The Ubiquitous Fragment

Amateurs often think it is much easier to write a "fragment" than to write a complete anything. The one who hesitates as to whether he has the ability to write a long story, is quite sure he is capable of writing a fragmentary bit of fiction—one of those vague scraps with neither beginning nor ending that are always tumbling into the editor's letter-box—and he feels that all vagueness, and lack of finish, and the fact that the MS. gets nowhere, are sanctioned because he adds, as a sub-title some such qualification as "An Episode," or "A Character Study," or "A Glimpse."

In the same way a writer who is too diffident to attempt a volume of essays, will feel perfect confidence in sending out a MS. labelled "A Reverie," or "A Meditation," even though it be nothing more than a rambling collection of platitudes on the sunset.

In most cases it is a distrust of his own powers that inclines the amateur to embark on writing of this type.

A Fragment may be Incomplete, but it should not be Formless

Fragments may be exceedingly beautiful; they are really most acceptable in this hurrying age when life often seems too crowded with work-a-day cares to leave us much leisure for sustained reading. But they must embody the fundamental principles of Form; and they must be constructed with even more attention to artistic presentment, (or the means used to captivate the reader), than would be necessary for a lengthier work.

Also, though they are but fragmentary, they must appear to be portions of a desirable whole, sections of a well-finished piece of work. Their apparent incompleteness should seem due to the author having insufficient time—not insufficient knowledge—to finish them.

What is set down must not only be good work in itself, but it must suggest other good work as a completion.

You have probably seen some reproduction of a fragmentary pencil or pen-and-ink sketch, by an experienced artist, showing only a portion of a figure or a building; yet so suggestive that the onlooker instinctively fills in the remainder, and constructs out of the artist's unfinished drawing a picture complete and beautiful.

I have several such sketches before me on my study wall. One shows a corner of a quadrangle in the precincts of a cathedral. In the background there is a Gothic west window, a buttress, and a piece of a tower; while a flight of steps in a corner of the quadrangle, a bit of old-world stone-work around a doorway and window, a fragment of roof and a cluster of chimneys, with half a dozen lines indicating an ancient flagged walk, comprise the remainder. Only a few inches of paper and a few pen-strokes—nevertheless instinctively the mind runs on, and sees the whole of the cathedral in the shadowy background; the side of the quadrangle past the old doorway; even the street beyond with its cobble stones and market women. Indeed, you can visualise all the life of the quaint sleepy, French town if you look long enough at the little fragment; not because it is all indicated by the artist and left in an incomplete state, but because what he did put down is so vital, so suggestive, so fraught with possibilities, that the mind fills in all the blanks, and fills them in with beauty corresponding with the specimen he has shown us.

And while we are studying the sketch, it may be noticed that though this is but an unfinished fragment, it is perfectly balanced, and shapely and proportionate as it stands. The patch of light on the flagged path is balanced by the shadow in the doorway. The flight of crumbling stone steps, the most conspicuous feature in the foreground, has been drawn with the utmost pains in every detail. Even the cathedral window looming in the background has its exquisite tracery carefully drawn, no scamping the work because it was only the background of an incomplete sketch.

In the same way, a fragmentary word picture should be properly constructed, and absolutely accurate in detail (so far as that detail goes), well proportioned, carefully balanced, containing distinct charm in itself. The background may be only lightly indicated, but even so, it should contain possibilities—(the cathedral may be in misty shadow, but you must be able to see enough of it to know that it is a cathedral, and a great cathedral at that).

The central idea must be placed well in the foreground, it should be clearly stated, and be something worth calling an idea.

The points you mention, but leave unamplified should be something more than windowless, blank walls, or blind alleys leading nowhere; they should open up fresh vistas of thought, and send the reader's mind out and beyond the limits of your sentences.

Your word-picture must be satisfying in itself, even though one realises that it is but a small part of a much larger whole that might have been written, had time and space permitted.

Certain literary fragments extant are probably portions of large works the authors had in view but did not finish; Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," for instance. The type of fragment I am talking about in this chapter, however, is actually finished, so far as the author's handling is concerned; but unfinished in detail and setting, or with only a vignetted background.

Some writers have set down a few lines with neither introduction nor development plot, yet such is the force and the revealing quality of the sentences they put down, and the accuracy of their sense of selection, that they have conveyed as much, and suggested as much, to the mind of the reader as if they had written pages. The following verse of William Allingham is an example Here is a volume of suggestion in seven lines.

Tennyson wrote some beautiful fragments. "Flower in a Crannied Wall" contains a world of thought, and could easily furnish a theme for a row of ponderous books; "Break, break, break," has poignant possibilities.

William Sharp, as "Fiona Macleod," wrote some charming prose fragments; but behind each you will invariably find a complete idea, and an idea that suggests others.

Practise writing fragments by all means, but see that they are shapely, and suggestive of greater space and a bigger outlook than can be measured by the number of sentences. Above all, let each embody some idea—and let there be no uncertainty as to the whereabouts of that idea, no ambiguity as to what you are driving at.

To produce a good fragment you must do some intensive thinking, because you have not space to spread yourself out. This will be a gain to all your writing. The rambling, formless habit of thinking is the bane of the amateur, and the type of MSS. resulting therefrom is the bane of the editor.