whom it affects. Most stories
might be told without a single word of strict description, and no such
word should be given place in any story unless it will forward the
fiction to a higher degree of verisimilitude.

It follows that descriptive matter should not be written pages at a
time. Its function is to lend body and color to the whole course of
events, therefore descriptive touches should be inserted throughout the
whole course of a story. To give an itemized description of a character
at the start, or to picture the whole countryside through which the
story is to move, is a poor, because ineffective, way to write. Not only
will the reader be repelled by great spaces of description, but he will
forget the attempted picture with speed. The thing to do is to insert a
vivid word here and there where it will do the most good as the story
progresses. Description is for the story, not to give the writer a
chance to heap words.

Numerous successful authors have indulged in lengthy descriptions, but
the worth of their books does not result from the indulgence. Hugo's
description of mediaeval Paris in "Notre Dame" is an example so extreme
as almost not to be in point, but most of the elder generation of
writers hampered the march of their stories by describing at inordinate
length. No matter what the eminence of those who have written so, it is
a technical fault, for it tends to render the story stiff and mechanical
and unnatural. Lengthy description is not only inimical to a reader's
interest; it is perfectly useless in a fictional sense. The sole
function of description is to give body and reality to the story, and
that function cannot be performed unless the descriptive quality runs
through the whole, and the descriptive matter is not gathered into
stagnant pools of words.

Much of the effect of the story of atmosphere may depend upon its
descriptive matter, which may constitute a great part of the whole text.
The fact does not invalidate the general proposition. In discussing the
various aspects of technique, such as this matter of description, the
initial assumption is that only the technique of the normal story will
be stated. The normal story is the story of complication of incident,
where interest centers in the course of events rather than in the people
or the setting. Variants from it, the story emphasizing character and
the story stressing atmosphere, by their very difference call for a
different handling of e