Plotting the short story

The plot is the story-idea boiled down to the very bone, or, in other words, the synopsis of the story as we have evolved it in our minds and as we hope to see it materialize when we put our pens to paper to give it definite and immortal form. It has been said, and truly, that the plot bears the same relation to the story that the bony system bears to the human body.

The writer who follows our method and commits his plots to paper, may at first view the result a little dubiously. The working plot is so short, so concise, that its importance is apt to be overlooked unless one has an exact understanding of the part it plays in story-writing. On first appearance, indeed, a working plot may seem to have been created for no OTHER purpose in the world than to shackle the writer’s pen and hold him down to a definite word-length. A three-thousand word story from a two-hundred word plot! Possible, of course; but what is the great idea? thinks the novice. Why waste time carving out a series of threadbare ideas when the story itself is begging to be written? These questions are soon answered when the author begins the not always easy task of writing his story. Only by experience will he learn to appreciate what it means to have a definite route mapped out for his pen to travel over when he begins to write. Experience is a hard teacher, and in the writing game it has taught us that writing a short story without a working plot to lend us material as well as moral support, is a very difficult task indeed—like eating tripe the chef forgot to cook, for instance.

Needless to say, the working plot is not designed to cramp the author’s style of writing or limit the scope of his ideas. Far from it. The function of the working plot is to keep the writer’s stream of words flowing along in the right direction and make the ideas those words seek to express cohesive. Without a working plot, an unwritten story is an unexplored wilderness of hazy ideas, and it is the duty of the working plot to blaze a way through that wilderness and keep the writer from wandering around in circles after he enters its confines.

Compared to the story itself, the plot of even the longest story is very brief indeed, but it is elastic and subject to different degrees of expansion. The word-length of a story to be written around a given plot depends entirely upon the author. Some writers have a diffusive style of writing, others are very sparing of their words; and an author is sure to adhere to his own particular style when he begins the process of elaborating a plot into a story. Give two writers the same plot and the chances are they will produce stories varying many hundreds of words in length.

Although we have at this time no intention of entering the sacred precincts of story-writing, except in its relation to the plot, the word-length of stories falls, we believe, well within our sphere of consideration, and, as the subject is an important one, it might be well to comment further upon it.

The modern short story calls for speed and snap. We have made this remark before, but, if one is to judge by the number of spineless manuscripts that swell the average editor’s daily mail, it will bear repetition many times. The story must be placed before the reader with trip-hammer strokes. Readers who seek mental relaxation in short stories are usually busy people who read in much the same manner that they eat—“quick-lunch” style. They have not the time to wade through pages of rambling descriptive matter or absorb weighty paragraphs of philosophic reflection. They refuse to be instructed; they want to be amused, and like their stories served up piping hot, as it were.

In writing the short story, therefore, the author should be succinct, but never, of course, to the point of sacrificing clearness. If his style of writing is diffusive, he should either try to cultivate a more direct and pointed style or turn to one of the literary forms offering a wider range for expression than the short story. With some exceptions, of course, short stories by novelists are apt to bore the reader to the point of distraction. The reason is that most novelists have a diffusive style of writing, and verbiage is out of place in short story writing. The beginner should not ignore this fact. It is one of the secrets of successful short-story authorship that has cost many a writer dearly to learn. “Brevity is the life of the short story,” O. Henry said, and he knew whereof he spoke.

The short story should not be confused with the novelette. At the very outside, the short story is limited to eight thousand words, while the novelette may run up to twenty-five or thirty thousand words. If the first draft of a story runs over the prescribed number of words, as it often will, the writer should steel his heart and wade in with the pruning-shears—or, rather, pencil. Most experienced authors revise their stories several times before they submit them to magazines, and consider that they have done a good day’s work when they succeed in cutting a five-thousand word story, say, down to three thousand words or less. Revising a manuscript is a heart-rending task until the writer learns to look at his work from an impersonal and critical standpoint. It is hard to rip out beautifully formed sentences and paragraphs one has labored and sweated over, but at times very necessary; and the writer may expect no mercy from the unfortunate editors he inflicts with his manuscripts until he learns to weigh word values accurately and impartially. There are, of course, a few magazines that publish nine and ten-thousand word stories which they are pleased to term SHORT, but an analysis of these stories will show that most of them are either novelettes or very verbose short stories which only the exalted names of the authors succeeded in “putting over.”

It will be seen, therefore, that while the working plot itself places no restriction on the word-length of a story, the writer should always endeavor to keep himself within the established bounds: nor should he ever leave the word-length of a story to chance. The author should study the plot and come to some decision in regard to the matter before the story is begun. This calls for good judgment. Each part of the plot must be weighed separately, because the word-lengths of the different parts vary. It is simply a matter of values that can be learned only by experience. The most finely proportioned plot can be made into a very lopsided story by a careless writer. Proportion in story-writing, be it said, is as essential as it is in plot building.

