Where to get characters

What is an original writer good for if he cannot compare, and combine, and invent? Here is a skeleton interview: "Is it true, sir, that Mr. Pea Green sat for the villain in your last book?" "Not exactly. The ears only are his, and them I lengthened and pointed somewhat. The nose is Brown's, turned a little to one side. The legs I took from Gray, but not the trousers; he never wears plaids. One mustn't be too personal, you know." —F. REm, Lippincott's Magazine.

To what, then, may the writer turn? To his knowledge of life first of all, which is derived from two sources, observation of others and of himself. He should be introspective, knowing the springs of his own conduct. Proceeding, then, on the assumption that all people are, po¬tentially, much alike, he interprets the actions of others, supplying motives from his own self- knowledge. Though he bases his generaliza¬tion upon life and observes as widely and as sympathetically as he can, this is his method of work throughout.

A knowledge of life based upon observation and interpreted in the light of self-analysis is, then, the stuff from which the writer moulds his imaginary characters. Thus conceived they are plastic, subservient to his purpose, and consistent with the story he has to tell. Nor is there any lack of range in this method. A man in the sum of his attributes represents all pos¬sible types. It is true that in his neighbor the qualities in their proportions and emphasis differ from his own; yet he understands his neighbor as he sees imaginatively the difference in himself, were certain of his dominant char¬acteristics suppressed and others emphasized. Though the elements are the same in all, the various combinations are almost infinite, as from oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, in varying proportions, is formed a vast series of com¬pounds individual and distinct. A writer cannot get away from himself and his view of the world. Doubtless the world isn't really what he imagines it to be. It is something more, the sum of all differences, all personalities, all points of view—these appre¬hended by no single man. The writer must, perforce, work with what he knows, striving always to increase the range of his understand¬ing by a cultivation of insight through the im¬agination. What he discovers he may set forth in his imagined creations, which, if he is sane and wholesome and broad-minded, will be sufficiently true to what others regard as typical of life to arouse interest and pleasure. It will be profit¬las to discuss the matter at greater length. An appreciation of the justness of this point of view will come readily to some; others will arrive at it, if ever, only by practice in story writing, by experiencing the difficulty of character creation by any other method.