sole recourse is
vividness in narration. The physical details are few, but they must be
made strikingly impressive. Where an event is essentially complicated,
a knot of many details, emphasis may be laid by detailed narration, by
expansion, and proportion will not be violated. In the case of the
important but inherently simple event there are no great number of
details to be marshalled on the page, and the writer can only strive to
invest his few words with power.

The writer should consider the matter of proportion in allotting the
space of a story before writing, as has been stated. In writing, the
mere fact that he follows events in detail with his pen will lead him to
emphasize by expansion, where the subject matter naturally calls for
that mode of securing emphasis. Where expansion is impossible on account
of the absence of details to be narrated, the writer's realization of
the importance of the event will lead him to cast about for the vivid
word. That is to say, in dealing with the important events of a story
the way to write is to visualize the procession of happenings and to
follow them with the pen in detail, seeking the vivid and emphatic word
where the event is vivid and emphatic. When the event is a bundle of
many details, setting them down will emphasize the episode by expansion;
and where the event is simple, and a mere detail in itself, as a blow,
vividness in narration will counterfeit the force of the episode.

Normally, the succession of chief events will take up the greater part
of the space available for a story, and, if the work of construction has
been done properly before writing, the writer will have his attention
free to visualize each successive happening and to picture it. The
difficulty will be to express perfectly. The process is natural. It
cannot be too strongly insisted that the way to write the strict story
part of a story is to strive to see the thing in imagination and to get
it on paper with the breath of life in it. By following his vision with
his pen the writer will take care of the matters of proportion and
emphasis without detached calculation looking to that end.

But that is not quite true in narrating secondary events and writing
general matter of transition, the part of a story that gives the main
events a natural sequence and proper spacing, or that develops
character. The main events exist only for the story; they are the story.
The secondary events and matter of trans