In trying to determine the proper word-length of a story to be written, the author should first size up the plot as a whole and decide what is, in his opinion, the least number of words it will take for him to write it into an interesting and convincing story. He should then try to determine the proportionate value of each part of the plot and estimate the number of words it will take to give it expression. If his judgment is frequently in error, let him not be dismayed. Even the trained writer cannot always SENSE the proportionate values of the different parts of a plot before he begins to write, but when he gets the story in rough draft he is able to see the plot in perspective, so to speak, and can then judge the importance of each part accurately. This applies to the beginner as well as the old-timer. Which means that the writer must expect to revise, and revise, and revise. Then, after he has done his best, he can only commit his story to the mails and leave the rest to fate—and the editors.

In casting about for a story to illustrate the relation of the plot to the story, two considerations have guided us in making a selection; first, the space-limits of our little book, and second, our desire to select a story that would clearly illustrate the point we wish to make. The story we have chosen is tersely told and the plot is very simple; it is therefore, we believe, well suited to our purpose. The story was first published in the New York Sun several years ago, and is reprinted here by permission of the editors of that paper.

The plot for this story was worked out by the methods described in the preceding chapters. The germ-plot from which it was developed was a one-line heading: “Man Steals To Keep Wife From Starving.” We have not deemed it necessary to give here our analysis of this basic idea, as the process for developing a plot-germ into a working plot has already been fully explained; but we have introduced a copy of the plot we evolved from the idea in order that the writer might follow us step by step over the course of its elaboration into a short story.

The writer should make a study of this working plot and either memorize it or refer to it from time to time during his perusal of the story that we have written around it. We make this suggestion because we are anxious for the literary aspirant to see exactly how each separate part of the plot was built up in the story, and how the several sections were joined together. Only in this way can he hope to arrive at a fair estimate of the value of each part of the plot and gauge the relative importance of the word groups connecting the different sections; and he must be able to do this if he desires to understand the part each section plays in giving the story UNITY and PROPORTION.

Later on the novice would do well to write a story of his own around the plot and compare it with the version that appears below. If the result is satisfactory, he can then begin the building of new plots with confidence. The story as we have written it contains approximately one thousand words. The writer should strive to keep his version of the story within this word-limit, and then see if he can, in his own opinion, improve upon it by increasing the word-length to sixteen or eighteen hundred words. If convenient, he should then get some disinterested literary expert to read the several versions and comment upon them, for criticism, when it is sincere and constructive, is one of the young writer’s most valuable assets. Even the most hardened free-lance welcomes it because it fattens his bank-account, and this, be it known, he considers the sweetest and most beautiful thing in the world.

WORKING PLOT

(First incident of plot development) A man stages a highway robbery in order to procure money to buy food and medicine for his ill wife. (First moment of suspense) He holds up a pedestrian. (Cause of Crisis) With the money he relieved his victim of, he buys food and hurries home. (Crisis) He finds his wife dead. (Second incident of plot development) Believing that God deprived him of his wife to punish him for the sin he committed, he resolves to wash the sin from his soul by reimbursing the man he robbed. (Second moment of suspense) Having, after many hardships, accumulated sufficient money to do this, he sets out to find the victim of the hold-up. (Crucial situation) His untiring efforts are at last rewarded and he locates the man for whom he has been searching. (Cause of Climax) He steps forward to make amends. (Climax) The man proves to be a detective and places our erring hero under arrest. (Denouement and conclusion) The detective tells him the money he stole was counterfeit.

There is one very important point in the foregoing plot to which we desire to direct the writer’s attention before he takes up the story that follows. We have reference to the OPENING. It will at once be perceived that the inciting motive of this plot is the necessity that drives the man to crime. But as our story was to be very short, we wanted to jump at once into the action of it, and avoided opening the plot with the inciting motive, which would have called for at least one introductory paragraph, by starting off with the first incident of plot development and explaining in the very middle of it what the story was all about. And this, as we have already remarked, is always a good plan to follow when the story-idea is flexible enough to permit of it.

GOD’S WILL

First incident of plot development.

Joshua waited, crouched behind the clump of shrubs, until the man was directly opposite him. Even then his courage almost failed him; but he suddenly remembered the wife who lay in the cold, bare room at home, dying for the want of proper food to nourish her poor emaciated body, and without further hesitation sprang out on the sidewalk and thrust his unloaded revolver in the man’s face.

First moment of suspense.

“Hands up,” he said huskily.

