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Contents
Preface xvi
Prologue: How to Succeed in School P-1
How to Get a Good Grade P-1
How to (Re)Learn in School: A Guide to Studying P-3
Part One Introduction to Writing 1
Chapter 1 Learning to Write 3

We All Write, All the Time 3
What Is an “Essay”? 3
What Is an Academic “Paper”? 4
Learning to Write Well 5
Learn Like a Child 5
The Four Basics 7
Exposure 7 • Motivation 8 • Practice 9 •
Feedback 10
The Purpose of a Composition Class 11
How Can I Write Well Right Now? 11
Believe in Yourself 13
WRITER’S WORKSHOP: Students Talk About Learning
to Write 13
Now It’s Your Turn 18
Exercises 18
Chapter 2 What Makes Writing Effective? 19

The Sense of Audience 19
Having a Reader in Your Head 20
Giving the Readers What They Need 21
Seeing Writing as Performance 21
What Good Writing Isn’t 23
Proof That It Works 24
How to Feel About Rules 26
Exercises 27
vi
Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights,
some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially
affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
Contents vii
Chapter 3 Writing in School: An Introduction 29

Not as Different as You Might Think 29
Purpose 29
Audience 30
A Word About Level of Formality 31
A Brief Review 32
1. You Need Exposure to Learn How to Write 32
2. You Need Motivation 32
3. You Need Time to Prewrite and Revise 32
Thesis in Academic Writing 33
Audience in Academic Writing 33
Purpose in Academic Writing 34
Academic Writing as Performance 37
How to Read Writing Assignments 37
Following the Advice of Woody Allen 38
Instructions You’re Likely to See on an Assignment—
Highlight Them 38
Asking Questions 39
In-Class and Timed Writing 40
In a Writing Course 40
In a Content Course 40
Part Two Planning and Drafting 43
Chapter 4 Choosing Topics and Getting Started 45

Where Do Good Essays Come From? 45
Four Principles for Getting Good Ideas 49
1. Don’t Begin with a Topic 49
2. Think All the Time 49
Reacting 50 • Content Prompts 51 • Models 52 •
Responding to Visuals 53
3. Go From Little, Concrete Things to Big, Abstract
Ones 54
4. Connect 54
Writing from Rage 57
From First Thoughts to Drafts 58
Writer’s Block: Myth or Reality? 59
viii Contents
Defeating Writer’s Block 60

1. Call Yourself a Writer 60 • 2. Give Yourself a Lot of
Time 60 • 3. Write as Yourself 60 • 4. Write to Your
Favorite Audience 61 • 5. Don’t Write; Talk 61 •
6. Take Your Ego Out of the Loop 62 • 7. Don’t
Demand That You Know Where You’re Going 62 •
8. Lower Your Standards 62 • 9. Quit When You’re Hot,
Persist When You’re Not 64 • 10. Sidestep the Thing
That Blocks You 64 • 11. Write Un-essays 65
WRITER’S WORKSHOP: Finding Essays in Your Life 69
Exercises 72
Chapter 5 Thesis, Purpose, and Audience 74

Purpose and Audience Tell You How to Write 75
Thesis 76
Thesis vs. Thesis Statement 76
Making the Tool 76
Using the Tool 78
Purpose 78
Making the Tool 79
Using the Tool 80
Audience 80
Making the Tool 80
Using the Tool 82
Using the Tool 85
Exercises 85
Chapter 6 Style and Tone 87

Style 87
What Writing Style or Voice Should You Use? 88
Some Important Style Principles to Keep in Mind 88
Style Is Independent of Content 88 • Style Is Chosen 88
• You Can’t Not Choose 88 • Style Sends a Mes-
sage 89 • Choose Your Style for the Effect It Has on the
Reader 89 • Alternatives Equal Power 89 • Most of Us
Choose by Habit 89 • Style Is Fun 89
How to Master a Style 89
Sentence Length 90 • Latinate Diction 91 •
Concretion 92
Tone (LOL!) 98
Contents ix
Making the Tool 100

Using the Tool 100
WRITER’S WORKSHOP: Thinking About Thesis,
Audience, Purpose, Tone, and Style 100
Exercises 104
Chapter 7 Organization: Mapping, Outlining, and Abstracting 106

The Organizing Attitude 108
Organizing Begins with Making a Model 108
Organize as You’re Working on Your Draft 109
Experiment Freely 109
Take Time to Reflect 110
Learn to Organize by Reading for the Craft 110
Mapping 110
Making the Tool 110
Using the Tool 111
Outlining 111
Making the Tool 111
Using the Tool 115
Abstracting 117
Transition and Readers 117
Transition and Connectors 119
Writing Abstracts 120
Making the Tool 121
Using the Tool 122
Diagnosing Transition by the Numbers 124
Structural Templates 125
Paragraphing 125
Using Paragraphs for Transition 126
More Practically 127
Exercises 127
Part Three Revising and Editing 131
Chapter 8 The Spirit of Revising 133

Revision Tools 134
Diagnostic Tools 135
x Contents
Making Your Own Tools 135

Revision in Four Steps 136
Thesis, Purpose, Audience, Tone, and Style 136
Topic: A Brief Review 137
Thesis 137
Purpose 137
Audience 138
Style 138
Tone 138
Revising for Length: Making the Draft Longer or
Shorter 139
Making It Shorter 139
Making It Longer 141
Making It Longer by Filling In 141 • Expanding the
Canvas 144 • Asking the Next Question 144
WRITER’S WORKSHOP: Expanding Essays 144
Exercises 147
Chapter 9 Beginning, Ending, and Titling 148

Introductions 149
Making the Tool 149
Using the Tool 153
Conclusions 154
Making the Tool 154
Using the Tool 156
Titles 157
Making the Tool 157 • A Final Suggestion 159 •
Formatting Titles 159
Using the Tool 159
Exercises 159
Chapter 10 Peer Feedback 161

Rules for Readers 162
Rules for Writers 164
Peer Editing in Groups 165
The Writer’s Role in Group Editing 166
Peer Editing for Mechanics and Grammar 166
A Final Piece of Advice 167
WRITER’S WORKSHOP: Peer Editing a Peer-Editing
Session 167
Contents xi
Chapter 11 Editing 175

Getting the Editing Attitude 175
“Grammar” 177
Conventions 178
A Final Word on “Who” and “Whom” 179
Rules of Logic 179
Parallelism 180
Unparallel Lists 180
Tense Changes 180 • Subject-Verb Agreement 181 •
Pronoun Agreement 181 • The Limits of Logic 182
Rules of Clarity 182
Pronoun Reference 182 • Misplaced Modifiers 183
Punctuation 184
The Comma 184
Fun with Commas (No, I’m Serious Here!) 186
Things Commas Don’t Do 187
The Semicolon 188
Things Semicolons Don’t Do 189
The Colon 190
Things Colons Don’t Do 190
Other Punctuation 190
The Dash 190
Parentheses 191
Question Marks 191
The Hyphen 191
The Compound-Adjective Hyphen 191 • The Verb-
Phrase Noun Hyphen 192 • The Prefix Hyphen 192
The Apostrophe 192
The Contraction Apostrophe 192 • The Possessive
Apostrophe 193 • The Odd Plural Apostrophe 193
Quotation Marks 194
Things Quotation Marks Don’t Do 194
Spacing and Positioning 195
Spelling 195
Don’t Sidestep Mechanics Problems 196
Remember the Tightening 197
Using the Tools 198
Following Format 198
Proofreading 199
Exercises 201
xii Contents
Part Four Forms of Writing: Three Key Genres 203
Chapter 12 Personal Writing 205

