idual; in
describing a scene, also, the writer should seek to bring out its unique
quality. That quality should be sifted out and realized in imagination,
and then the writer should search diligently for the few telling words
that will precipitate it. As the story moves on, men, women, and
children, houses, ships, and electric cars, streets, deserts, and
smiling fields, will come beneath the writer's pen. And they must all be
given reality, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the story.

FOOTNOTES:

[K] A good deal of abstract statement might be made as to the
description of persons, but the main considerations have been stated.
The whole philosophy of this phase of technique rests on the necessity
that every line of a story be given as much as possible of the
concreteness and vivacity of life. It is useless to give a long
description of a character once and for all when he first comes up in a
story. Even if a reader gains a sharp impression therefrom, he will not
carry it with him through the succeeding events involving the character.
His first impression of the person must be kept alive by repeated
descriptive touches, not so much because the person must be described
adequately as because every part of the story must have the body of
life. The distinction is fine, but real, and perhaps may be made clearer
by imagining a reader witnessing an event in which a friend is involved.
He knows his friend, as he can know no character in a story;
nevertheless he sees him uninterruptedly as the event develops. To
counterfeit the process in a story, descriptive touches as to the
persons must be interspersed with the narrative matter, though the
persons have been described already. A story should describe persons in
action and repose.

CHAPTER IX

SPEECH

Potency of Dialogue--Mechanical Distribution--Naturalness--
Directness--Dialect--Situation--Three Resources to Meet
Demands of Situation--Physical Effect--Ellipsis--Elements
of Language--Style--Verbs of Utterance--Transcription of
Speech for it Own Sake--Creative Process.

When the writer of a story is not using narrative or description, he
will be transcribing the speech of his characters. And in the matter of
transcribing speech the writer of fiction has a chance comparable with
that of the dramatist and the practitioner in the graphic arts. The
effect of narrative or description upon a reader is secondary and
derivative; the effe