in the third person he also adopts the personal viewpoint of the
character of whose soul he assumes knowledge, if he does so as to the
soul of only one. This is the case, with a shifting personal viewpoint,
when the writer assumes knowledge of the minds and souls of several
characters, but not of all. Assuming knowledge of the soul of a
character necessarily involves looking at the world through his eyes. It
results that the only real impersonal viewpoint is to write in the third
person and either to renounce all knowledge of motives or to assume
knowledge of all events and the spirits of all the characters, when the
reader will gain the impression of an impersonal relator rather than of
a shifting personal viewpoint. The point is of no great importance, but
realization of it may be of some slight service. In particular, if the
story is told in the third person, but from the viewpoint of a single
major character, universal knowledge of events cannot be assumed.

[H] The writer should strive to realize this fact. The necessity is not
to make the reader accept a story as literal truth, but to make him
accept it as fictional truth. Many of Poe's stories are unbelievable,
but their power is felt to the full though they are not believed. In
other words, the reader will grant the author his premises.

CHAPTER VII

EXECUTIVE TECHNIQUE OF NARRATION

Narration Method--Story of the Commonplace--Story of the
Bizarre--Vividness--Suspense--Emphasis and Suppression--
Matter of Weight--Expansion and Vividness--Primary and
Secondary Events--Transition--General Narration--Blending
of Elements.

The writer who has discovered a good plot, so that his interest will not
flag in writing, and who has fully developed the conception, so that he
can have a single eye to execution, will meet few obstacles in setting
down the whole story. Difficulties there will be in plenty, but they
will be self-imposed. That is to say, it will be very easy to give the
justly elaborated conception expression approximately adequate, but it
will be very hard to give the conception verbally faultless expression.
If the writer strives merely to tell the story, the labor of writing
will be slight; if he strives to write with artistry and power, it will
be infinitely great.

This book is on the technique of fiction writing, not on the technique
of writing; my aim is to discuss only the matters of technique peculiar
to the art of fict