cter or
passion: carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an
illustration of the motive, and every property employed shall bear to
it a near relation of congruity or contrast; ... and allow neither
himself in the narrative, nor any character in the course of the
dialogue, to utter one sentence that is not part and parcel of the
business of the story or the discussion of the problem involved. Let
him not regret if this shortens his book; it will be better so; for to
add irrelevant matter is not to lengthen but to bury. Let him not mind
if he miss a thousand qualities, so that he keeps unflaggingly in
pursuit of the one he has chosen." And earlier in the same essay, he
says of the novel: "For the welter of impressions, all forcible but
all discreet, which life presents, it substitutes a certain artificial
series of impressions, all indeed most feebly represented, but all
aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of the same idea, all chiming
together like consonant notes in music or like the graduated tints in
a good picture. From all its chapters, from all its pages, from all
its sentences, the well-written novel echoes and re-echoes its one
creative and controlling thought; to this must every incident and
character contribute; the style must have been pitched in unison with
this; and if there is anywhere a word that looks another way, the book
would be stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller without
it."

=A Definite Objective Point.=--The only way in which the writer of
narrative may attain the unity that Stevenson has so eloquently
pleaded for is to decide upon a definite objective point, to bear in
mind constantly the culmination of his series of events, and to value
the successive details of his material only in so far as they
contribute, directly or indirectly, to the progress of the series
toward that culmination. To say the thing more simply, he must see the
end of his story from the beginning and must give the reader always a
sense of rigorous movement toward that end. His narrative, as a matter
of construction, must be finished, before, as a matter of writing, it
is begun. He must know as definitely as possible all that is to happen
and all that is not to happen in his story before he ventures to
represent in words the very first of his events. He must not, as some
beginners try to do, attempt to make his story up as he goes along;
for unless he holds the culmination of his series constan