View Point

A vital element in the modern short-story is its view-point. This is a fact which beginners do not appreciate, and which even old stagers find it hard to learn. As a result, beginners and old stagers alike suffer.

In this present day, the story-teller no longer describes, explains, discusses and analyzes his characters, nor does he conclude by drawing a moral from their acts. His art has reached a higher plane. He tells simply what they do; and in so doing, lures the Reader, that one great, impersonal Reader, who typifies the vast army of readers, into inferentially describing, explaining, discussing, analyzing and moralizing. It is by his ability to lure the Reader, unconsciously, for the nonce, into the place of the leading character and to persuade him that that character's actions and emotions are his own, that the story-teller's success must be gauged. To that Reader, the story must appear as something which actually happened; it will appear actual only in so far as the Reader feels, at the moment of perusal, that he is actually experiencing the events depicted. In the hero's place for the time being, he must thrill with the same hopes, be weighed down by the same despair, face the same doubts, conquer the same difficulties, achieve the same triumphs. In so far as the Reader is led to this pass, the story is successful; in so far as he falls short of reaching it, the story fails.

How is the Reader to be led to this pass ?

In the present advanced stage of his art, the story-teller must take hold of a single character, and follow that character's acts, thoughts and emotions from beginning to end of the story. For this purpose he may choose the hero, the heroine, or the villain. The choice is free. To this one central character, all other characters appearing in the story must be, to a greater or less degree, incidental, they having parts in the story only so far as they influence the acts, thoughts and emotions of the central character. The writer must look at the story with that one character's eyes, depicting it as that one character sees it; and what that one character does not see has no place in the story, and must be rigidly excluded.

The Reader, skillfully lured into putting himself into the place of the hero, is naturally annoyed if, when the story is half finished, he finds himself called on to take the part of the heroine; and he is not only annoyed, but bewildered and disgusted, if, at the denouement, he is switched to the role of the villain. If he were really Tom, as the author at the outset had led him to believe, he would not in the middle of the plot be transformed into Mamie; nor would he, at the climax, become Don Miguel Montero. No; if he were Tom at the outset, Tom he would remain right up to the fall of the curtain.

As Tom, it was natural for him to know what were Tom's thoughts when he talked to Mamie. He knew, also, what Tom himself said, and what Mamie said and did, and he drew his own inferences. He did not know, however, what were Mamie's thoughts and what inferences Mamie might be drawing at precisely the same moment. Therein lay a certain vital, essential element of suspense, without which there would have been no story.

If the author gives the Reader Tom's thoughts and Mamie's thoughts side by side, or if he gives Tom's thoughts first and Mamie's afterwards, he does not make things clearer, though that is usually what he intends; instead, he only bewilders the vision and beclouds the senses. He detracts from the effect of his climax by anticipating it; he chloroforms the element of suspense, wherein is the veritable life of the story. The Reader feels that the finished product lacks something of completeness. Very possibly he has no precise knowledge as to what that particular something is; yet he knows just the same that it is lacking, and the knowledge is sufficient to impress him with the fact that he has just been robbed of the best part of a good story.

It is essential, therefore, for the author at the very outset to choose his view-point. Is the story to be depicted as the hero sees it, or as the heroine sees it, or as the villain sees it? That is the question which confronts the author. In order to answer it, he must put himself, in turn, in the place of each character, and must see for himself from which view-point the incidents he intends describing will present the most striking pictures. Having chosen this view-point, he must hold to it throughout, till the curtain falls upon his dramatic climax.

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