Personal Writing—Start by Reading 206
What’s Personal Writing? 206
Where Do We See Personal Writing? 208
Show, Don’t Tell 212
Choosing an Effect 217
Thesis in Personal Writing 217
Seeing the Mode 218
WRITER’S WORKSHOP: Concretizing Abstract
Generalizations 219
Exercises 221
Chapter 13 Writing to Inform 222
Where Do We See Informative Writing? 222
Profiles 223
Tips and Suggestions for Writing Profiles 224
Using Your Experience: The How-To Essay 230
The Three Challenges 233
You Don’t Feel Knowledgeable Enough 233
Warm Up with a Mock-informative Essay 234
It’s Boring 239
COIK Is a Constant Problem 239
Intermediate Choke Rod 240
Realize that COIK Problems Are Inevitable 240 • Define
Your Audience’s Level of Expertise Precisely 240 • Get
Yourself Some Real Readers 240 • Finally, Remember
that It’s Usually Better to Explain Too Much than Too
Little 240
Eight Teaching Tips 240
Seeing the Mode 243
WRITER’S WORKSHOP: Informative Strategies—
Action 244
Exercises 246
Chapter 14 Writing an Argument, Stage 1: Thinking Critically 247
What’s an Argument? 247
Where Do We See Argumentative Writing? 248
Contents xiii
Finding an Argumentative Prompt 248

Thinking Critically versus Selling the Case 249
Why Thinking Is Hard 249
How to Think: A Template 251
Eliminating Language Problems 251
Making a Well-Formed Assertion 251
Eliminating Ambiguous Language 253
Loaded Language 254 • Clichés 254
Examining Your Assumptions 255
“Where Do I Draw the Line?” 256 • “What’s the
Philosophical Antithesis?” 256
Examining the Consequences of the Thesis 257
Seven Cleanup Tasks 259
Ask, “How Do I Know?” 259 • Ask, “What Are The
Facts?” 259 • Ask, “Like What?” 259 • Ask, “What
Should Be Done?” 259 • Ask, “How Will It
Work?” 260 • Avoid Black-or-White Thinking 260
The Classical Fallacies 261
Ad Hominem Reasoning 261
Appeal to Authority 261
Appeal to Common Practice 261
Hasty Generalization 262
Post Hoc Reasoning 262
Slippery Slope 262
Seeing the Mode 262
WRITER’S WORKSHOP: Using the Tools 263
Exercises 266
Chapter 15 Writing an Argument, Stage 2: Selling the Case 268

Define Your Objectives Realistically 268
The Prompt 269
The Response 269
Identify Your Audience as Specifically as Possible 270
Establish a Positive Relationship with Your Audience 271
Be Human 271
Be Interesting 272
Empathize 272
Get Some Support 274
Four Diagnostic Questions 276
xiv Contents
Find a Dramatic Structure 277

Seeing the Mode 280
WRITER’S WORKSHOP: Using Models 281
Exercises 285
Part Five Academic Writing 287
Chapter 16 Research 289

Online Research 290
Databases 290
Web Sites 291
Using the Library 292
The Texts 292
Library Search Tools 294
Evaluating the Credibility of Your Sources 296
The CRAAP Test 296
Chapter 17 Using Sources 298

Summary and Paraphrase 298
Quotation 300
Why and When to Quote 300
How to Quote 301
Documentation 303
Why and When to Document 303
How to Document 304
MLA Citations 304 • Rules of Thumb for MLA Works-
Cited List 305
APA Citations 306
Rules of Thumb for APA References List 306 • APA
Citations 307
Making Sense of It All 308
Model Citations 308
Exercises 311
Chapter 18 The Academic Research Paper 313

Setting Out 313
Framing Your Question 315
Getting Things Organized 316
Use Subheads 317
Contents xv
Format 318
Graphics 318
Two Model Research Papers 320
Part Six A Collection of Good Writing 331

Personal Essays 332
Informative Essays 352
Argumentative Essays 359
Academic Essays 375
Writers, on Writing 386
Author Index 402

Title Index 404
Subject Index 406
Preface
O ne of the key principles of The Writer’s Way when it was first pub-
lished in the early 1990s was that effective writing rarely results with-
out lots of revision. Practicing what it preaches, the book has now been
revised eight times, five times by Professor Jack Rawlins and three times by
me. And like an essay, it just keeps getting better, not only as we’ve learned
more about how students learn but also as we’ve responded to dozens of pro-
fessional reviewers and scores of students who’ve provided observations and
suggestions for improvement. Additionally, we’ve responded to changing
classroom environments and technologies—early editions noted that some stu-
dents would actually compose their essays on computers, and the last edition
suggested the possibilities of online research! Naturally, the current edition
assumes that students will be doing most of their research online, although I
still discuss how to access materials from a real “brick-and-mortar” library,
hoping that some of you might still appreciate their many, often unexpected,
rewards.
This revision reflects current composition pedagogy that emphasizes
“inquiry” and focuses more on research and academic writing than did previ-
ous editions. That’s not to say it downplays narrative—far from it. In fact, the
part of the book about personal writing is still key, although the ninth edition
points out the often blurry lines between genres of writing, suggesting that an
effective piece of writing often incorporates several different forms.
I’ve also added new essays—both by students and by professionals—and
deleted others, some of which were dated, some of which, reviewers and stu-
dents had told me, weren’t very useful. I’m excited to be including a hilarious
essay by Dave Barry as well as very moving essays about writing by three of
my favorite writers: Annie Dillard, Anne Lamott, and Dave Eggers. The book
concludes with one of the best essays ever written about writing, a classic by a
master: “Politics and the English Language,” by George Orwell.
Another significant structural change: previous editions included discus-
sions of audience, thesis, purpose, style, tone, and organization in Part 3:
“Revising and Editing.” But good writers—and the book— argue that writers
need to think about those things very early, that you set out to write with
your audience and purpose in mind. To that end, I’ve moved audience, thesis,
purpose, tone, style, and organization to Part 2: “Planning and Drafting,”
while at the same acknowledging that writers should continue to consider—
and feel free to adjust—those things in the revising stage.
Finally, previous editions indicated that there are many different types of
informative writing, and many different places where it appears (“in service
manuals, cookbooks, technical and scientific reports, encyclopedias, textbooks,
xvi
Preface xvii
travel guides, and 90 percent of every newspaper or magazine”). But the chap-
ter really discussed in depth only “how-to” essays. In the ninth edition, along
with the corresponding section in “A Collection of Good Writing,” I’ve added
other examples of informative writing, including profiles, along with a discus-
sion of how to write effective ones yourself.
TEACHING YOURSELF
That said, the spirit of The Writer’s Way remains, as do its two core princi-
ples: (1) good writing begins when you know your audience and write for the
right reasons and (2) knowing your audience and having good reasons to
write will teach you everything you need to know about technique. A writer
constantly makes choices: Should I do this, or that? Should I do it this way, or
that way? Real writers don’t answer such questions by asking themselves,
“What’s the rule?” or “What do good essays do?” Instead, they ask, “Who’s
my reader?”; “What am I trying to accomplish here?”; “Will this help me
accomplish that?”; and, “Is there another way of doing it that will accomplish
it better?” In short, the real writer asks, “What works?” not “What’s the
rule?” The goal of The Writer’s Way is to train you in this new way of
thinking.
And while the book makes every attempt to “teach” you how to write
better, it does so mostly by providing models and encouraging lots of practice
(and revision), grounded in the philosophy that really we teach ourselves. As
Timothy Gallwey writes in The Inner Game of Tennis: “Fortunately, most
children learn how to walk before they can be told how to by their parents.”
HOW THE BOOK IS LAID OUT