The man stopped, laughed, and elevated his hands.

“A hold-up?” he asked genially.

Joshua nodded.

Descriptive: the robbery.

“I am sorry to—to inconvenience you,” he stammered, as he slipped his hand in the man’s pocket and drew forth a roll of bills. “But—but my wife—I will only take a little.”

“Oh, help yourself,” said the other, looking at Joshua curiously. “A new hand at the game, eh?” he added.

“My first offense.”

“Well, let it be your last,” said the man dryly. “Your hand is too unsteady for this kind of work.”

Joshua selected a hundred dollar bill from the roll of greenbacks and thrust the rest back into the man’s pocket.

“Thank you,” he said wearily, “and goodnight.”

Anticipatory: Suggesting a reflex of developments.

“Au revoir,” said the man with a queer laugh, “but NOT GOODNIGHT.”

Cause of crisis.

As he turned the corner and disappeared in the gloom, Joshua threw his useless revolver from him and made his way rapidly down the street, the hundred dollar bill clutched tightly between his numb fingers. At the corner grocery he paused long enough to purchase a plentiful supply of dainties for Mary, and then hurried on through the cold streets to her bedside.

Crisis. Explanatory: Showing how the crisis reacted on the principal character.

When he reached home his wife was dead.

“It is God’s will,” he whispered as he knelt by the bedside. “This is my punishment for the great wrong I have done this night. But I will right myself in the eyes of God and Mary. This, too, is God’s will, and God’s will be done.”

Descriptive: Aftermath of crisis.

On the following day he buried what remained of the woman he loved, using the rest of the hundred dollars to give her a decent burial. After the funeral he did not return to his home. He felt that he could never again enter the room where he had knelt on the bare floor by the side of his wife through that long night of anguish. Mary was dead now; home was a thing of the past.

Second incident of plot development.

So he turned his face toward the city and started out in search of work. For he now had but one purpose in life, and that was to earn one hundred dollars by the sweat of his brow to reimburse the man he had robbed. For this was the Great Sin, he thought, that he must wash from his soul before he was ready to stand in the presence of his God and Mary.

Descriptive: Paving the way to the second moment of suspense.

Throughout the winter he toiled at what odd jobs he could pick up, for work was scarce and his unkempt appearance barred him from many doors that might otherwise have been opened to him. But he found work of a kind, and though he was but poorly paid, he thanked God for each copper he dropped into the dirty tobacco bag he carried pinned under his shirt, smiling bravely the while at the hunger that often pinched his cheeks and the cold gusts of wind that whistled through his threadbare clothes. For in thought he found much of his food, and the eyes of Mary, which ever smiled down upon him, gave him warmth.

Second moment of suspense.

At last arrived the great day when he had accumulated one hundred dollars, and he set himself the task of finding the man he had wronged. He did not know exactly how to go about it; but he set forth trustingly, confident that his reward would come to him in due time.

Descriptive: Showing the difficulties Joshua encountered in the second phase of his task.

Day after day he patrolled the streets scanning the faces of the passing throng. His unkempt figure soon became familiar in alley and on boulevard alike, and as he limped by on his tireless way many a man and woman gazed into his pinched face and wondered at the expression they found stamped thereon.

Descriptive: Leading up to the crucial situation.

The days passed and winter merged into spring, and still Joshua marched on toward his goal. The bleak days and nights had used him hardly; his clothes were rags; his shoes hung to his feet by shreds; his cheeks were hollow; his eyes glazed; but his determination was as firm as on the day he had started out on his quest, and if he at times faltered as he limped about the town, it was because of weakness of the body and not from unstability of purpose.

Crucial situation.

And then one day he found The Man. The instant Joshua saw him as he came out of a little cigar store, he knew that his quest was ended. For he could never forget the face of the man he had wronged; it had been stamped on his brain by the weight of anguish.

Cause of climax.

For an instant he was so overcome by joy that he could not move or speak; then he stepped quickly forward and touched The Man on his arm.

“One moment, please,” he said huskily.

The Man stopped and looked at him sharply.

“Well?”

Joshua cleared his throat.

“Months ago,” he said, “I wronged you—”

“Ah, I remember you,” said The Man quickly. “I am a detective and I never forget a man’s face.” He dropped his hand on Joshua’s shoulder. “You are under arrest for highway robbery.”

Climax.

Joshua smiled happily.

Opening the way for the denouement and conclusion.

“That is God’s will,” he said, “and I will go with you gladly. But first let me return the hundred dollar bill—”

Denouement and conclusion.

“Oh that,” said The Man with a laugh. “Forget it. The bill was a counterfeit.”

END

The Republican Publishing Company
Hamilton, Ohio