types of story, it is true, in that a story
may emphasize any one of its elements of character, of complication of
incident, or of atmosphere. But the story which depends for its appeal
on the novelty or intrinsic significance of the bare succession of its
events is somewhat rare; at least it is true that fiction concerns man
primarily, and in the normal story, or, better, in the story which the
necessities of plot-structure most frequently produce,[E] the man is as
important as the event. Since the person is as important as the event,
the persons involved in any significant situation of a story must be
developed as well as the situation itself. The aim is to give the
situation maximum effect, and the concern of the writer is not so much
to develop character, strictly, as to give the body of reality to the
whole story. It is about human beings, and, however novel and
interesting the plot, unless they are given some of the vivacity and
concreteness of real men and women the fiction will be devoid of the
breath of life. The first sort of preparation builds up the physical
situations of a story; the preparation now under discussion builds up
its people.

Nothing is more common than for the beginning writer to devise or
discover an eminently worthy plot idea, and nothing is more uncommon
than for him to utilize it to the full and develop it adequately. The
reason for the failure is simple. The better the plot, the more humanly
significant its situations. They are so very significant, in the case of
the fine plot, that the beginning writer is led to think that his only
task is to outline them. But merely to outline a significant situation
or event will not give it the emotional force that fiction must possess,
otherwise the newspaper would be read in tears. The event must involve
real people, if the emotion of a reader is to be aroused. A newspaper
item may state that Mary Smith has committed suicide because deserted by
her lover, but though the casual reader will realize intellectually and
abstractly the pathos of the situation, his emotion will not be stirred
unless he is a more sensitive human precipitate than most readers. To
move his heart, rather than his mind, some particular Mary Smith, like
no one else in the world, must walk a living presence through the story
built about such a theme. The difference is between merely reporting
events and picturing life.

Like most other matters of technique, this of giving indivi