This book is divided into seven parts. The Prologue is a two-part introduction
to the art of going to college. The first part is a list of things good students do
in order to get good grades. The second part is an instruction manual on how
to study. You’ll want to have the Prologue down cold before you walk
through the classroom door, or as soon thereafter as possible.
Part 1 is an introduction to the attitude toward learning to write that lies
behind the rest of the book. This part of the book also offers an overview of
writing in school, including responding to different kinds of assignments—
even in-class, timed-writing prompts. I encourage you to read it before doing
anything else.
Parts 2 and 3 are a step-by-step walk-through of the writing process: from
first thoughts through brainstorming, drafting, rethinking, organizing, peer
editing, stylistic polishing, and cosmetic editing. Part 2 covers all the messy,
creative steps from first thoughts through the first draft. Part 3 is about ways
to take that draft and revise it into something better. It would be lovely if you
could know everything in Parts 2 and 3 before you wrote an essay, but you
won’t be able to wait, so you will probably find yourself writing essays while
xviii Preface
reading one chapter after another, and in fact you can read them in almost
any order.
Part 4 introduces you to three main essay genres: personal writing, writ-
ing to inform, and argument. For each genre, there is a corresponding collec-
tion of sample essays in Part 6, “A Collection of Good Writing.” You’ll want
to read those samples along with the chapter.
Part 5 further explores writing for college courses, with an emphasis on
research. Here you’ll learn how to approach traditional academic writing
assignments and how to perform basic scholastic writing skills: documenta-
tion, paraphrasing, and quotation, as well as drawing conclusions and pre-
senting findings. Part 5 also provides guidelines for determining the
credibility of your sources, as well as exercises on effective paraphrasing. If
your writing course gives assignments that use these forms and techniques,
you’ll want to read these chapters, but even if it doesn’t, these chapters will
help you with other college courses that involve writing. There are sample
academic essays in “A Collection of Good Writing,” and two complete
research papers appear at the end of Chapter 18.
Part 6 is the fun part. It’s a collection of essays written by students in both
Professor Rawlins’s and my classes, as well several essays by professionals and
four published essays about writing. You’ll want to read them, because they’re
wonderful, and because the easiest way to learn to write better is to read some
great writing and fall in love with it. Then the most natural thing in the world
is to go out and try to do something like the writing you love.
KEEP ON WRITING IN THE REAL WORLD

While The Writer’s Way is in fact a textbook, intended to be used in the class-
room, it’s very much based on the concept that there is actually very little dif-
ference between writing in school and writing in the “real world.” Again, it’s
all about audience and purpose. Once you’re clear on what you want to say
and to whom you want to say it, everything else (length, level of formality, use
of sources) falls into place.
In fact, although I have been teaching writing for over twenty-five years,
at the same time I have been working as a freelance writer—I’ve written hun-
dreds of articles for skiing, travel, health-and-fitness magazines, newspapers,
and other publications, as well as travel books—and I have made every
attempt to bring what I’ve learned about “real” writing not only to my classes
but to The Writer’s Way as well. Peer review, for example, is not just an aca-
demic exercise, students passing papers around and writing “I liked it” on
them. Rather, peer review is about caring enough about what you’re trying
to say to show a reader a draft and ask specific questions about what’s work-
ing and what isn’t. So the chapter on peer review in The Writer’s Way tries to
duplicate the process I go through when I ask a friend to give me feedback
(which I rarely do before about the fourth or fifth draft), and I always
acknowledge my gratitude for the feedback. And while that might take the
Preface xix
form of a beer at a local pub if it’s a friend, or dinner out if it’s my wife, I
suggest that in students’ cases that might involve offering to reciprocate or to
take your reader out for pizza to thank her.
In the end, the emphasis on writing for real reasons in the real world will
help prepare you for writing you’ll be doing once you graduate, with every-
thing from resumes and letters of application to interoffice memos, internal
reports, and employee evaluations.
OTHER UNIQUE FEATURES

The Writer’s Way has several other features that set it apart from traditional
composition textbooks.
The Prologue addresses questions you need answers to before you can
begin any school work: What do good students do that poor students don’t
do? What does it mean to “study” a chapter in a book? How can I tell if I’m
“learning” anything? What do good readers do beyond looking at the words
and trying to remember them?
The Writer’s Way contains more than fifty complete essays—about half
sprinkled throughout the chapters to illustrate principles, and half collected
at the end of the book in “A Collection of Good Writing” (Part 6). More
than forty of these essays are written by students, so you can see that your
peers can and do write wonderful essays, and you can as well.
Most of the chapters end with Writer’s Workshop sections. These work-
shops are similar to the lab sections of a science course: first you watch a
hands-on demonstration of one of the concepts presented in the chapter;
then you dig in and get your own hands dirty.
Almost all the chapters end with exercises. These obey the spirit of the
book and the Writer’s Workshop sections by avoiding drills and mechanical
activities whenever possible and focusing on whole-language activities, in
which you are asked to work with entire blocks of text. As often as possible,
the text being worked with is your own, since anything you learn about some-
one else’s writing is far less powerful than what you learn about your own.
Several additional topics that often are not found in composition text-
books are covered in this book. There are chapters on critical thinking, peer
editing (including explicit instruction on how to do it well), titling, and how to
make a too-short essay longer. The chapter on first-drafting examines writer’s
block, explores where it comes from, and offers a list of strategies for over-
coming it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, of course, I’d like to thank Professor Jack Rawlins, whose original
vision (and language) still informs and defines The Writer’s Way and who
trusted me to carry on the book’s legacy. I hope that you continue to approve
of the work I’ve done on it, Sir. I’m also grateful to the reviewers who
xx Preface
provided keen observations about the book as well as concrete suggestions for
revision: Peter Donahue, Wenatchee Valley College at Omak; Michael
McClelland, Wittenberg University; Jim McKeown, McLennan Community
College; Deborah Montuori, Shippensburg University; and David Roloff, the
University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point. I’d especially like to thank Professor
Roloff, for sending along essays by two of his students (both of which are
included). And: Thanks to Assistant/Development editor Sarah Turner at
Cengage Learning for her suggestions and insights, and also for the freedom
she allowed me to pursue my own instincts and ideas, some admittedly uncon-
ventional for a college writing textbook.
Also, special thanks to all the students in my writing classes at California
State University Chico and Butte College who have used the book in class over
the last eight years and provided invaluable feedback, especially those who
submitted essays to be included, whether or not they found their way to
publication.
And, once again, love and thanks to three of the best and most beautiful
writers I know: Liz, Hannah, and Gina. You’re awesome!
The Writer’s Way
Prologue
How to Succeed in School
HOW TO GET A GOOD GRADE

