have no trouble
in writing each one within his space, but he will have trouble in
getting them published, for each will be lacking in essential fictional
value, the capacity to interest. Here I can make only general statement,
and it is impracticable to dwell on the fact that real and highly
individualized characters will invest a simple story with all the
interest of a more complicated fiction. The general truth, however, is
that the interest of a tale lies in the problem it presents and solves,
that a problem involves complication and diversity, and that a writer
may go astray who seeks only the dramatically unified and simple plot.
His work will interest a reader if he creates real people, but the
capacity to do so is a rare faculty. At the bottom of it, a story, long
or short, is a sequence of events; they should not be too simple, for,
apart from the human element, simplicity presents no problem to awaken a
reader's interest.

The sole limitation upon the complexity and diversity of the short story
as a whole is the difficulty to develop in few words a plot complicated
as to personality, event, place, or time. Accordingly, the plot suitable
for a short story will tend to be simple, but it need not be so simple
that the events, apart from the people, will not awaken interest.
Moreover, the unskilled writer who has experienced the difficulty to
develop an interesting plot in few words will be astonished by the
results of a little forethought and careful planning before writing.
Elimination and suppression of inessential and relatively unimportant
matters will enable him to set forth adequately, though in a few words,
a story of real body and interest.

The whole discussion should awaken realization of the fact that the
short story is the most difficult form of prose fiction. To the general
difficulty of all fiction it adds the difficulty that whatever is done
must be done in a few words. The writer of novel or romance has only to
interest, and his space is practically unlimited. The short story writer
must interest, and he must interest in few words and pages. He must
depend solely on his story; he has space for nothing else. He should
remember that each item of unessential matter given place by him will
lessen by just so much the number of words available to give the real
story verisimilitude and consequent interest and appeal. To take the
conceptive aspect of it, in devising a short story he should remember
that