It is a pleasure to acknowledge, in this connection, the suggestions and the criticism of Mr. William N. Otto, Head of the Department of English in Shortridge High School, Indianapolis; and the courtesies of the publishers who have permitted the use of their material.

INTRODUCTION

I

REQUIREMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY

Critics have agreed that the short story must conform to certain conditions.  First of all, the writer must strive to make one and only one impression.  His time is too limited, his space is too confined, his risk of dividing the attention of the reader is too great, to admit of more than this one impression.  He therefore selects some moment of action or some phase of character or some particular scene, and focuses attention upon that.  Life not infrequently gives such brief, clear-cut impressions.  At the railway station we see two young people hurry to a train as if fearful of being detained, and we get the impression of romantic adventure.  We pass on the street corner two men talking, and from a chance sentence or two we form a strong impression of the character of one or both.  Sometimes we travel through a scene so desolate and depressing or so lovely and uplifting that the effect is never forgotten.  Such glimpses of life and scene are as vivid as the vignettes revealed by the search-light, when its arm slowly explores a mountain-side or the shore of a lake and brings objects for a brief moment into high light.  To secure this single strong impression, the writer must decide which of the three essentials—­ plot, character, or setting—­is to have first place.

As action appeals strongly to most people, and very adequately reveals character, the short-story writer may decide to make plot pre-eminent.  He accordingly chooses his incidents carefully.  Any that do not really aid in developing the story must be cast aside, no matter how interesting or attractive they may be in themselves.  This does not mean that an incident which is detached from the train of events may not be used.  But such an incident must have proper relations provided for it.  Thus the writer may wish to use incidents that belong to two separate stories, because he knows that by relating them he can produce a single effect.  Shakespeare does this in Macbeth.  Finding in the lives of the historic Macbeth and the historic King Duff incidents that he wished to use, he combined them.  But he saw to it that they had the right relation, that they fitted into the chain of cause and effect.  The reader will insist, as the writer knows, that the story be logical, that incident 1 shall be the cause of incident 2, incident 2 of incident 3, and so on to the end.  The triangle used by Freytag to illustrate the plot of a play may make this clear.