Short Story Writing Part 12

This preparation for the climax is one of the most delicate tasks required of the short story writer. The climax must seem the logical result of events and personal characteristics already recited. If it is too startling or unexpected it will be a strain on the credulity of the reader, and will be dubbed "unnatural;" for though fiction allows great license in the employment of strange people and situations, it demands that they be used with some regard for plausibility. The ending must appear inevitable--but its inevitableness must not be apparent until the end has come. It is only after the story has been read that the reader should be able to look back through the narrative and pick out the preparatory touches. They must have influenced him when first he read them and prepared him for what was to come, but without his being conscious of their influence.

The novice usually prepares the way for his climax so carefully that he gives it away long before he should. This he does either by means of antic.i.p.atory side remarks, or by making the outcome of his story so obvious at the start that he really has no story to tell, and a climax or surprise is impossible. The first fault is much the easier to correct: most of the side remarks can be cut out bodily without injury to the story, and those which are really necessary can be so modified and slurred over that they will prepare the way for the climax without revealing it. The other fault is usually radical: it is the result of a conventional plot treated in the conventional manner. It is beyond help so far as concerns that particular story, for it requires a new plot handled in an original manner; but its recurrence can be prevented if the writer will be more exacting in his selection of plots, and more individual in his methods. It can usually be detected in the beginning, as in the case of the last example quoted in Chapter VIII.

In "The Ambitious Guest" the climax is led up to most skillfully by Hawthorne; indeed, his preparation is so clever that it is not always easy to trace. Throughout the story there are an air of gloom and a strange turning to thoughts of death that seem to portend a catastrophe; and I believe the following pa.s.sages are intentional notes of warning:

1 ... a cold spot and a dangerous one.... stones would often rumble down its sides and startle them at midnight.

2 ... the wind came through the Notch and seemed to pause before their cottage, ... wailing and lamentation.... For a moment it saddened them, though there was nothing unusual in the tones.

3 ... whose fate was linked with theirs.

8 (Entire.)

9 (Entire.)

10 ... a prophetic sympathy ... the kindred of a common fate....

12 (Entire.)

14 "... a n.o.ble pedestal for a man's statue." (Doubtful.)

16 "... things that are pretty certain never to come to pa.s.s."

17 "... when he is a widower."

18 "When I think of your death, Esther, I think of mine too. But I was wis.h.i.+ng we had a good farm ... round the White Mountains, but not where they could tumble on our heads.... I might die happy enough in my bed.... A slate gravestone would suit me as well as a marble one...."

20 "They say it's a sign of something when folk's minds go a-wandering so."

22 "... go and take a drink out of the basin of the Flume."

(Doubtful; unless regarded as the result of some subtle warning to fly the spot.)

26 ... though their music and mirth came back drearily from the heart of the mountain.

28 ... a light cloud pa.s.sed over the daughter's spirit....

32 ... it might blossom in Paradise, since it could not be matured on earth ... the wind through the Notch took a deeper and drearier sound.... There was a wail along the road as if a funeral were pa.s.sing.

36 (Entire.)

38 (Entire.)

39 (Entire.)

A novice writing the same story would hardly have refrained from introducing some very bald hints concerning the fate of the ambitious stranger; for the novice has a mistaken idea that wordy and flowery exclamations make sad events all the sadder, forgetting that silent grief is the keenest. Thus the novice would have interlarded his narrative with such exclamations as:

-- 12.

Ah! could the unfortunate stranger but have guessed the culmination of his bright dreams, how would he have bewailed his fate!

-- 19.

Unhappy youth! _his_ grave was to be unmarked, his very death in doubt!

-- 28.

Poor girl! had she a premonition of her awful death?

Such interpolations are very exasperating to the reader, for he much prefers to learn for himself the outcome of the tale; and they also greatly offend against the rhetorical correctness of the story, for they are always utterly irrelevant and obstructive.

The only stories which may properly antic.i.p.ate their own denouements are what might be called "stories of premonition," in which the interest depends upon comparing actual events to the prophecy of dreams or some other mystical agency. In such tales the real interest is usually in the weirdness of the whole affair--though, to be sure, they do not always turn out as they are expected to. For, after all, this introduction of surprise into fiction is simply an imitation of nature, and "it is the unexpected that always happens."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 37: See Chapter X.]

[Footnote 38: See Chapter VIII for the best methods of introducing foundation facts.]

[Footnote 39: "The Art of Fiction." A lecture by Gilbert Parker. _The Critic._ Dec., '98.]

[Footnote 40: "Magazine Fiction and How Not to Write It," by Frederick M. Bird. _Lippincott's._ Nov., '94.]

[Footnote 41: "How to Write Fiction." Published anonymously by Bellaires & Co., London. Part I, Chapter V.]

X

CLIMAX AND CONCLUSION

If the overworked editor, hastily skimming the heap of MSS. before him, comes upon one which promises well in the opening paragraphs, he will turn to its conclusion, to learn how well the author has kept his promise; and if he finds there equal evidence of a good story, he will put the MS. by for more careful reading and possible purchase.

Experience has taught him that the end of a story is second only to the beginning as a practical test of the narrative; and therefore to the author as well the conclusion is of extreme importance.

The end of a short story comprises the climax and the conclusion. The climax is the chief surprise, the relief of the suspense, or the greatest relief, if there is more than one; it is the apex of interest and emotion; it is the point of the story; it is really _the_ story. The conclusion is the solving of all problems, the termination of the narrative itself, and the artistic severing of all relations between narrator and reader.

The climax, in spite of its importance, is but a small part of the story, so far as mere words are concerned. In a properly constructed narrative its influence is felt throughout the whole story, which, as already stated, is but one long preparation for it. But in itself the climax is usually confined to a single paragraph of ordinary length; and the climax proper, the real point of the story, is usually conveyed in a half dozen words. For the climax, and particularly the climax proper, is the story concentrated in a single phrase. It must have been prepared for carefully and worked up to at some length; but when it does come it must be expressed so directly and so forcefully that it will make the reader jump mentally, if not physically. It is the desire to produce this startling effect that leads some writers to endeavor to gain artificial force by printing their climax proper in italics, or even in capitals. In "The Ambitious Guest" we have an unusually strong and perfect climax in -- 40, 41:

... a sound abroad in the night, rising like the roar of a blast, had grown broad, deep and terrible before the fated group were conscious of it. The house and all within it trembled; the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if this awful sound was the peal of the last trump. Young and old exchanged one wild glance and remained an instant pale, affrighted, without utterance or power to move. Then the same shriek burst simultaneously from all their lips:

"The slide! The slide!"

while the climax proper--the climax of the climax--occurs in the four words which compose -- 41.

"The slide! The slide!"

It is hardly necessary to say that the climax should be very near the end of the story, for even those stories which attempt to begin in the middle and go both ways at once place the climax properly. But there is a danger that the climax will come too soon. After they have reached what is properly a central point in their story, amateurs often become lazy or in too great a hurry, and rush the latter part of the narrative through unceremoniously. In the first part they may have been inclined to go into needless detail; but when once they come in sight of the finish, they forget everything except that their task is nearly ended; they plunge ahead regardless, treat important matters most superficially, neglect those skillful little touches which go to make a story natural and literary, and reach the end to find that they have skeletonized an important part of the narrative.

In such a case the reader is very apt to come upon the climax unexpectedly, and so to find it forced and illogical; whereas if the author had preserved the proportions of his narrative, and led up to his climax properly, it would have been accounted strong and inevitable.