Building with the Emotions

No good short-story was ever written without a thorough knowledge of the emotions. They are stable interpreters of character, being unchanged since the first chronicle of feeling; and they are world-wide in their scope of being understood, comprehensible alike to the civilized and to the uncivilized. Yet like many other common and well-known thing0 they are very difficult to analyze and even more difficult to portray in perfection. This analysis is, however, necessary,. and some sort of classification compulsory before one can go into the business of short-story writing.

It is, indeed, a business, and a very complicated and difficult business; a business that has to be handled with the greatest of care. One can not trust to his own emotions to decide, for these are not in the process of action at the time, and if they were he would be too much excited to write anything at all. He must have some sort of curriculum of feeling, then, for his course, or he will sound only partial harmony and disconnected interpretations of character.

On the plane of physical feeling there is a comparison with that of the mental. Two people have tasted a new fruit; one likes it and the other does not. Does it taste the same to both and one likes the taste and the other does not; or does it taste different to one from what it does to the other?

Idealists would say that the inner consciousness should decide, and materialists would claim that the variation was to be attributed to the sense organ and that the taste was different. The dispute will probably never be settled in this day and age, but it illustrates the point that there is on the lowest scale of emotion, viz., simple sensation, a consideration of an inner, or subjective, and an outer, or objective means of interpretation.

In the higher plane of feeling take hate, not used in an intense or limited sense, but in its comprehensive character as the emotion that is opposed to an object or thought, that disapproves or dislikes ; and see how it may express itself openly, visibly, or objectively, as irascibility, insolence, sullenness, pouting, pugnacity or revenge. There is also an inward or subjective condition which does not show itself by visible, or audible, or perceptible expression, but like envy, jealousy, malevolence, resentment or detestation. There is an inner hate and an outer hate, both feeling, but one seeming to come more to the surface than the other.

Love, used in a general sense, expresses itself objectively as pity, forgiveness, benefaction, respect, endearment; and subjectively as gratitude, benevolence, sympathy, yearning, longing, or fascination.

The same question arises here as with the taste of a new fruit: do the inner rise from the outer emotional states, or are the outer but the reflection of the inner?

As a matter of real importance to the short-story writer the decision of that question of fact is of short importance compared with the consideration of the fact itself, that there are really the two planes of emotional consciousness. He has to concern himself mainly with the discovery that there are certain outward expressions of emotion, or certain emotions that express themselves outwardly more easily than others, and also those others which seem to lie too deep for visible tokens—so deep that they can not rise, or so intense as to choke the fountains of expression; and so they must be expressed by signs of kindred feeling, and by emotions that are not identical with their own feeling. Thus a jealous feeling prompts sullenness, irascibility, cruelty, or revenge in its outward expression of emotion. It is a strong feeling and often gives rise to terrific expressions.

The inner consciousness of fear may be found in such states as those of timidity, awe, horror, dread, apprehension, or dismay ; while the outer expresses itself, it may be, in effeminacy, terror, frenzy, alarm, blenching, desperation, sneaking, cowardliness, or fright. There is, indeed, a most striking contrast between the expressions of horror and terror or frenzy. Horror has no tongue; it is choked, silent, numbed, paralyzed and inefficient; but terror can scream and take to its heels, and in the more extended states of frenzy it can fight like a demon, can strike and bite, and even strangle to the death.

For practice the student should make lists of the different forms of expression to the principal emotions, such as love, hate, joy, sorrow, courage, fear, cruelty, pity, avarice, pride, etc., and then mark each of these as subjective or objective. He may still further test the accuracy of these lists by writing after each of the subjective how it is discerned by means of the visible states; and of these how many forms of physical expression it may give vent to. It will be found an interesting and instructive exercise. When he has made a properly classified list for reference he may apply it to some incidents like the following:

Buying a lottery ticket.

Receiving an appointment.

Making a date.

Giving a note.

Paying a long-delayed debt.

Writing a long letter.

Crowd the incident with interest by applying strong, contrasted emotions, paint them true to their outward expressions, and the events will be forced upon you before you know it. In the first there may be hope and fear, doubt and deceit, joy and sorrow. The characters may be white men or black, red men or yellow, but if the emotions are given sufficient momentum the interest is bound to be awakened and that is half of the victory.

The gain by such a curriculum of emotion may be summed up as follows:

I.    In characterization. It enables the writer to pick out naturally and efficiently the indices of his characters and to give these proper expression. He can make those silent blocks of marble character to shine with the light of living personality by knowing what forms of outward expression give vent to the great silent passions of the soul.

