od, also with a number of
different colored inks or crayons. Read a story through a couple of
times, that you may know definitely what it is, and then read it again
critically, underlining every word, except those which serve only to
forward the progress of the story as a mere course of events, and
striking out every word or passage which seems to you inessential to the
whole. Use a single color to mark a single process, and neglect the
superficial character of the words, whether they be narrative,
descriptive, or serve to embody dialogue. Thus, dialogue may serve to
forward the progress of the story as a course of events, in which case
it should not be underlined, may serve to characterize, in which case it
should be underlined with the color taken to mark characterization, or
may serve to touch in setting, in which case it should be underlined
with the color taken to mark any passage where the author strives to
touch in the environment. It will not be profitable to be too minute, to
employ too many colors; the matters you will require to make visually
distinctive are not many. Straight narration, including the whole
physical progress of the story, whether detailed or general, requires no
color; characterization, including the process of individualizing a
person as to his nature, as to his appearance, and as to his speech,
requires one; the process of touching in setting requires another; the
process of preparing a reader emotionally for succeeding events requires
a third; the process of intensifying atmosphere--if the story is of
atmosphere--requires a fourth. And mark each passage in accordance with
its main purpose or function, for many passages will subserve more than
one end.

A number of stories treated in this way will be most profitable to
study. In particular, each one will display graphically and yet in
detail wherein lies its value as a fiction, whether in its people, in
its events, or in its setting, and will show plainly the cunning
blending of elements which is at once the fact and the result of the
technique of construction.

In the second place, you can exercise your faculty of construction by
closing the decorated book or magazine and trying to reproduce two or
three of the stories you have studied. In doing this no effort should be
made to transcribe from memory; realize, rather, the basic theme of each
story, the general character of its people, and the main course of its
events, and strive to prod