Here are three lists of suggestions to help you succeed in your classes. The
items on the first list are time tested, though a surprising percentage of stu-
dents still resist them. The second list is less obvious, although familiar to the
best students. The third is in response to the prevalence of cell phones and
other technology on campus and in the classroom.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident”:
1. Go to class every day.
2. Be on time for class—even better, get there five minutes early.
3. Study the course syllabus.
4. Do all the assigned reading, by the time it’s due—even better, do each
reading assignment twice.
5. Hand in all assignments on time.
6. Take part in class discussion.
7. Take notes during class.
8. Write at least two drafts of every paper.
9. Print your drafts and proofread from hard copy.
10. Follow directions carefully and precisely.
11. Stay awake—no snoozing!
Less self-evident truths:
12. Sit near the front of the classroom, or where the instructor can see you
clearly.
13. Become an expert on the course grading system.
14. Come to each class session with a question about the material.
15. Visit the instructor during office hours.
16. Study for tests over as long a period as possible.
17. Take notes, recording your thoughts and reactions as you’re doing the
course reading—not after.
18. Write in your textbooks—highlight, underline, jot marginal notes.
19. After all assigned readings and all class sessions, write answers to these
questions:
What was the point? What am I supposed to learn from it?
Why does it matter?
20. Before each class session, remind yourself where the class left off last time.
P-1
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probably few writers, if any, have ever satisfied themselves in
painting the pictures they have mentally created. To take the highest
example, we cannot know how far keener the power of Vision was in
the pictures seen by Shakespeare than in those which he has
revealed to the world. It is this want of proportion between the power
to see and the power to execute that has made the despair of artists
of all time, whether painters or poets, sculptors or prose-writers, so
dissatisfied must they ever be with their own productions compared
with the creations they see so vividly.
I T may be said that all this art-study is

unnecessary, that it is sufficient carefully to Observation not
sufficient
observe life and scenery, and then to write down all
that the eye has noted, woven into the form of a story. This is not
easy work, our very faculty of observation is qualified by our power
of true mental vision; without mental vision, and the selecting power
that belongs to it, the objects noted down, instead of forming a
coherent and lifelike picture in the mind of a reader or listener, will
produce a dry catalogue of persons and things, there will be a want
of proportion and perspective, of efficient light and shade. “No one
knows what he can do till he tries” is a very true saying which fits our
case. Let persons without the literary faculty try to write off a
description of the office or counting-house in which they work, of the
room, whether it be study or drawing-room, in which they dwell, of
the persons among whom they live, and they will see what the
results of such attempts are from a literary standpoint.
Silas Marner M ANY passages might be quoted to illustrate

the vigour and distinctness with which this
power of Vision manifests itself, and in a few words creates a picture
which remains impressed on the mind of the reader, but I have not
space for them. Here is one, however, which stands out by itself in
intensity of distinctness and direct presentation.
Silas Marner, standing at his cottage door, has had a fit of
unconsciousness, during which the child, little Eppie, has found her
way into his hut.
“Turning towards the hearth, where the two logs had fallen apart,
and sent forth only a red, uncertain glimmer, he seated himself in his
fireside chair, and was stooping to push his logs together, when, to
his blurred vision, it seemed as if there were gold on the floor in front
of the hearth. Gold!—his own gold brought back to him as
mysteriously as it had been taken away! He felt his heart begin to
beat violently, and for a few moments he was unable to stretch out
his hand and grasp the restored treasure. The heap of gold seemed
to glow and get larger beneath his agitated gaze. He leaned forward
at last, and stretched forth his hand; but instead of the hard coin with
the familiar resisting outline, his fingers encountered soft, warm
curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on his knees, and bent his head
low to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child—a round, fair
thing, with soft yellow rings all over its head.”
Let the reader try to picture this scene to himself, and then
consider the marvellous power with which it is here brought before
him, the intense power of Vision, and of Selection evinced not only
by the points chosen for representation, but in the omitted details
which an ungifted writer would have dragged into the foreground.
The strange agitation of the lonely man is seen as vividly as the
head of the little golden-haired intruder lying before the red,
uncertain glimmer of the burning logs; this picture is more than an
incident in the story, it is the key which lets us in and acquaints us
with the unhappy weaver who till then had seemed outside our
sympathies.
George Eliot AS we read her work, we know that unless this

writer’s power of Vision had been of a high
order, she could not have placed so many living pictures in our
memories, pictures not of mere scenes, but bits of actual life, in
which the rude passions, and also the gentler qualities of men and
women, are set before us.
I will mention yet another illustration of truth of
Mrs. Gaskell Vision, rendered, because seen in a sudden flash,
with so much vigour that it is difficult to believe it is
not a record of human experience. The incident is too long to
transcribe, but it occurs in the fourth chapter of the third volume of
Sylvia’s Lovers, the scene in which Charlie Kinraid, Sylvia’s old lover,
returns, and tells her that her husband has deceived her. There is a
desperate simplicity in the pathos of the poor girl’s words, “I thought
yo’ were dead”; and the vivid image of the shuddering, conscience-
stricken husband is more moving than any elaborate description
could have made it. It is truth; one seems to know that it was all seen
and heard distinctly by the writer before a word of it was set down.
I N Kidnapped, the defence of the cabin on board