II.    In the shading of the story. He can give to the lighter forms of feeling the touches that will render their importance and influence adequate and no more. He can, on the other hand, paint with sufficient strength the boiling, fiery fury of the stronger emotions, and raise these to the elevation of great passions.

III.    In depicting emotion. His own mental or emotional states are not of sufficient power at the time of writing to enable him to judge of the best manner of expression. He does not love with the passion of the hero, nor hate with the fury of the rival. He can not, even in imagination, call up these feelings, not approximately; how can he then rely upon his own feelings? He may remember how he felt at some time in the past; but that was under different circumstances and with different people. Even if he were able to call up these strong passionate states he would be so choked with emotion that he could not sit down to the calm task of transcribing those feelings on paper. He would be stamping the floor or possibly deluged with tears.

Actors say that they can not act well the parts where they really feel the emotion that they are portraying and feel it in all of its force and intensity. Lovers who really love the leading lady are not as good actors as those who merely assume the virtue. Singers, too, feel the necessity of relying upon all the effects of tone coloring, crescendo and de-crescendo and other marks of expression as means of portrayal of emotion rather than by attempting to call up the real feeling, which would soon choke utterance and destroy the pleasing qualities of song.

There is a feeling, though, even if it is not the real one; it is like the reflection of the roseate lights on the eastern sky of a summer's evening of that which was blazoned in full splendor on the downward path of the western sun. It is only a reflection, never the real sunset glow, and its beauty and truth are not altered because it is a reflection. It is genuine, for what it really stands for is not the real thing, but a portrayal of the real thing, the depiction of the emotion.

IV.    In construction of crises. The great points of a story depend not upon themselves as isolated facts for their interest or importance; as bald facts they are of no more account than are any of the common occurrences of everyday life; but it is when these crises are surrounded by a wealth of feeling that they become strong and weighty. They can not carry the interest of the reader unless his own emotions have been kindled and carried along with ever-increasing force to the end.

V.    An aid to the imagination. The strain on the mind in constructing men and women with human thoughts and feelings, and then making these through cross-purpose or plot produce events, is often very great. The construction of the plot alone may entirely exhaust the imagination of the writer and he have no power left to attend to all those details of fancy—that seem so easy when read—and yet that are really what makes the story readable. If the emotions are already outlined and the general plan of the story known, it is a pleasure to let the fancy trim these with silken tassels and gold ornaments.

VI.    As a deterrent to the imagination. There is danger, also, that when that firebrand of enthusiasm, the imagination, is once started, it will carry too great a conflagration. It is quite a hopeless task to sit with willing pen but with no sign of a flowing thought; but it is even more hopeless to find an excess of mental imagery, such an excess as will draw from the really possible story all that would make it of interest or salable. Fancy is quite apt to run riot unless it has some kind of a check upon it. This is furnished when the emotions are classified, both as to their scale of importance in the story and as to the general trend of their expression. One can not very well overdo or "slop over" if he knows just how much he is expected to carry. If he does, he can test his work by the unerring standard of his own classification. He has something, at any rate, to go by that is of better worth than the petards of his own imagination.

VII.    In a definite plan of action. Doubtless all writers have felt that if they only had some definite plan of action, if they could only find the secret spring which when touched brings out the full-fledged story, then they could produce stories without number and get rich very quickly. It is, indeed, more than remarkable how very limited a number of stories are produced yearly by the great story-writers of the day. They have been approximated at from twelve to fifteen. To make such a number bring anything like a livelihood, these writers must ask what seems like exorbitant prices for their work. 

It has been said that stories are like children of the body, only a few can be born in a limited space of time. To a certain extent this may be true, true that only one story at a time can be built profitably in the human mind's construction house, yet if the forces of that mind were trained to rise at the completion of every effort and given the natural food for creation of other subjects, they would not need to lie thus fallow and dormant. It is possible by generous cultivation and proper direction so to maintain the creative faculties of the mind as to give them unbounded possibilities.

The great amount of work turned out by Cyrus Townsend Brady is due to his having a definite plan of action. His stories are not all the same; outwardly they vary more than those of his contemporaries who furnish a very much smaller amount of literary work. He knows just what every emotion counts for, he knows it from its mountain source to the great ocean of its universality; and he varies its course only by the surroundings that he gives to it in its onward rush. He is no more a master of this method than any other man can be. He has no divine right to it, yet he seems to be the one who, at present, knows how, oh, so accurately and well, to build the short-story with the emotions. "Go thou and do likewise."