Verisimilitude

verisimilitude

It seems hardly necessary to say that a story must above all else impress a reader with its genuineness. All the minutia of structure should be arranged with an eye to verisimilitude. To be convincing, a story must seem so real that one can believe that it happened or seem to see it happening before one's eyes. If one feels that one's credulity is being imposed upon, one turns away in disgust. Even a fairy story must for the time seem real, if it is to prove interesting; it must have qualities which will make the imagination move with it in utter subjection. Rarely do grown people enjoy fairy stories as do children, for the obvious reason

that the imaginations of mature persons have been blunted by contact with an actual world. They no longer have the power to move in and out through fanciful realms, to slay dragons, and to find dwarfs beneath the roots of mammoth trees. For them, real dragons of an actual world must be slain by real people. Men and women pride themselves on their ability to discern between the true and the false. They will not suffer them saves to be chased by imaginary robbers nor will they kneel to await the stroke of fantastic battle-axemen. So long as they feel that a story is--n11 make- believe, nothing can persuade them to read it in more than a half-hearted way, if, indeed, they read it at all. "In other words a realist that is an artist as well, selects not only what is true, but also what will immediately without argument seem true. "

No one supposes nowadays, that a story to seem genuine must be "an exact transcript of life. " The skillful artist masks the actual by the real; he tears down only that he may build something more ideally beautiful and true. A character trait may be made to stand out in exaggerated significance, an incident may be shorn of half its detail, a motive may be entirely suppressed, yet the story may be lifelike, and true in its underlying idea. The most wildly imaginative tale, however, may have truth of idea and still fail to be convincing. It may need some- thing to link it with actual experience, some con- tact with what one knows personally. In Theg, the

reader is made to approach very near the unreal and purely fanciful, yet Kipling has made certain that the story shall be convincing. Spirit children and an automobile speeding across the downs seem incongruous. At first the idea seems to jar one's sense of propriety. Yet the careful Description of the race across the downs and the later repairing of the machine certainly place the story in present times and link it to the vulgar earth. The automobile is, however, not a part of the external Description, a mere something thrown in to make the story more plausible; it is a part of the story itself. But for it, there would have been no story; for it is the machine, rare in those parts, that first stirs the woman's interest. By frequent contact with actuality the whole story becomes convincing. Poe's stories are convincing by their vividness. They are not real, not actual, they seem a collection of bad dreams; yet, while reading them, one falls completely under their spell. Kipling made the story of The Man Who Would Be King — wild and fantastic as it is — seem real partly by making one feel the burning, suffocating heat of a summer night in India. We have not all known India, but we have all known heat of some sort, and, in our imaginations, are able to intensify it. By any of these ways, or by all of them, a story may be made convincing.

Of course, to make a story seem true, one need not limit oneself to incidents and extended Descriptions. Details scattered here and there throughout the story are equally effective. If a girl faints at sight

of a cow, by all means one should call it a red cow or a black. If the setting is a New York restaurant, it should be verified by a few rapid strokes. Details of place and time always make a story definite. Characters, too, may be allowed to make confirmatory remarks, so that the story may seem to be vouched for. Stevenson at times used foot- notes for this purpose. Slight references now and then to actual facts and occurrences help. Of more value, however, than any mere device, is the exact fitting of part with part. All structure may be made to count toward a story's verisimilitude.