I am setting myself a task which some people would call very ambitious; others would call it by a name not quite so polite; and a considerable number would say it was positively absurd, accompanying their criticism with derisive laughter. Having discussed the possibility of teaching the art of writing fiction with a good many different kinds of people, I know quite intimately the opinions which are likely to be expressed about this little book; and although I do not intend to burden the reader with an account of their respective merits, I do intend to make my own position as clear as possible. First of all, I will examine the results of a recent symposium on the general question.[1:A] When asked as to the practicability of a School of Fiction, Messrs Robert Barr, G. Manville Fenn, M. Betham Edwards, Arthur Morrison, G. B. Burgin, C. J. C. Hyne, and "Mr" John Oliver Hobbes declared against it; Miss Mary L. Pendered and Miss Clementina Black—with certain reservations—spoke in favour of such an institution. True, these names do not include all representatives of the high places in Fiction, but they are quite respectable enough for my purpose. It will be seen that the vote is adverse to the object I have in view. Why? Well, here are a few reasons. Mr Morrison affirms that writing as a trade is far too pleasant an idea; John Oliver Hobbes is of opinion that it is impossible to teach anyone how to produce a work of imagination; and Mr G. B. Burgin asserts that genius is its own teacher—a remark characterised by unwitting modesty. Now, with the spirit of these convictions I am not disposed to quarrel. This is an age which imagines that everything can be crammed into the limits of an academical curriculum; and there are actually some people who would not hesitate to endow a chair of "Ideas and Imagination." We need to be reminded occasionally that there are incommunicable elements in all art.

An Inevitable Comparison

But the question arises: If there be an art of literature, why cannot its principles be taught and practised as well as those of any other art? We have schools of Painting, Sculpture, and Music—why not a school of Fiction? Let it be supposed that a would-be artist has conceived a brilliant idea which he is anxious to embody in literature or put on a canvas. In order to do so, he must observe certain well-established rules which we may call the grammar of art: for just as in literature a man may express beautiful ideas in ungrammatical language, and without any sense of relationship or development, so may the same ideas be put in a picture, and yet the art be of the crudest. Now, in what way will our would-be artist become acquainted with those rules? The answer is simple. If his genius had been of the first order he would have known them intuitively: the society of men and women, of great books and fine pictures, would have provided sufficient stimuli to bring forth the best productions of his mind. Thus Shakespeare was never taught the principles of dramatic art; Bach had an instinctive appreciation of the laws of harmony; and Turner had the same insight into laws of painting. These were artists of the front rank: they simply looked—and understood.

But if his powers belonged to the order which is called talent, he would have to do one of two things: either stumble upon these rules one by one and learn them by experience—or be taught them in their true order by others, in which case an Institute of Literary Art would already exist in an embryonic stage. Why should it not be developed into a matured school? Is it that the dignity of genius forbids it, or that pupilage is half a disgrace? True genius never shuns the marks of the learner. Even Shakespeare grew in the understanding of art and in his power of handling its elements. Professor Dowden says: "In the 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' Porteus, the fickle, is set over against Valentine the faithful; Sylvia, the bright and intellectual, is set over against Julia, the ardent and tender; Launce, the humorist, is set over against Speed, the wit. This indicates a certain want of confidence on the part of the poet; he fears the weight of too much liberty. He cannot yet feel that his structure is secure without a mechanism to support the structure. He endeavours to attain unity of effect less by the inspiration of a common life than by the disposition of parts. In the early plays structure determines function; in the later plays organisation is preceded by life."[5:A]