the privateer strongly evidences the power of Some masters
of fiction
Vision; still earlier in the book is a more sudden
effect in the ghastly discovery the hero makes at the top of the steps
up which his treacherous uncle had sent him. In The Black Arrow, by
the same master-hand, the scene of the apparition of the supposed
leper is a marvellous instance of this faculty.
I might quote many remarkable examples from Oliver Twist, from
The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, from The Cloister and the Hearth,
and other masterpieces, in illustration of my meaning. There is more
than one wonderful instance in John Inglesant, notably the passage
in which the reader is made to see Strafford almost without a
description of his apparition.
These illustrations are more or less evidences of direct Vision, the
pictures presented seem to have been at once photographed on the
mental sight; but many remarkable instances could be cited in which
the effects are produced by a series of touches so exquisitely
blended together, that the impression produced is that of a solid
whole. In The Woodlanders there are examples of almost unrivalled
truth of Vision, presented by a series of richly coloured touches. In
the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice we have another feature of
the power of Vision, the incisive presentation of character in the
dialogue between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet; this so completely impresses
both characters on the reader’s mind, that the concluding words of
the chapter seem superfluous.
In A Foregone Conclusion, by Mr. Howells, we recognise an
extremely subtle power of Vision; we can scarcely say how the
persons have become familiar to us, yet we seem to know that they
are alive, and that they were distinctly seen by the writer; there is the
same power in Silas Lapham. It may be said that I have only given
examples from the Masters of Fiction. I could have given many
others from the books of far less popular writers, but I believe in a
high ideal, for one can never reach one’s aim, and it is well always to
be striving upwards.
Essential
qualities for
T HE outcome of the question, then, seems to be
that beginners in the art of novel-writing are
writing fiction able to test themselves as to their power of Vision
with regard to Fiction; they will soon discover
whether they can master the difficulty of creating a forcible and
distinct picture in their minds of the subject they propose to treat;
they must see it distinctly, and it must be lasting; they must see not
only the outer forms of characters, but their inner feelings; they must
think their thoughts, they must try to hear their words.
It is possible that the picture may not all be seen at once; the
earnest student may have to wait days before he sees anything,
weeks before he vividly and truthfully sees the whole. I can only say,
let him wait with patience and hope, and above all let him firmly
believe that novel-writing is not easy; possibly, in spite of
earnestness and diligence, the beginner has made a mistake, and
has not the necessary gifts for success in Fiction. Well then, if after
many trials he cannot call up a picture which is at the same time
distinct and true to Nature, he had better bring himself to believe that
his attempt is not a creation of the imagination, it is at best but a
passing fancy, not worth the trouble of writing down. One more
counsel. There are three qualities as essential to success in novel-
writing as the power of Vision: they are Patience, Perseverance, and
an untiring habit of taking pains.
ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER IN
FICTION
Maxwell Gray
The climax of
art
T HIS is the climax, the finest flowering of the
fictive art. It is the crux, whereby may be
determined the vital reality of the beings presented
to the reader by the novelist. Growth is the first
condition of life; only the character that develops with the course of
the story is really alive; if it be stationary, then it is dead. Many an
interesting and amusing writer is without this power of creating and
developing character, the rarest and the highest given to mortal man.
It is the lack of this singular gift that fills the every-day story-teller’s
pages with puppets and labelled bundles of qualities in place of
human beings. It is possible to tell a very good story without creating
or developing character, but it is scarcely possible to create and
develop character without telling a good story. For it is story—that is,
linked incident, changing circumstance—that moulds the plastic yet
unchangeable character of man.
“Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille,

Ein Karacter sich in dem Sturm der Welt.”
There is nothing so constant, and in one sense so unchanging, as

human character: every baby born into the world receives certain
characteristics, due in part to heredity, in part to climate and physical
conditions, in part, possibly, to pre-natal mental surroundings, which
characteristics remain with him to the day of his death. A rose-tree
may be trained and developed in different ways, it may become a
bush, a tree or a creeper, but it can never become a peach—St.
Peter is always Peter, and St. Paul, Saul, though the fisher has
become a saint and martyr, and the strict and fierce Pharisee the
Apostle of the Gentiles.
T HOUGH in fiction, as in life, character creates
incident, still it is incident, which is dramatic Incident affects
character
circumstance, or circumstance, which may be
called stationary incident, that chiefly carves and shapes character,
calls out latent and often unsuspected vice, and evokes equally
unlooked-for virtue. Incident, or dramatic situation, may be called the
touchstone of character. Many an excellently written and clever novel
fails to enchain because the people in it do exactly what they could
not possibly do in real life. They develop wrongly because they are
not alive, not living organisms, and some secret instinct in the reader
is revolted by a feeling of unreality, he has a secret anger at being
cheated into temporary belief in a made-up figure, in whose nostrils
the breath of life is not.
Many critics, but I fancy chiefly males, and
therefore incapable of weighing female character, Maggie Tulliver
think this the weak point in The Mill on the Floss.
Maggie Tulliver, they say, high-minded Maggie, would never have
wasted her treasure of noble passion on such a barber’s block as
Stephen Guest. Yet that to my mind is one of the finest points in that
very fine novel. It is artistically as well as naturally inevitable that the
impulsive, imaginative, warm-hearted Maggie, who ran away to live
with the gipsies, so greatly admired little Lucy’s doll-face and trim
curls, who idealised everything she saw and lived in a constant
transition from heaven to hell, never abiding in one stay on the firm
level earth in her stormy childhood, should see an Apollo in the first
comely and well-conducted youth she met, and that her imagination
should invest him with a blinding glamour, which in turn kindled so
strong a passion as swept her off her feet. Her passionate and
exaggerated repentance, too, though as exasperating to the reader
as it would be in real life, is equally true, the natural sequence of all
that went before. Still, Maggie ought not to have been drowned, she
was but beginning to develop; Stephen Guest should have been but
an incident in the Sturm-und-Drang-Periode inevitable to a nature so
turbulent and so complex as hers. Maggie’s death, which is an
accident and a climax to nothing, must be regarded as an artistic
murder, for the wanton slaying of a personage whose death is not
artistically necessary in a fiction, is more than a blunder, it is a capital
crime. But the charm and interest of The Mill on the Floss are not in
the development of Maggie so much as in that of her father and
mother and those matchless aunts and uncles of hers.
Power to create I F the power to create and develop character is

great, it is also rare, and discoverable only in
character fiction of the highest order. It is this that makes
Hawthorne so incomparably grand; this that gives
his chief, though not his whole, magic to that master of English
fiction, Thackeray, and his peer, George Eliot; that impresses in
Manzoni’s splendid romance, I Promessi Sposi; that enchains in
Jane Austen, though she does but brush the surface of character,
leaving the depths unplumbed; that fascinates in Charlotte Brontë
and in Mrs. Gaskell, that powerful, wholesome, and but half-
appreciated writer; and the lack of which sends so marvellous a
genius as Dickens, in spite of all his witchery of fancy and fun and
youthful mastery of language, lost later in affectation, to the second
rank. It was Dickens’ inability to recognise his own limitation in this
respect which chiefly contributed, with his outrageous vanity, to
wreck his later works; for he always aimed at developing character,
probably because it was the only thing he could not do. Because the
gods, as a sort of make-weight, with their gifts of genius and talent,
always throw in a perverse blindness to the nature and limits of
those endowments.
M ICHAEL Angelo, at first sight of it, said to

