There is a popular notion that anyone can write a story. A good novel is easy reading, and it seems, on that account, to be easy writing. Many a reader, in the comfortable enjoyment of good fiction, misses the genius of it altogether. He is like the skeptical young man who could see nothing difficult in the art of sculpture. “All you need to do,” he said, “is to get a block of marble, then take a hammer and chisel, and knock off the parts you don’t want.” So stated, sculpture does seem very simple. But, after all, there is some importance in knowing what parts of the marble to knock off.

Many of us feel, at times, an inward stir that prompts us to express ourselves in the written word. We are quite sure that we could write a novel or a play. That we don’t do so is simply because we are so busy—or something else. “I could write plays as well as Shakespeare if I’d a mind to,” said someone years ago to Charles Lamb. “Yes,” answered the gentle humorist, “anyone could write plays as well as Shakespeare—if he had the mind to.”

Some take their pen in hand to prove to themselves how easy it all is. When they have tried out several of the productions that they have dashed off so readily, they sometimes discover that what was easy writing for them was hard reading for others, and the wise ones then come to realize that the good fiction that makes such easy reading is often the finished and refined product of double and re-doubled labor.

For those that are determined to win their way in fiction, the means for study and observation are ample. There are many books on the art of writing to inform and guide the aspiring author, and there is a wealth of fiction literature ever at hand to supply him with examples of good story writing. In a helpful, informing book on the technique of fiction, Professor Charles F. Horne makes clear the essential elements of the novel—which he finds to be six in number: (1) Plot, (2) Motive or Verisimilitude, truth to life, (3) Character Portrayal, (4) Emotional Quality—Sentiment, Passion, (5) Background, (6) Style. “A novel,” Professor Horne writes, “cannot consist simply of a fixed picture, a description of a man in repose. It must show him acting and acted upon. In other words, it deals with man in his relation to his environment. Hence it must have two essentials: the man and his movements; that is, the characters and the story. The causes and effects of these two essentials give us two more. The man can only move as he is swayed internally by his emotions; and the movement can only be seen externally in its effect on his surroundings, his background. These four form the positive elements or content of the novel, and they must be presented under the limitations set by man’s experience of life or verisimilitude, and by his modes of conveying ideas, his style of speech.”

W. D. M.

The Mentor Association

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Entered as second-class matter, March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N.Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1918, by The Mentor Association, Inc.

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