A Model Lesson in Novel-Writing

When certain grumpy folk ask: "How do you propose to draw up your lessons on 'The way to find Local Colour'; 'Plotting'; 'How to manage a Love-Scene,' and so forth?" it is expected that a writer like myself will be greatly disconcerted. Not at all. It so happens that a distinguished critic, now deceased, once delivered himself on the possibility of teaching literary art, and I propose to quote a paragraph or two from his article. "The morning finds the master in his working arm-chair; and seated about the room which is generally the study, but is now the studio, are some half-dozen pupils. The subject for the hour is narrative-construction, and the master holds in his hand a small MS. which, as he slowly reads it aloud, proves to be a somewhat elaborate synopsis of the story of one of his own published or projected novels. The reading over, students are free to state objections, or to ask questions. One remarks that the dÉnouement is brought about by a mere accident, and therefore seems to lack the inevitableness which, the master has always taught, is essential to organic unity. The criticism is recognised as intelligent, but the master shows that the accident has not the purely fortuitous character which renders it obnoxious to the general objection. While it is technically an accident, it is in reality hardly accidental, but an occurrence which fits naturally into an opening provided by a given set of circumstances, the circumstances having been brought about by a course of action which is vitally characteristic of the person whose fate is involved. Then the master himself will ask a question. 'The students,' he says, 'will have noticed that a character who takes no important part in the action until the story is more than half told, makes an insignificant and unnoticeable appearance in a very early chapter, where he seems a purposeless and irrelevant intrusion.' They have paper before them, and he gives them twenty minutes in which to state their opinion as to whether this premature appearance is, or is not, justified by the canons of narrative art, giving, of course, the reasons upon which that opinion has been formed. The papers are handed in to be reported upon next morning, and the lesson is at an end."[7:A]

This is James Ashcroft Noble's idea of handling a theme in fiction; one of a large and varied number. To me it is a feasible plan emanating from a man who was the sanest of literary advisers. If it be objected that Mr Noble was only a critic and not a novelist, perhaps a word from Sir Walter Besant may add the needful element of authority. "I can conceive of a lecturer dissecting a work, or a series of works, showing how the thing sprang first from a central figure in a central group; how there arose about this group, scenery, the setting of the fable; how the atmosphere became presently charged with the presence of mankind, other characters attaching themselves to the group; how situations, scenes, conversations, led up little by little to the full development of this central idea. I can also conceive of a School of Fiction in which the students should be made to practise observation, description, dialogue, and dramatic effects. The student, in fact, would be taught how to use his tools." A reading-class for the artistic study of great writers could not be other than helpful. One lesson might be devoted to the way in which the best authors foreshadowed crises and important turns in events. An example may be found in "Julius CÆsar," where, in the second scene, the soothsayer says:

—a solitary voice in strange contrast with those by whom he is surrounded, and preparing us for the dark deed upon which the play is based. Or the text-book might be a modern novel—Hardy's "Well-Beloved" for instance—a work full of delicate literary craftsmanship. The storm which overtook Pierston and Miss Bencomb is prepared for—first by the conversation of two men who pass them on the road, and one of whom casually remarks that the weather seems likely to change; then Pierston himself observes "the evening—louring"; finally, and most suddenly, the rain descends in perfect fury.

The Teachable and the Unteachable

I hope my position is now beginning to be tolerably clear to the reader. I address myself to the man or woman of talent—those people who have writing ability, but who need instruction in the manipulation of characters, the formation of plots, and a host of other points with which I shall deal hereafter. As to what is teachable, and not teachable, in writing novels, perhaps I may be permitted to use a close analogy. Style, per se, is absolutely unteachable simply because it is the man himself; you cannot teach personality. Can Dickens, Thackeray, and George Meredith be reduced to an academic schedule? Never. Every soul of man is an individual entity and cannot be reproduced. But although style is incommunicable, the writing of easy, graceful English can be taught in any class-room—that is to say, the structure of sentences and paragraphs, the logical sequence of thought, and the secret of forceful expression are capable of exact scientific treatment.

In like manner, although no school could turn out novelists to order—a supply of Stevensons annually, and a brace of Hardys every two years—there is yet enough common material in all art-work to be mapped out in a course of lessons. I shall show that the two great requisites of novel-writing are (1) a good story to tell, and (2) ability to tell it effectively. Briefly stated, my position is this: no teaching can produce "good stories to tell," but it can increase the power of "the telling," and change it from crude and ineffective methods to those which reach the apex of developed art. Of course there are dangers to be avoided, and the chief of them is that mechanical correctness, "so praiseworthy and so intolerable," as Lowell says in his essay on Lessing. But this need not be an insurmountable difficulty. A truly educated man never labours to speak correctly; being educated, grammatical language follows as a necessary consequence. The same is true of the artist: when he has learned the secrets of literature, he puts away all thoughts of rule and law—nay, in time, his very ideas assume artistic form.

FOOTNOTES: