hat end.
This is well illustrated by the _Character Study_, in which the real
interest centers in the analysis and exposition of a character, and the
plot is incidental. In many classes of stories, as we have already
observed, the plot is used only to hold the narrative together, and the
interest depends on the attractiveness of the picture presented. The
plot must not be allowed to force itself through the fabric of the
story, like the protruding ribs of a half-starved horse; but must be
made to give form and substantiality to the word-flesh which covers it.

In _Detective Stories_, however, the plot is all-important, for the
interest depends entirely upon the unraveling of some tangle; but
even here it must contain but a single idea, though that may be
rather involved. Such stories are really much simpler than they
appear, for their seeming complexity consists in telling the story
backwards, and so reasoning from effect to cause, rather than vice
versa as in the ordinary tale. The plot itself is simple enough, as
may be proved by working backward through Poe's "The Murders in the
Rue Morgue." This is, by the way, a method of plot-making which is
often, and incorrectly, employed by novices in the construction of
any story. It has been aptly called "building the pyramid from the
apex downward."[12] It results from an exaggerated conception of the
importance of the plot. But it is not so much _what_ the characters
do that interests us, but _how_ they do it.

"The true method for the making of a plot is the development of what may
be called a plot-germ. Take two or three characters, strongly
individualized morally and mentally, place them in a strong situation
and let them develop.... There are hundreds of these plot-germs in our
every-day life, conversation and newspaper reading, and the slightest
change in the character at starting will give a wide difference in
ending.... Change the country and the atmosphere is changed, the
elements are subjected to new influences which develop new incidents and
so a new plot.... Change any vital part in any character and the plot
must be different. One might almost say two plots thus developed from
the same plot-germ can have no greater resemblance than two shells cast
up by the ocean."[13] "In the evolution of a plot the main things to be
considered are that it shall be reasonably interesting, that it shall
not violate probability, and that it shall possess some originality
either