that he is to play an important part in her life later on; or an American visitor may chance to give details of her old charwoman in Milwaukee, Elsienoria's mother, little knowing that Elsienoria is the evil star in Mary's horizon, etc.

These are indications of the way an experienced author can make every incident in the story dovetail with something else, as well as serve an "atmospheric" purpose, i.e., to change the air from grave to gay, or from mirth to tragedy. He never writes merely for the sake of covering paper, or bridging time; whereas the amateur only too often introduces digressions and irrelevant matter with very little reason or apparent connection, apart from a desire to cover paper, or, perhaps, because the episode came into his mind at that moment, and he thought it was interesting in itself, or that it would help to lengthen the story.

Never lose Sight of the Climax

Notice, too, how the clever author keeps his eye on the climax; how ingeniously he will make everything lead towards that climax; and how he puts on pace as he gets nearer and nearer the goal, instead of hurrying on events at a terrific rate at the beginning, then getting suddenly becalmed part-way through, and making the tragedy painfully long-drawn-out at the end—as is the method of many amateurs!

The Main Rules apply to all Stories, irrespective of Length

You may tell me that all this does not apply to you personally, as you are not so ambitious as to try your hand at a book; you only write short stories.

The same rules apply to all stories, whether 3,000 or 100,000 words in length, the difference being that with a short story greater condensation is necessary. Instead of devoting a chapter to some contrasting episode, you would give a paragraph to it; and instead of having a dozen or so secondary characters, you would be content with only two or three besides the hero and heroine, and this in itself would reduce your number of minor episodes and your descriptive matter.

Whatever the length of your story, it is well to remember that there should be one main idea at the back of all (apart from the wedding); also a framework, to which is added a certain amount of secondary matter that is well-balanced and introduced with a definite object in view; the characters must bear a fixed relation to the whole; and there must be a climax, concealed from the reader, so far as possible, till the last moment, but ever-present in the writer's mind as the goal towards which every incident, indeed every paragraph, in the story trends.

You will find it very useful to study the short stories of Rudyard Kipling, Sir James Barrie, and Mrs. Flora Annie Steel.

The Necessity for Careful Planning

Studying fiction in this way is exceedingly interesting, and wonderfully instructive. Obviously every author has his own individual methods, and no two work in exactly the same way. But if you examine these main features, which are common to most, you begin to realise something of the careful planning and forethought that go to the making of a story that is to grip its readers, and live beyond its first publication flush.

Perhaps you may be inclined to think that the bestowal of such minute care on the details of a book would tend to make it artificial and stilted; there are those who argue that the rough, slap-dash style is the only method by which we can catch the fine frenzy of genius in its unadulterated form! But all Art calls for attention to detail; anything that is to last must be the product of painstaking thought. Life itself is a mass of detail carefully planned by the Master-Mind. If you study your own life, you will be amazed to find, as you look back upon the past, how every happening seems to be part of a wonderful mosaic, that nothing really stands quite alone with no bearing whatever on after events.

That the slap-dash method is much easier than the careful, thoughtful working-out of a story, I admit. But it does not wear—why? because there is really no body in the work; it is all on the surface, and therefore quickly evaporates. That which costs you next to nothing to produce, will result in next to nothing.

Of course, you can elaborate your work, and add a multitude of details all apparently bearing on the story, till the readers (and also the main features of the story) are lost in a mass of small-talk and unimportant events. But the secret of all good art is to know what to take and what to leave; and the genius of a writer is evidenced in the way he knows just what incidents to put down in order to gain the object he has in view, and what to omit as redundant, or unnecessary to the direct working out of his theme.

The Application

I am not analysing any novel to give you concrete examples of the points I have named. My object in writing these chapters is not so much to set down facts for you to memorise, as to help you to find out things for yourself.

Our own discoveries are among the few things of life that we manage to remember.

Having dissected a novel, and made notes on the way it was constructed, turn to your own work (whether a long or a short story), and see what you have to show in the way of a main idea, a good framework, a purpose for each character, a reason for each incident, well-balanced secondary matter, with a steady crescendo and accelerando leading to a good climax.

I need not point out the application. It is for you to make your own stories profit by your study of the methods of the great writers.

PART FOUR

POINTS A WRITER OUGHT TO NOTE

Beautiful and striking thoughts are a common everyday occurrence; the uncommon occurrence is to find the person who can reduce those thoughts to writing in such a manner as to convey, exactly to another mind the ideas that were in his own.