ner, who has not the facile practice of his
art at his fingers' ends, is to treat the first draft of his story as
merely tentative and an aid to development.

ORDER OF EVENTS

The discussion of plot and situation in the preceding chapter was
pointed to emphasize the importance of the constructive phases of
technique. A plot is not merely a climactic sequence of events or
happenings; a plot is some human struggle, some conflict between opposed
forces, that finds concrete expression in a climactic sequence of
events; and an infinite number of persons and incidents may be devised
to give specific expression to a single fundamental plot idea. Having
fixed upon a plot, the writer of fiction should realize precisely what
is the human problem or struggle involved, and should consider just what
sort of characters and just what sort of incidents will give most
effective, most interesting expression to the particular story idea.
This he should be the more ready to do because a story usually comes to
mind ready formed as a series of events, and only infrequently is the
first combination the best, that is, the one which will present most
forcefully the underlying plot, struggle, problem, or essential story
idea. The writer of fiction has for material vast infinity of imaginable
characters and imaginable events; he should manipulate that material to
a narrowly specific end, the end of giving most effective expression to
his particular story idea or plot. In other words, he is an artist, and
must devise and re-devise, select and reject, arrange and re-arrange
that with which he deals.

Another condition of his art requires the fiction writer to master the
technique of construction and always to practice it before approaching
his strictly executive task of writing. A story is usually more that a
mere physical spectacle, more than a sequence of physical happenings.
Each event, each situation is fictionally significant or interesting by
virtue of its relation to the natures or spirits of the persons
involved. Through the physical tissue of what happens runs the psychical
thread of personality, relating part to part and rendering the whole
indeed one story. A story is a thing of spiritual values as well as a
physical spectacle, and it cannot be written adequately by visualizing
its events and following them with the pen. Some part of its spiritual
value rests in necessary implication from what happens, but not all. The
rest must be