-"Beginning, Middle, and End"--The
Sub-Plot--Discursive and Compacted Narratives--Telling Much or
Little of a Story--Where to Begin a Story--Logical Sequence and
Chronological Succession--Tying and Untying--Transition to the
Next Chapter.

=Narrative a Simplification of Life.=--Robert Louis Stevenson, in his
spirited essay entitled "A Humble Remonstrance," has given very
valuable advice to the writer of narrative. In concluding his remarks
he says, "And as the root of the whole matter, let him bear in mind
that his novel is not a transcript of life, to be judged by its
exactitude; but a simplification of some side or point of life, to
stand or fall by its significant simplicity. For although, in great
men, working upon great motives, what we observe and admire is often
their complexity, yet underneath appearances the truth remains
unchanged: that simplification was their method, and that simplicity
is their excellence." Indeed, as we have already noted in passing,
simplification is the method of every art. Every artist, in his own
way, simplifies life: first by selecting essentials from the
helter-skelter of details that life presents to him, and then by
arranging these essentials in accordance with a pattern. And we have
noted also that the method of the artist in narrative is to select
events which bear an essential logical relation to each other and
then to arrange them along the lines of a pattern of causation.

=Unity in Narrative.=--Of course the prime structural necessity in
narrative, as indeed in every method of discourse, is unity. Unity in
any work of art can be attained only by a definite decision of the
artist as to what he is trying to accomplish, and by a rigorous focus
of attention on his purpose to accomplish it,--a focus of attention so
rigorous as to exclude consideration of any matter which does not
contribute, directly or indirectly, to the furtherance of his aim. The
purpose of the artist in narrative is to represent a series of
events,--wherein each event stands in a causal relation, direct or
indirect, to its logical predecessor and its logical successor in the
series. Obviously the only way to attain unity of narrative is to
exclude consideration of any event which does not, directly or
indirectly, contribute to the progress of the series. For this reason,
Stevenson states in his advice to the young writer, from which we have
already quoted: "Let him choose a motive, whether of chara