..never qualify or
elaborate a trait or episode, merely for the sake of preserving
the effect of the character's full reality." And thus the story
is to be subdued to the service of the climax as the body of man
to his brain. But what these writers upon the short story do not
tell us is that efficiency of this order works backward as well as
forward. If means are to correspond with ends, why then ends must
be adjusted to means. Not only must the devices of the story-
teller be directed with sincerity toward the tremendous effect he
wishes to make with his climax upon you and me, his readers; but
the interesting life which it is or should be his purpose to write
about for our delectation must be maneuvered, or must be chosen or
rejected, not according to the limitation which small space
imposes, but with its suitability to the "formula" in mind. In
brief, if we are to have complete efficiency, the right kind of
life and no other must be put into the short-story hopper. Nothing
which cannot be told rapidly must be dropped in, lest it clog the
smoothly spinning wheels. If it is a story of slowly developing
incongruity in married life, the action must be speeded beyond
probability, like a film in the moving pictures, before it is
ready to be made into a short story.
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