Donatello’s statue of St. George, “March!” Characters
and the young figure always seems, in its should develop
breathing vitality, to be on the point of obeying the
order. So it is with the finest creations in fiction: they march, they
develop, they achieve an immortal existence, like the lovers in Keats’
Grecian Urn—
“For ever shalt thou love, and she be fair.”
We expect them to go on living; we look out for Colonel Newcome’s

noble and pathetic face among the pensioners in the chapel, and
expect to see that delightful old sinner, Major Pendennis, ogle us
from his club-window as we pass. How sadly do the characters of
Amelia Sedley’s kind and easy-going parents develop under the
stress of ill-fortune, and yet how truly! The indulgent and affectionate
merchant, and his comfortable, commonplace spouse, who caress
and fondle Amelia’s girlhood, pass with saddest ease into the selfish
and querulous tyrants of her widowed maturity; the harshness of
their soured and unlovely old age is but the other side of natures to
which ease and material comfort are the first conditions of existence.
And poor dear Amelia, how naturally she glides through the bitter
trials and keen sorrows of her womanhood, losing the self-
complacency and regardlessness of others, fostered by her
caressed and guarded girlhood, and emerging mellowed and
sweetened from the flame! People run Amelia down. I love her; I
should like to have known her. Don’t we all know and love, and feel
the better for knowing and loving, some Amelia? My heart aches
now as if from a fresh stab whenever I read the immortal sentence
which describes the falling of night on battle-field and city, on the
town without, and Emmy’s desolate chamber within, where she “was
praying for George, who was lying on his face dead, with a bullet
through his heart.” Of course we all adore that good-for-nothing
Becky Sharpe, whose complex and subtle nature is so terribly
warped and contorted by the wrongs of her youth. How delightful is
the unexpected tenderness developed in that great, clumsy, big-
hearted blackguard, Rawdon Crawley, by his dainty, clever little witch
of a wife and his neglected child. This Rawdon is essentially virile all
the way through. It was not only a fine brain, but a great and
generous and very tender heart that conceived and developed all
these intensely human creatures in Thackeray’s great romance.
W HAT fine development there is in Lucia and

Renzo, those very commonplace and
Living examples
in fiction
unromantic young country-folk in the first chapters
of I Promessi Sposi. Yet Lucia does not surprise us when, under
stress of the terrible events which tear their tranquil lives apart, she
comports herself with such signal heroism, and overawes and
disarms the lawless brigands who have carried her off, by the dignity
of her gentle yet strong rectitude. Nor are we astonished when the
honest and simple-minded Renzo, by his single-hearted loyalty and
devotion to plain duty, becomes a hero in his turn. It is a matchless
stroke of Manzoni’s genius thus from such every-day and unromantic
material to evolve stuff so heroic and full of romantic interest as in
the characters of these Promessi Sposi, who were not even
romantically in love, but were merely going to marry because they
were at marrying age and thought each other suitable.
This subtle and inevitable development which follows from the
creation of a living character in fiction, as from the birth of a living
organism in nature, gives a distinct charm to Malory’s version of
Arthurian legend, the one centre of interest around which the whole
body of the romance Morte d’Arthur plays, being the development of
Sir Lancelot, that very live and captivating man, whom once to know
is always to love. Chaucer, fettered and cramped though he was, yet
in the narrow limits his art imposed gives subtle suggestions of
spiritual growth, while the immortal people painted in the Prologue,
though of necessity debarred from movement, are like Donatello’s
St. George, we involuntarily tell them to march, they are so alert and
so much alive. And even in the Nibelungen Lied, which would at first
seem but a poetic welding together of myth, tradition and romance,
the main point of the story and the hinge upon which the whole
tragedy plays, is the terrible direction taken by Chriemhild’s naturally
sweet and noble nature under the warping influence of deadly
wrong.
Macbeth, aweary of the sun, is another man
than the gallant Scottish chief who consults the A bad tendency
witches; and what a change passes over the
warm-hearted and devoted wife, who is so eager for her husband’s
advancement. Hamlet and Faust (especially Hamlet), being not so
much a Danish prince and a German philosopher as representatives
of the human race, are the first and finest instances of character-
development in fiction. Yet the same Goethe, who, by the
spontaneous play of his great genius, created the living Faust, also
composed that nauseous study of morbid anatomy,
Wahlverwandtschaften, in which there is no true development
upwards or downwards, but a sort of stagnant and hopeless decay,
and by the composition of which he became the father of a great and
gruesome school of fiction, the noxious influence of which is
spreading everywhere like a leprous growth over the fair face of
fictive art, especially in France, where the novel has been reduced to
a study of the gutter and the city sewer, and poetry to the open
worship of decay, and where a great artist like Zola devotes
marvellous powers of observation and description and analysis of
character through the whole of the celebrated Assommoir to
impressing upon the reader that dirty linen is dirty, which Falstaff
knew by sad experience, but did not dwell upon, long ago. There is
much morbid anatomy of stagnant character in L’Assommoir but no
development; the characters do not even degenerate, they simply rot
as if from some mysterious, irresistible corruption.
A great, perhaps the greatest, living English
Tess novelist is, like his lesser brothers, touched by this
mysterious blight. Hence Tess has an artistically
impossible climax. Mr. Hardy’s fine genius created a noble character
in Tess, but his Paganism (for the blight has its origin in Paganism)
blinded him to the full grandeur of his own creation. He sees clearly
how the tragedy of Tess’s girlhood, the horrible cruelty of which she
is the innocent victim, moulds her nature, first stunning her to a
degradation from which she quickly revolts, and ultimately leading
her through suffering and knowledge of good and evil to a higher
purity than that of ignorant innocence, but he cannot see, perhaps
because he does not believe in, the impossibility of the final actions
he imputes to her, in a nature that had grown to such a height. Vainly
is the ivory parasol flourished in the face of the reader, who rejects it
as an unreality. But I speak under correction.
Whatever Paganism may be to art—and the late
Paganism Mr. J. A. Symonds thinks it is very good for it—
there is no doubt that it is absolutely fatal to creative literature. The
pure Pagan, the denying spirit, can have no ideal; it is not that he
asserts there is no God, but that he says there is no good; he knows
no inward vivifying spirit to produce moral progress; therefore for him
character cannot grow, it can only decay, like geraniums touched by
frost. This denying spirit, this Paganism, which acknowledges matter
because itself is material, and which denies soul and the
supernatural, sees in man a mere organism, bound in an eternal ring
of sense, a being whose deepest emotions are but animal instincts,
variously developed, and whose subtlest thoughts are but
emanations from an organ resembling curds; therefore it has only
the human animal for its subject in art and literature, and can depict
nothing in moral life but its decay. It has no clue to the growth of the
living organism, acknowledging not life but only death. Human
character is to this Paganism as the rapidly decomposing corpse
under the knife and microscope. It is this which in politics produces
Nihilism, Socialism, Anarchy, in literature what is known as Zolaism,
though Zola is but one of its products, and in France the poetry of
the decadence, the acknowledged idolatry of corruption; and it is this
which fills European fiction with unsavoury studies in morbid
anatomy in place of wholesome, vivifying pictures of living and
growing character. One can trace this sterilising influence in
Goethe’s life as well as in his works; one sees it beginning in George
Eliot, and continuing in the most ambitious English writers of the day;
but not in Mr. Hall Caine, whose work, with all its shortcomings, is a
protest against it, and who resolutely proclaims the soul of man and
his power to rise above his passions and make a stepping-stone of
his dead self to something nobler.
The art of
developing
B UT how acquire the art of developing
character in fiction? We may as well try to
character acquire blue eyes and straight noses, nature
having endowed us with aquiline features and
black orbs. It is, like the gifts of poetry and cookery, born with us or
unattainable, though, like those sources of so much solace to
mankind, it may and must be cultivated when present. The means
whereto are study and observation of life, and of great literary
masterpieces.
That pleasant and light-hearted writer, Mr. James Payn, probably
beguiled by the whisper of some tricksy demon, once, to his
subsequent acknowledged sorrow, sat down and airily indited an
essay in a leading periodical on fiction as a profession, in which he
asserted in that gentle and joyous fashion of his that, like any other
craft, that of novel-writing can be acquired by study and practice.
With a thoughtlessness that Christian charity would fain assume to
be devoid of guile, he even expressed an innocent wonder that a
profession so easy and inexpensive to acquire, and so delightful as
well as lucrative to exercise, was not more sought after by the
parents of British youth, who, worthy folk, to do them strict justice,
have never been backward in repressing the vice of scribbling in
their offspring. It would be unkind to dwell upon the error of Mr.
Payn’s ways. Nemesis, in the shape of letters during the next few
days from half the parents in the three kingdoms, demanding instant
instruction for sons (especially those who had failed in most other
things) in the elements of novel-writing, overtook that poor man, and
he did fit penance in a subsequent number of the periodical,
appearing there in all the humiliation of white sheet, ashes, and
taper, and duly confessing, if not his sins, at least his sorrow for their
results.
Those who T HE art of novel-writing is not to be picked up

