dream, and
so at odds with all the world.[U] As stated, all great fiction is
adequately plotted simply because it shows real people faced by the real
problems of life. The plot of a story of worth stands for its author's
effort to isolate one of life's significant elements or problems, and,
by showing it in high relief, to invest it with that certain dignity and
momentousness, as of life raised to a high power, whereby a reader may
be laid under a spell more absolute than any to which the confused and
shifting spectacle of life itself can subject him. In the last analysis,
great fiction does more than to interest; it whispers to a reader of the
significance and worth of human life, and heartens him to live his own.

FOOTNOTES:

[T] In a sense, the mind is of the body rather than of the soul, where
it functions in the common business of life.

[U] Dostoievsky's "The Idiot" should be compared with "Don Quixote," for
the fundamental theme of each book is the same.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX A

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STUDENT

It is surely obvious that the only way to learn how to write is--to
write. The only way to learn how to do anything is to try until the
secret is conquered, and the more difficult the feat or art the longer
must be the apprenticeship.

Stepping from abstract study of technique to the actual writing of a
story is a violent transition. The student has only a very general
knowledge, and now he must give it narrowly specific application. He has
read a brief discussion of the mechanics of the art of describing a
person, for instance, has read Stevenson's description of Villon and his
fellows; now he himself must write a description of Napoleon or Lizzie
Smith or John Arthur McAllister; and he desires to write as well as
Stevenson.

The only thing to do is to go at the task patiently and with courage.
Put the best of you at the moment into each thing you undertake, but do
not expect each single item of your work to show an appreciable advance,
and do not be discouraged if each thing you do seems as poor or no
better than what has gone before. Your first, second, tenth, or
fifteenth story may be patent trash, in point of execution, but never
mind. After a year or so of intelligent and directed writing the results
of your study and application of technique will begin to appear. It is
impossible that they should show themselves at once, for technical
study will cramp and constrain you until yo