About
The Short Story, as they call it, with capital letters, our critical
American cousins have much to say. Its germ, one fancies, is usually an
incident, or a mere anecdote, according to the nature of the author's
brain; this germ becomes either the pearl of a brief _conte_, or the seed
of a stately tree, in three volumes. An author of experience soon finds
out how he should treat his material. One writer informs me that, given
the idea, the germinal idea, it is as easy for him to make a novel out of
it as a tale--as easy, and much more satisfactory and remunerative.
Others, like M. Guy de Maupassant, for example, seem to find their
strength in brevity, in cutting down, not in amplifying; in selecting and
reducing, not in allowing other ideas to group themselves round the
first, other characters to assemble about those who are essential. That
seems to be really the whole philosophy of this matter, concerning which
so many words are expended. The growth of the germinal idea depends on
the nature of an author's talent--he may excel in expansion, or in
reduction; he may be economical, and out of an anecdote may spin the
whole cocoon of a romance; or he may be extravagant, and give a capable
idea away in the briefest form possible.
These ideas may come to a man in many ways, as we said, from a dream,
from a fragmentary experience (as most experiences in life are
fragmentary), from a hint in a newspaper, from a tale told in
conversation.
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