along the primrose path, even when the gift is
should write present; nor is literature, especially in its higher
walks, a lucrative profession; it is, as of old, a
crutch, but not a staff. It is doubtless comparatively easy, a certain
knack being inborn and skill having been acquired, to reel off story
after story at the same dead level of mediocrity, but no writer has
produced many good novels, or ever will. The world is flooded with
fiction, chiefly worthless, but able by sheer volume to swamp the few
good novels that appear from time to time. People should never write
a novel or indite a poem of malice prepense. The only justification for
doing either is being unable to help it. Those novel-writers who can
create characters will develop them and thank heaven; those who
cannot will not, and let us hope they will thank heaven too.
THE SHORT STORY
Lanoe Falconer
T HE art of writing a short story is like the art of

managing a small allowance. It requires the The art of
same care, self-restraint, and ingenuity, and, like writing a short
the small allowance, it affords excellent practice for story
the beginner, as by the very limitations it imposes
on her ambition, it preserves her from errors of judgment and tastes
into which she might be hurried by fancy or fashion.
T HERE are many things lawful, if not expedient,

in the three-volume novel that in the short story What to avoid
are forbidden—moralising, for instance, or comments of any kind,
personal confidences or confessions. These can indeed be made so
entrancing that the narrative itself may be willingly foregone. The wit
of a Thackeray, the wisdom of a George Eliot, has done as much:
but these gifts are rare, so rare that the beginner will do well to
assume that she has them not, and to stick fast to her story,
especially if it be a short one; since on that tiny stage where there is
hardly room for the puppets and their manœuvres, there is plainly no
space for the wire-puller.
Even more cheerfully may be renounced those
Explanations dreary addenda called explanations. Nowhere in a
story can they possibly be welcome. At the end
they would be preposterous; at the beginning they scare away the
reader; in the middle they exasperate him. Who does not know the
chill of disappointment with which, having finished one lively and
promising chapter, one reads at the beginning of the next, “And now
we must retrace our steps a little to explain,” or words to the same
depressing effect? Explain what?—the situation? That should have
explained itself. Or the relation of the actors? A word or two in the
dialogue might do as much. More I, as the reader, do not wish to
learn. I am fully interested, I am caught in the current of the tale, I am
burning to know if the hero recovered, if the heroine forgave, if the
parents at last consented: I am in no mood to listen to a précis—for it
is never more—of the past events that prepared this dilemma, or of
the legal, financial, or genealogical complications by which it is
prolonged. With these dry details the author may do well to be
acquainted, for the due direction and confirmation of his plot; but the
reader has nothing to do with them, and in a work of art they are as
needless and as unsightly as the scaffolding round a completed
building, or the tacking threads in a piece of finished needlework.
Equally incompatible with the short story is that
fertile source of tedium, redundancy. “The secret of Redundancy
being wearisome,” says the French proverb, “is to
tell everything.” What then is the end of those who tell not merely
everything, but—if an Irish turn of expression may be permitted—a
great deal more? It is to encourage the practice of skipping in the
general reader, and—much to the detriment of more parsimonious
writers—in the reviewers as well. A large number of novels
picturesquely described as weak and washy, might be converted into
very readable stories by the simple process of leaving out about two
volumes and a half of entirely superfluous and unentertaining matter.
On the staff of an amateur magazine to which in
early youth the writer contributed, there was one “Phillup Bosch.”
most obliging and useful member whose business
it was to provide “copy” for the odd corners and inevitable spaces
between the more important papers. He wrote, you will observe, not
because he had anything in the world to say or tell, but because a
certain amount of space must at all costs be covered; and the
effusions thus inspired he signed with the modest and appropriate
pseudonym of “Phillup Bosch.” How often in fiction of a certain class
may even now be recognised the handiwork of this industrious writer,
always unsigned, indeed, at least by the old familiar name. The
sparkle of his early touch is gone, but his unmistakable purpose is
the same. The glamour of “auld lang syne” may to his old friends
endear these interpolations, but from a literary point of view it is
much to be desired that he would lay aside his pen for ever. And yet
it must be acknowledged that without his aid there are three-volume
novels that could never have been written. Fortunately, the short
story is independent of him.
Disadvantages T HE disadvantages of the short story become

more distinct when we consider its possible
theme. The crowded stage and wide perspective of the novel proper;
all transformations of character and circumstance in which length of
time is an essential element; even the intricately tangled plot,
deliberately and knot by knot unfolded—these are beyond its reach.
The design of the short story must itself be short—and simple. A
single, not too complicated, incident is best; in short, the one entire
and perfect action, that Aristotle—I quote from Buckley’s translation
—considered the best subject of fable or poem. To the writer might
well be repeated the stage-manager’s advice to aspiring dramatists,
quoted by Coppée in his Contes en Prose:
“If they come to me with their plays when I am at breakfast, I say
—‘Look here, can you tell me the plot in the time it takes me to eat
this boiled egg? If not—away with it—it is useless.’” The author of a
short story submitted to the same kind of test would have to be even
more expeditious.
I T may be observed that all these suggestions

