hen the short story writer finds a hint for a
story he should consider whether he can bring out with his few thousand
words all the matters necessary to the fiction's having full effect on a
reader, but the less he frets about any abstract unity or singleness of
effect the better. The words have a plausible sound in discussion, but
they mean nothing, except in relation to the story of atmosphere. It
means something to say that the dramatic short story should possess
unity of tone; it means something to say that it should possess unity of
style; but it means nothing to say that it should possess unity, simply,
unless the dramatic unities are meant, and in that case the statement is
false. Some short stories happen to possess the dramatic unities; more
do not.

By the very nature of the conceptive process the writer seizes his story
ideas in terms of persons, events, or atmosphere. And when he has a
definite story idea he first should develop it so as to give it maximum
effect, and then should consider whether he must write a short story or
novel or romance to give his developed idea adequate expression. The
writer who starts with some abstract knowledge of fiction technique, and
seeks to vivify rules of construction into a definite story, will
accomplish very little. Good stories are not conceived that way, and
good writers do not go to work that way. The story is the thing, and it
does not lie between the covers of this or any other book on technique.
It lies in the people and events the writer sees in reality or in
imagination, and to find it the writer must turn to life or to his
dreams. After the story is found the writer's knowledge of and facility
in technique will come into play in the work of development and
execution.

The broad outlines of the technique of the dramatic short story were
implied in the statement that it will tend to involve relatively few
shifts of setting, relatively short spaces of time, relatively few and
relatively simple events, and relatively few persons. Its unity of
tone--which is characteristic of the short story, dramatic and of
atmosphere--results from its simplicity as to persons, events, and
setting, and its unity of style results from its unity of tone. The
elements of the short story are less complex than those of a longer
fiction, and the fact causes all the modifications in the general
technique of fiction as manifested by the short story. In the short
story, for instance, ther