The Touchstone
The kind of story I am always longing to have for my magazine must have in it characters that affect me as human beings would, characters that are true to their inheritance and environment, who react honestly and sincerely to their training and surroundings. Write about any type of man, woman or child that you choose, but make them true to type, or rather true to character. For instance, the longshoreman must not only talk, but think and feel like a longshoreman. It seems important to me that the soubrette should not react to life as a bishop would, and that the philosophy of a returned soldier should vary somewhat from that of an elderly spinster of New England training.
In other words the fiction writer has got to know life, either by intuition, in which case he has genius; or by experience, in which case talent will serve.
And having achieved the power to see life profoundly and sincerely you must then find a way to tell your public what you see, to tell it in such a manner that you create the illusion of life in your characters, and make the characters create the illusion of reality in their environment.
An author may write cleverly, smartly, brightly, with quite a little sense of drama, sell his stories easily, and have a name that you remember, and not possess one atom of real insight into human nature, and not one moment’s grasp of power to portray humanity through words that convince and thrill.
I am not at all satisfied with the idea that if you amuse the public you are a good short story writer, or even if you manage to thrill the public that your short stories are worthwhile. Very young and very poor writers can do both these things. And I do not think it at all necessary to have happy endings to stories. This absurd catering to the more feeble public mind is not thought essential in writing an opera or a great tragedy or in painting a picture. Wagner did not think that it was necessary at the end of “Götterdämmerung” to have his orchestra play some tinkling little melody to send his people home happy. He wrote his music so that you go home after the great sacrifice of Brunnhilde’s filled with mighty splendid thoughts of life, love, death and immortality. When Rodin pictured “A Thinker,” a man facing universal problems, he did not carve at his side a merry little clown to cheer up the beholder, who is afraid of thought. And a poet does not jest at the end of a beautiful rhythm that has poured out through his heart and soul.
So why should we ask of the writer, and always of the dramatist, that these particular works of art should invariably leave humanity smiling, light-hearted and forgetful. I do not think it is necessary to consider the ending at all, let it develop from the psychology of the people in the story, and make the episode as it would be in life to the best of your ability.
I think, perhaps, at the start, the best way to learn how to write is, not to write. And, of course, I mean here, not to write thoughtlessly and without relating life to words. Above all, I am opposed to studying models in writing. I would like to say, forget all about the styles that have been set before you as models. Disregard those famous old English essayists. Turn your face away firmly, however reluctantly, from Lamb, Macaulay and Carlyle. I even advise you to bid a sad farewell to Edith Wharton and Henry James. And while Bernard Shaw will amuse and delight you, he will only inspire you to imitate him. And what could be less important to you, and more torturing to the editors than to join the ever-swelling army of Shaw’s imitators? Because the important thing about Shaw is—his fantastic brain, his whimsical soul, his lack of philosophy, his ability to contort all life into witty jeers, and these attributes for good or evil you must be born with.
It sounds very drastic, but I think it very important to empty your minds of all literary ideals. And above all to abandon forever the burning desire “to express yourself.” Because it is immensely more important to gather through experience and vision and fine sympathy, universal truths to express, than to imagine that within oneself is hidden a great unwritten truth. Once your mind is delightfully empty and free and at your command, begin to think, to observe, to appreciate; but do not make the mistake of branding the people you meet as interesting models for fiction writing. It is far more important to think of your characters as real people. After you have learned to observe life honestly and very simply, all the phases of life with which you come into contact, then write exactly what you think about them, just as you would tell typical episodes to some one interested in your observation—except of course that you must tell your story conscientiously, you must bear in mind the pattern that you are weaving. And you are not writing good fiction, until you have learned to design a pattern of writing with beauty, and put it down with power.
As I think I have said before, one of the first points I look for in a story is character that is a product of its own environment. Dialogue that has an accent is not enough to separate one nation from another; it is the kind of person that is expressed through an accent that is significant. The dialogue must be born in the soul; otherwise the impression given is irritatingly superficial and sometimes absurd.
So you see, observation is not enough for fiction writing, however searching; nor experience, however varied; nor style, however distinguished. There must be power to discern truth, and imagination to fashion for it a garment of shining loveliness. I have grown to believe that the very words used in writing should carry a weight of emotionalism. It is not enough to feel drama or to talk about drama when you are writing. Drama must pass through the actual words and drench them with fervor.
Mary Fanton Roberts.
The Touchstone.
1 West 47th Street,
New York City.