are of a negative order, and concerned with “the
The art of
omission
tact of omission.” It is indeed of the first importance
in the composition of the short story. As a famous etcher once said
to the writer while she stood entranced before a study of river, trees,
and cattle, that his magic touch had converted into a very poem, an
exquisite picture of pastoral repose—“The great thing is to know
what to leave out.” It is part of that economy already insisted upon,
“to express only the characteristic traits of succeeding actions,” and,
as Mr. Besant exhorts us, to suppress “all descriptions which hinder
instead of helping the action, all episodes of whatever kind, all
conversation which does not either advance the story or illustrate the
characters.”
How this “essential and characteristic” is to be
Grasp of point distinguished from all around it is another matter. It
is a work that a great French master of the art
described as a travail acharné. But it is also very
Dramatic
instinct often made easy by native instinct, like that which
directs these born story-tellers—their name is
legion—of both sexes and all conditions, who never put pen to
paper, but who in hall or cottage, drawing-room or kitchen, nursery or
smoking-room, whenever they unfold a tale, hold all their audience
attentive and engrossed. Their method when analysed appears to
chiefly depend, first on their firm grasp of the main point and purport
of their story, next on their liberal use of dialogue in the telling of it. At
least thus do the listeners to one enchanting story-teller endeavour
to explain the dramatic flavour she imparted to the commonest
incidents of domestic life. For instance, this is what she would have
made of a theme so ungrateful as the fact that, the butcher having
sent too large a joint, she had returned it to him. For the benefit of
inexperienced housekeepers, it is perhaps as well to explain that a
fair average weight for a leg of mutton is declared by experts to be
nine pounds.
“Directly I went into the larder, I said, ‘Jane, what on earth is that?’
“‘Why, ma’am,’ she said, ‘it is the leg of mutton you ordered.’
“‘What!’ I said, ‘the small leg of mutton? Where is the ticket?’
“‘Please, ma’am, the butcher’s boy has not brought it.’
“I said, ‘Tell him to come into the kitchen.’
“When he came I made her weigh that leg of mutton before him. It
weighed eleven pounds four ounces!
“I said, ‘Take that back to your master, and ask him from me if he
calls that a small leg of mutton?’”
The expression, the intonation, and the, at times, almost tragic
emphasis, it is, unfortunately, impossible to reproduce; but even in
this colourless record we may admire the terseness and vigour, the
masterly beginning that at once arouses curiosity, and the truly
artistic reserve that does not by outcry or comment detract from the
force of the climax! Consider, too, how in some hands this simple
tale might have been embroidered and interrupted: by description of
the scenery outside the kitchen-window; by a minute account of the
lady’s family and connections, or of the previous history of the cook;
by a dissertation on joints in general and the story-teller’s favourite
dishes in particular, with other digressions too numerous to mention;
and by comparison you may divine what constitutes “the
characteristic” of a story.
Points to aim at I F now, seriously speaking, you review the tablets

of your memory and mark the scenes imprinted
there, you will see that whereas some figures, incidents, speeches,
and even details of the background are vivid as ever, others have
vanished away. Again, you will find that a conversation may be often
best reported, in fidelity to the spirit rather than the word, by
suppressing all the repetitions and superfluous phrases that
encumbered the actual dialogue. Lastly, if you attentively consider
the character of some one you know and understand, you may
discover that it is revealed and epitomised in certain particular words
and actions, and that by repeating these you might present a much
more striking portrait of the original than by a lengthy memoir of all
that he, or she, did and said in common with other people. Thus from
your own experience you may gather useful hints as to the kind of
condensation desirable for the short story. Others may, and ought to,
be acquired by the study of the best literature; but in this, as in every
form of creative work, the artist, in the beginning as at the end, must
draw his chief inspiration from life itself.
T HERE is one thing that the shortest story does

not exclude, and that is the highest artistic Literary
capabilities
ambition. That the length of any work can be no
measure of its importance or effect is best illustrated by such
masterpieces as the minor poems of Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, or
Tennyson. The literary capabilities of the short story, still in its
infancy, have yet to be discovered, probably by the very generation
of those to whom this paper is especially addressed. Therefore one
must the more earnestly entreat them to cherish the highest aims in
their writing, to lavish on it the greatest care. Nowhere can “signs of
weariness, of haste, in fact of scamping,” be so inexcusable as on
the miniature canvas, or ivory, of the short story. Rather it deserves
the finish of the finest cameo, of the most highly polished gem.
Finally, with that uncomfortable feeling that is apt to overtake one
after preaching, the writer is obliged to confess that all this advice is
easier to give than to follow, and concludes with the wish that her
young readers may
“Better reck the rede

Than ever did the adviser.”
ON THE ART OF WRITING FICTION FOR
CHILDREN
Mrs. Molesworth
No royal road T HERE is, we are told, no royal road to learning.

Is there a royal road to any good thing? Are
not hard work, more or less drudgery,
perseverance, self-control, and self-restraint the unavoidable
travelling companions, the only trustworthy couriers through the
journey to the country of success? I think so.
But the way is not always the same. None of the paths are “royal,”
in the sense of being smooth and flower-bestrewn; but beyond this,
similarity no longer necessarily holds good. To literary success, even
in its humbler departments, there are many and varying roads. Were
it not so indeed, the thing itself would be infinitely less worthy of
achievement. For if literary work is to be in any sense admirable, it
must be individual and characteristic; it is not of the nature of
manufactured goods; its essence must be of the author’s personality.
I WISH thus to preface the little I have to say of

possible service to others on that branch of Writing young
for the
writing as to which I am credited with some
experience—fiction for the young, more especially for children—
because, underlying any information or advice I can give, is the very
strongest belief in every writer taking his or her own path, trusting to
his or her own intuitions. Yet these intuitions, if I may be forgiven an
apparent paradox, must be those of a cultivated taste, a thoughtful
intellect, an imagination all the more luxuriant from having been well
pruned. Therefore before beginning to write, even for childish minds,
I would urge upon young authors to see well to their own mental
possessions. You cannot “give” out of nothing, and if you would give
of the best, with the best must you be furnished. Read the best

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Part One Introduction to Writing 1

Chapter 1 Learning to Write 3

Chapter 2 What Makes Writing Effective? 19

Chapter 3 Writing in School: An Introduction 29

Part Two Planning and Drafting 43

Chapter 4 Choosing Topics and Getting Started 45

Defeating Writer’s Block 60

Chapter 5 Thesis, Purpose, and Audience 74

Chapter 6 Style and Tone 87

Making the Tool 100

Chapter 7 Organization: Mapping, Outlining, and Abstracting 106

Part Three Revising and Editing 131

Chapter 8 The Spirit of Revising 133

Making Your Own Tools 135

Chapter 9 Beginning, Ending, and Titling 148

Chapter 10 Peer Feedback 161

Chapter 11 Editing 175

Part Four Forms of Writing: Three Key Genres 203

Chapter 12 Personal Writing 205

Finding an Argumentative Prompt 248

Chapter 15 Writing an Argument, Stage 2: Selling the Case 268

Find a Dramatic Structure 277

Part Five Academic Writing 287

Chapter 16 Research 289

Chapter 17 Using Sources 298

Chapter 18 The Academic Research Paper 313

Part Six A Collection of Good Writing 331

Author Index 402

HOW THE BOOK IS LAID OUT

KEEP ON WRITING IN THE REAL WORLD

OTHER UNIQUE FEATURES

How to Succeed in School

HOW TO GET A GOOD GRADE

I T may be said that all this art-study is

Silas Marner M ANY passages might be quoted to illustrate

George Eliot AS we read her work, we know that unless this

I N Kidnapped, the defence of the cabin on board

“Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille,

There is nothing so constant, and in one sense so unchanging, as

Power to create I F the power to create and develop character is

M ICHAEL Angelo, at first sight of it, said to

We expect them to go on living; we look out for Colonel Newcome’s

W HAT fine development there is in Lucia and

Those who T HE art of novel-writing is not to be picked up

T HE art of writing a short story is like the art of

T HERE are many things lawful, if not expedient,

Disadvantages T HE disadvantages of the short story become

I T may be observed that all these suggestions

Points to aim at I F now, seriously speaking, you review the tablets

T HERE is one thing that the shortest story does