Читать книгу The Lure of the Pen: A Book for Would-Be Authors - Flora Klickmann - Страница 9

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There is one aspect of life that can only be learnt by observation; a phase of your training where books and lectures can be of but little assistance to you. Important as it is that you should note the material things relating to your subject, it is still more important that you should train yourself to note the psychological bearings and the spiritual values of life, since these are often of far more vital consequence to a story than the plot.

By "spiritual values" I do not necessarily mean anything of a directly religious quality. I use the term to signify the revelation of mind and heart and soul of the various characters that a writer presents, as distinct from a catalogue of externals; the reading of motives, and the recognition of the forces that are within us, as distinguished from the chronicling of superficial items.

The Unseen that Counts

So often in the world of men and women around us it is the unseen that counts. Just below the surface life is teeming with motives and aims and ideals and personality; with problems that involve mixed feelings, and produce paradox and misjudgment, and apparently irreconcilable qualities. These may show scarcely a ripple on the outside, and yet be the real factors that are shaping lives, and influencing the world for better or for worse, and, incidentally, affecting the whole trend of a story.

To gauge these abstract qualities and their consequences accurately is the biggest task of the writer; and according to the amount of such insight that he brings to bear on his subject, will be the durability of his work, since this alone is the part that lives. Fashions and furniture, scenery and architecture, maps and dynasties, laws and customs, even language and the meaning of words, all change; and the older grows the world, the more rapid are the changes. The only things that remain unaltered are the laws of Nature and the longings of the soul. Hence the only writings that last beyond the changing fashions of the moment are those that centralise on these fundamental things, giving secondary place to ephemeral details.

If you want your work to live, it is useless to make the main interest centre in something that will be out-of-date and passed beyond human memory within a very little while.

This insight as to the subtleties of life is the quality that gives vitality to your writing. Without it your characters will be no more alive than a wax figure in a draper's window, no matter how handsomely you may clothe them in descriptive matter. Have you ever read a story wherein the heroine seemed about as real and alive as a saw-dust-stuffed doll, and the hero had as much "go" in him as a wooden horse? I have, alas! thousands of them! And the reason for the lifelessness was the lack in the author of all sense of "spiritual values."

A knowledge of the inner workings of the mind and heart and soul can only be acquired by close and constant observation. You may remember in Julius Cæsar, where Cæsar tells Antonio that if he were liable to fear, the man he should avoid would be Cassius; he describes him thus: "He is a great observer, and he looks quite through the deeds of men." It is just this power that the writer needs—the ability to look past the actions themselves to the motives that prompted them.

It is so easy to record the obvious. What we need to look for is the truth that is not obvious. For instance, at first sight it may seem quite easy for us to decide why a person did a certain thing. A woman makes an irritable remark. Why did she make that irritable remark? Bad temper! we promptly reply. But perhaps it wasn't bad temper; it may have been due to ill-health—a bad tooth can generate as much irritability in half an hour as the worse temper going. Or it may have been caused by insomnia; or by nerves strained to the breaking-point with trouble and anxiety. Or the speaker may have been vexed with herself for some action of her own, and her vexation found vent in this way.

If you were writing a story, the cause of her irritability might be an important link in the chain of events. And in scores of other directions, the cause of an action might be infinitely more important in the working out of your plot than the action itself.

Moreover, if you want your work to appeal to a wide and varied audience, you must take as your main theme something that is understood by all conditions of people; something that makes a universal appeal. That is why the greatest writers make the human heart the pivot of their stories, as a rule. Readers are primarily interested in the doings of, and the happenings to, certain people; and very particularly the motives that led up to the doings and happenings, and the reasons why certain things were said and done, and the psychological results of the sayings and doings.

The Main Theme should make a Universal Appeal

In the main, it is not of paramount importance to you, when you are engrossed in a story, whether the scene is laid in Japan among decaying Buddhist temples, or in a Devonshire village. It is the personality of the characters, their sorrows and joys, their struggles and love affairs, and the solution of their human problems that make the chief claim on your interest. Certainly, the scenery and "local colour" and inanimate surroundings may influence you favourably or otherwise—backgrounds and the general "setting" of a story are valuable, more valuable than the amateur realises; nevertheless, they are not the main features, and should never be made the main features in fiction.

Once you grasp the importance of the "spiritual values," in life itself no less than in writing, you will understand why it is that some books survive centuries of change and social upheaval, and appeal to all sorts and conditions of temperaments. When we study Shakespeare at school, we invariably wonder in our secret heart (even though we daren't voice such heresy!) what on earth people can see in him. To our immature intelligence he can be dulness itself, while his style seems long-winded, and many of his plots appear most feeble affairs beside our favourite books of adventure. We are not sufficiently developed and experienced in our school days to be able to understand and appreciate his greatness, which lies in his amazing knowledge of the human heart and his grasp of "spiritual values."

Life is ever offering New Discoveries

One of the fascinating things about life is the way it is for ever offering us new discoveries. We never need get to the end of anything. There are always heights beyond heights, depths below depths, further recesses to penetrate, fresh things to find out. And nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than when we come to the study of human nature itself. The writer who strives to depict men and women as they really are is always coming on new surprises; he never arrives at the end of his observations. And he soon realises how infinitely more important are the subtle workings of the heart and mind than all the material things that crowd the outside surface of life.

To write convincingly one needs Sympathy

To be able to write convincingly about people, we must know them; to know them we must live among them, and sympathise with them—for there is no other way to know and understand the human heart. It is very easy to ridicule people's weakness, and make cheap sarcasm over their failings; but it is useless to make your observations with a cynic's smile. The cynic really gets nowhere; he merely robs life of much of its beauty, giving nothing in its place.

To write about people so that we grip the hearts of all who read, it is necessary to look beyond the superficial weaknesses, and below the temporary failings, to that part of humanity that still bears the image of the Divine Creator. And you need sympathy to accomplish this.

Would-be authors often tell me that they are sick of their everyday routine—office work, teaching, nursing, home duties, or whatever it may be—and long to throw it all up so that they may devote all their time to writing.

To know People, we must Live and Work among them

But you cannot devote all of your time to writing! The beginner never understands this. A great deal of an author's time is taken up with the study of people, and a general quest for material for his books.

While you are in the early stages of your writing, it is absolutely necessary for you that you should be doing some sort of other work in company with your fellow-creatures, and experiencing the ordinary routine of life, else how can you possibly get your writing properly balanced and true to life?

If you try to isolate yourself from the everyday happenings of normal existence, avoiding the tiresome duties and the irksome routine, merely keeping your eyes on your MS., or on yourself, or on only the things that appeal to you, how can you ever expect your work to be in right perspective? Under such conditions what you write would be bound to give an incomplete, incorrect view of life, one-sided, and out of all proper proportion, and—the result could be nothing but a dire failure.

Stay where you are, and make your corner of the universe your special study.