True story as a source of plot

Weakness of the true story as a source of plot

true stories rarely make of themselves perfect plots. They must be transformed by 1

imagination and reason. :A true story is told ordinarily because it is in some sense extraordinary.

One passes it over without comment, unless it is striking and unusual. Now a true story may be fruitful as a source of plot, yet in its first form its parts are rarely consistent. The law of cause and effect is, of course, working just as truly in the

sr here of the actual as it is in the realm of the imagined; yet, in the actual, causes are frequently

hidden under the mass of details and irrelevant matter. In the imagined they have been bared, and events stand out in their true relationships. A true story might suppose a thoroughly upright man suddenly become an embezzler. When one applies reason to this true-story idea, one can readily see its absurdity. A thoroughly upright man could not be an embezzler. Either he must have been all the time but feignedly upright, or some sudden change has occurred in his character. When one has adopted one or the other of these two suppositions, one can then develop a reasonable story —ideally true, although not in apparent accord with the facts as reported. Imagination fills in what fact has passed over; it supplies the hidden motives and makes in the end a complete and consistent story. The true story but startles and leaves one with a feeling of its incompleteness. It is often said that fact may be stranger than fiction. Its strangeness may be its peril, not its hope. Fact may display no logical relation of parts; fiction always does. To be sure, plot works with imaginative material, but it requires that this material be shaped toward a predetermined end. by the application of reason; for the parts of the story must be always "logical, adequate and harmonious. "