7. Bring to the class a narrative poem that begins with action. 8. Find several anecdotes 1 and study their endings. Do they stop when the point of the story is reached? How is this point led up to? Be prepared to tell one of the anecdotes to the class.

9. Write an original anecdote. Lead up to the point of the story and then stop. If, when you reach the point of your story, you still have something to tell, you will have to reconstruct your story, as this is a sure sign of a poorly constructed narrative.

10. Write an original fable to illustrate some moral, but be careful not to state the moral in your fable. Read your fable to the class, and ask the members of the class to guess the moral.

11. Read the first half of some short story that you have never read, and, without looking at the latter half, finish the story. When you have done, compare your ending with the original ending. This exercise will train your imagination and teach you many valuable lessons in story-telling.

SECTION 67

The Point of View

The point of view is as essential to narration as it is to description, and it is pretty much the same in both kinds of writing. In description, as you will learn later on, the point of view is the position from which you look at the things you describe; in narration, the point of view is the position from which you look at the things you narrate. In narration, however, the point of view is perhaps more often a mental attitude than it is in description that is, in narration more frequently than in description you put yourself in imaginary positions, which you cannot in person take, from which you look at the things you narrate. Thus, whenever you write a fiction, whatever

1 An anecdote (from a Greek word meaning unpublished or not given out) is a brief account of an interesting incident in some person's life. It is always told as a fact.

your point of view, the latter is a mental, and not a physi cal, attitude which you take toward the story you tell.

Now, the point of view in a story may be your ownthat is, you may tell the story as if you yourself had witnessed all you narrate, as perhaps you have — or, the point of view may be that of one of the characters in the story —that is, you may put yourself in the place of one of the characters, and tell the story as if that character had witnessed what you narrate. The first point of view is illustrated by the narrative selections in Exercises 17, 20, 42, 65, and 66; the second is illustrated by Stevenson's story of the defence of the roundhouse, Exercise 64.

The point of view which Stevenson adopts has some advantages for inexperienced writers, and even, under certain circumstances, for experienced writers. By putting yourself in the place of one of your characters, for instance, that character becomes more real to you, and, since you then take part in the action yourself, you are enabled to realize more clearly the minutia of the various scenes and situations in your plot. You become an actor on a new stage, and for you the action assumes that quality of "seeming reality" which is so essential for the creation of illusion by means of fiction.

But, whatever point of view you adopt, you should be careful not to shift it without good reason and with

1 Most narratives adopt this point of view. In fiction, this point o view has its advantages, since it leaves the writer free to handle his characters as he pleases, and permits the reader to imagine himself to be any of the characters he chooses- something that all readers like to do, especially if the story is absorbingly interesting. If, on the contrary, the events narrated are true, as in Franklin's account of his first day in Philadelphia, this point of view is of course the natural one, and it then has all the advantages claimed below for the other point of view.

out due warning to the reader. Stevenson, though he makes David tell the story of the defence of the roundhouse, does not include in his narrative a single detail that might not have come under the observation of David. No scene is introduced at which David might not have been present, no talk which he might not have heard, and no thought which he might not have expressed or heard expressed. The point of view is rigidly maintained to the end of the story.

Exercise 75

1. Determine the point of view in several of your favorite stories. 2. Tell the story of the defence of the roundhouse (Exercise 64) as if you were Alan.

3. Tell the story of the defence of the roundhouse from your own point of view; that is, tell the story in the third person.

4. Tell the story of the attack on the roundhouse as the captain of the crew would tell it.

5. Tell Franklin's story (Exercise 17) from your own point of view. 6. Tell the story of Kaa's hunting (Exercise 66) as Mowgli would tell it.

7. Read Longfellow's King Robert of Sicily, and write the story as King Robert might have written it. You may vary this exercise by choosing any narrative poem that you like. Some narrative poems, and most stories, may be rewritten from several points of view. The point of view which the author chooses, however, is likely to be the best.

NOTE. Use the first person in 2, 4, 6, and 7.

SECTION 68

Conversation in Stories

The conversation in a story is generally the most agreeable part of it; but the conversation is agreeable only when it pushes on the action and adds reality and variety and animation to the story. A servile imitation of actual

conversation, it must be remembered, is scarcely ever agreeable. Such conversation, when it appears in print, seldom produces the illusion of truth. On the contrary, such conversation is more than likely to seem either commonplace or unnatural. There are several reasons for this. Most actual conversation is characterized by inaccurate and incomplete expressions, and by want of thought - of suggestiveness. Put into print, the inaccurate expressions, perhaps not noticed in actual conversation, at once attract the reader's attention, and even because they attract the reader's attention, assume undue importance; the incomplete expressions, given meaning in actual conversation by tones and looks and gestures, at once lose their significance; and the want of thought-of suggestiveness, disguised in actual conversation by the personal magnetism of the speaker, soon brings fatigue. In a story, moreover, only a little talk is needed to produce. the illusion of a lengthy conversation. A novel frequently covers a period of several years, sometimes it covers a lifetime or more, and yet all the conversation of all its characters would take less time to utter than your own talk for a week. "Seeming reality," and not truth, is the test of agreeable conversation in stories.

Conversation in stories, to be agreeable and effective, must be in keeping with the characters who speak it. In life—and at least this much help we can get from actual conversation we partly judge1 a man by what he says and by how he says it; in other words, we partly judge a man by the ideas he expresses, by the language and the

1"We partly judge," because we chiefly judge a man by what he does. Action, of course, is the most important thing in a story, but a good deal of action can accompany, or be reported in, the conversation.

tone of voice in which he expresses them, and by the looks, the gestures, and the more decided actions with which he enforces them. Now, by examining any bit of good dialogue, you can easily ascertain how the details just enumerated are used as means to reveal character, but a knowledge of these details, and of their use, will not teach you how to write conversation that is in keeping with the characters who speak it. To write such conversation, you must know your characters so well that they will speak, not what you wish them to say, but what they themselves wish to say. In a word, your characters must be so real to you that they will talk of their own accord.

Exercise 76

1. A thing to avoid, in the writing of conversation in stories, is the monotonous use of "said he," "said she," etc., to indicate who is speaking. Go through fifteen or twenty pages of some novel, and make a list of the various expressions used to indicate the speaker. Note particularly the use and the precise meaning of such terms as: asked, inquired, demanded, remarked, observed, replied, returned, murmured, growled, sneered, grinned, fawned, cried, explained, exclaimed, etc., etc. Note also how the talk itself is sometimes made to indicate the speaker.

2. Make another list, similar to the above, of the short comments interspersed in the conversation. Thus :

. . said my aunt to Peggotty, who quailed before her awful presence said Peggotty, with a curtsey. . . . Here my aunt looked hard at Mrs. Crupp, and observed . . . said my aunt, looking earnestly at me... said my aunt, laying her hand calmly on my shoulder. David Copperfield.

...

3. Study the more important items of action interspersed in the conversation; for example:

"And you, Master-I should say, Mister Copperfield," pursued Uriah. "I hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister Copperfield, even under the present circumstances." I believed that; for he seemed to relish them very much. "Present circumstances is not