y will be to find a natural place for these indicative
speeches. The primary necessity in fiction writing is to be unforced and
natural, and a character cannot be made to say words indicative of his
inner nature unless he would naturally utter them under the influence of
the circumstances of the moment. Here, again, the way to write is to get
into the skin of the person involved, to live the story vicariously in
his person, and, when events would naturally call from him words
revealing his pertinent trait, to transcribe them. Primarily, a story is
a story, and its writer must meet all its necessities within its
limitations.

Lack of space forbids giving examples of the revelation of character by
speech. Dickens will prove a profitable study in this connection. The
words of Pecksniff, for instance, reveal as much of the soul of
Pecksniff as we need to know. All good stories, in greater or lesser
degree, display the method in use.

The second use of his characters' words to the writer of fiction is to
individualize them. It is not a matter of content, but one of manner.
Irrespective of what the person says, the way he says it, if unique,
will serve to increase the definition of a reader's conception of him.
If a character is made to stutter, he will gain in actuality and
concreteness for a reader. The instance is coarse, but will serve to
indicate what is meant. Dickens is unrivalled in his capacity to employ
this device, although the writer of a short story or relatively compact
novel will meet difficulties in following Dickens' technique of
characterization. The "demmit" of Mantalini, the "dispoged" of Sairey
Gamp, the greasiness of Chadband's words, the rounded periods of the
immortal Micawber give a reader the greater part of his idea of each
person.

This sort of characterization may well be called description. The aim is
not to reveal the person's inner nature--though the content of a
mannered speech may do that, of course--but to add to the definition and
reality of any attempted picture of the person by calling in the sense
of hearing. Unlike the effect of descriptive words on a reader, the
effect of written speech is nearly primary, though it lacks something of
the freshness and impressiveness of the spoken word. Writing descriptive
of a character and his mannered words function together to individualize
the person for a reader. The people of a story must be made to appear to
be real men and women, if the fict