Short Story Writing, Charles Raymond Barrett [cool books to read .TXT] 📗

had worn since her wedding day. But this evening an old superstition had strangely recurred to her. It used to be said in her younger days that if anything were amiss with a corpse—if only the ruff were not smooth or the cap did not set right—the corpse, in the coffin and beneath the clods, would strive to put up its cold hands and arrange it. The bare thought made her nervous.

37. "Don't talk so, grandmother," said the girl, shuddering.

38. "Now," continued the old woman, with singular earnestness, yet smiling strangely at her own folly, "I want one of you, my children, when your mother is dressed and in the coffin,—I want one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face. Who knows but I may take a glimpse at myself and see whether all's right?"

39. "Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments," murmured the stranger youth. "I wonder how mariners feel when the ship is sinking and they, unknown and undistinguished, are to be buried together in the ocean, that wide and nameless sepulcher?"

40. For a moment the old woman's ghastly conception so engrossed the minds of her hearers that a sound abroad in the night, rising like the roar of a blast, had grown broad, deep and terrible before the fated group were conscious of it. The house and all within it trembled; the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if this awful sound were the peal of the last trump. Young and old exchanged one wild glance and remained an instant pale, affrighted, without utterance or power to move. Then the same shriek burst simultaneously from all their lips:

41. "The slide! The slide!"

42. The simplest words must intimate, but not portray, the unutterable horror of the catastrophe. The victims rushed from their cottage and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot, where, in contemplation of such an emergency, a sort of barrier had been reared. Alas! they had quitted their security and fled right into the pathway of destruction. Down came the whole side of the mountain in a cataract of ruin. Just before it reached the house the stream broke into two branches, shivered not a window there, but overwhelmed the whole vicinity, blocked up the road and annihilated everything in its dreadful course. Long ere the thunder of that great slide had ceased to roar among the mountains the mortal agony had been endured and the victims were at peace. Their bodies were never found.

43. The next morning the light smoke was seen stealing from the cottage chimney up the mountainside. Within, the fire was yet smouldering on the hearth, and the chairs in a circle round it, as if the inhabitants had but gone forth to view the devastation of the slide and would shortly return to thank Heaven for their miraculous escape. All had left separate tokens by which those who had known the family were made to shed a tear for each. Who has not heard their name? The story has been told far and wide, and will forever be a legend of these mountains. Poets have sung their fate.

44. There were circumstances which led some to suppose that a stranger had been received into the cottage on this awful night, and had shared the catastrophe of all its inmates; others denied that there were sufficient grounds for such a conjecture. Woe for the high-souled youth with his dream of earthly immortality! His name and person utterly unknown, his history, his way of life, his plans, a mystery never to be solved, his death and his existence equally a doubt,—whose was the agony of that death moment?

THE END

INDEX Action: implied by plot, 45; of characters, 102; advanced by speech, 107; advanced by preliminary climax, 177. Adjectives, 197. Adverbs, 198. Allegory, 29. "Ambitious Guest, The:" as paradigm, 46; observes unities, 48, 150-152, 154; "elemental" or "true" plot of, 58; "theme" of, 58; "skeleton" or "working plot" of, 59-61; facts in, 90-93; characters in, 97; compression of dialogue in, 115; beginning of, 134, 146; scene of, 144; suspense in, 162; preparation for climax in, 167-169; climax of, 172, 183; conclusion of, 183; text of, 234-249. Author, intrusion of, 120-122. Balance, 160. Beginning: crucial test, 132, 146 148; length of, 132; introduces foundation facts, 132-138; dilatory, 138-140; prefatory, 141; locates scene, 143, 145; best method of, 146. Best twelve American short stories, 24. "Bookish" conversation, 109. Burlesque, 39. Chapters, 149. Characters: names of as titles, 72, 76; necessity of, 94; based on fact, 94; composites, 95; descriptions of, 96, 98-102; characteristics of, 97, 102; appearance of, 97; active, 102; few, 103; interest in 104; names of, 105; speech of, 106-116; models, 118. Character Sketch, 32. Character Study: defined, 32; Dialect Story related to, 33; plot of, 48. Classification of Short Stories: use of, 26; Tale, 27; True Story, 27; Imaginative Tale, 27; Moral Story, 28; Fable, 28; Story with a Moral, 29; Allegory, 29; Weird Story, 30; Ghost Story, 30; Fantastic Tale, 31; Study in Horror, 31; Character Study, 32; Character Sketch, 32; Dialect Story, 33; Parable of the Times, 35; Instructive Story, 35; Story of To-day, 36; Story of Ingenuity, 36; Story of Wonder, 37; Detective Story, 37; Humorous Story, 38; Nonsense Story, 38; Burlesque, 39; Dramatic Story, 39-41. Climax: how estimated, 161; preparation for, 161-170, 177-179; logical and inevitable, 165; anticipated, 166, 169; too obvious, 166; in "Ambitious Guest," 167-169; in stories of premonition, 169; as a test, 171; defined, 171; length of, 172; proper, 172; position of, 173; ends suspense, 174; not tragic, 175-177; preliminary, 177-179; "false" or "technical," 179-182; coincident with conclusion, 183. Collections of short stories, 41-44. Commonplaces: in title, 71; not literary, 86; in dialogue, 110, 112-114; in style, 191-195. Conclusion: defined, 171; length of, 182; coincident with climax, 183; padded, 184; conventional, 185-188. Conversation: see Dialogue. Crane, Stephen, style of, 200. Criticism, 222, 231. Curiosity, 161. Denouement: see Climax and Conclusion. Description of characters, 96, 98-102; of scene 143, 145. Detective Story: defined, 37; plot of, 48. Dialect, 117. Dialect Story: defined, 33; as literature, 116. Dialogue: advances action, 106; modern use of, 107; natural and interesting, 108; "bookish," 109; commonplace, 110, 112-114; attempted humor in, 111; unimportant, 115; in Dialect Story, 116-118; introduces foundation facts, 134. Diary, narration by, 125. Dickens, Charles: search for types, 78; intensified characters, 96; names of characters, 105. Didacticism: inartistic, 157; veiled, 158. Double titles: sensational, 72-74; too long, 75. Drama: tendency toward, 107; influence of, 175. Dramatic Story: defined, 39; in Form, 40; in Effect, 40. Editor: method of approaching, 223, 228; needs of, 224, 225-227; letter to, 229, 230; opinion of, 231; rejection by, 232, 233. Elaboration of facts, 89. Elemental Plot: defined, 58; in "Ambitious Guest," 59. Element of Surprise: defined, 162; genuine, 165. Element of Suspense: defined, 161; relief of, 162-164, 177-179; ended by climax, 174. End: see Conclusion. Epistolary form, 125. Epoch of the Short Story, 12. Fable, 28. Facts: source of plots, 50; in fiction, 78; acquisition of, 78, 84; familiar, 80; unfamiliar, 80, 81; about society, 81; historical, 82; utility of, 84; use of, 86, 87; not strange, 86; plausibility of, 89; suppression and elaboration of, 89; in "Ambitious Guest," 90-93; characters based on, 94; introduced in beginning, 132-138. False Climax, 179-182,