story before writing, also to discuss and re-shape these with the class,
stating their outstanding values and weaknesses. The general endeavor
should be to impress upon each student the fact that the material of
fiction is infinitely plastic, so that he should shape and re-shape his
conception before writing until he is certain that he has exhausted its
possibilities. The matter of verbal execution should not be given any
great emphasis simply because it cannot be treated in class with any
great profit. The instructor can say that this passage is bad and that
good, hardly more. But a poorly constructed story can be taken apart and
rearranged more effectively, and the process can be grasped by the
student because it is somewhat mechanical. Furthermore, the technique of
fiction and the technique of verbal expression are different matters,
and the instructor in the first will be wise if he leaves the matter of
nice expression to the instructor in the second. Of course, obvious
verbal crudities in class work should be pointed out.

The real service that a course in technique can perform for an earnest
student is threefold. It can lead him to realize keenly that the aim of
fiction is to interest, that this aim can be attained most completely by
presentment of a human conflict or problem, and that adequate fictional
presentment of such a conflict, problem, or plot is to be achieved only
by a cunning blending of the elements of personality, event, and
setting. That course in fiction technique is the best course which does
the most to open the eyes of the student to the essential nature of the
art and most definitely shows him the matters he must bear in mind in
putting together a story. If he leaves the hands of the instructor with
a knowledge of the fundamentals of construction, the instructor will
have done well.

APPENDIX C

TO WRITE A STORY

CONCEPTIVE TECHNIQUE

(1) Find your story, a fiction exhibiting personality in
conflict with its environment, with another personality, or with
itself.

(2) Realize precisely what constitutes the plot--what opposition
between what forces of personality or nature is the influence
which gives fictional significance to the sequence of incidents
or events that have first come to mind as the story.

(3) Realize the characters, major and minor; that is, discover
just what attributes of theirs must be developed by direct
statement or