Working Out a Story

Sometimes a story, complete and perfect in every detail, and needing only to be typewritten and sold, flashes into the author's consciousness as Minerva sprang full armed from the brain of Zeus. More often a story seed in the shape of a striking incident or a bit of conversation is deposited in the fertile soil of his mind, germinates, grows, and in time, with proper cultivation and pruning, becomes a salable manuscript. But the author who makes his living by story writing can not afford to depend upon either of these uncertain methods, but must be able to work out, from material always at hand, one story after another with the same regularity that a blacksmith makes horseshoes from a bar of steel. To do this he must not only work every day and work hard, but he must have a system by means of which he can manufacture a creditable story without one iota of inspiration to help him.

The following is such a system. It is not perfect but it may be adopted profitably by those who have been trying to get on without any system at all, and it may suggest improvement or modifications to those who have a working system of their own. There has been no attempt to expand the treatment of the various topics to the fullest extent, but some amplification has been necessary to make the scheme fully intelligible.

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