PLOT as selection and rearrangement

PLOT asselection and rearrangement ASTORY may be exceedingly interesting, yet, unless it has plot, it will never be a Short-story. Occasionally, one sees a garden where overgrown rose-bushes, rhubarb plants, hollyhocks, hop-vines, and tiger-lilies run riot over one another. There is no order, no grouping, no massing. Each plant looks as if it had been ignominiously pitched from the doorstep and had taken root where it fe111. Not even has the principle of the survival of the fittest availed to bring order out of chaos, for all plants seem equally fit. The effect of such planting is unsatisfying and bizarre. One longs for pruning- shears and a spade. The same plants arranged without a semblance of artificiality, in an orderly manner, might be of real, ornamental value. No more does one admire a house the number of whose owners can be estimated by the number of additions tacked on, one behind the other. One admires rather a house built with unity according to a harmonized plan. The Short-story plot, though different from that of the larger narrative forms, is none the less real and vital. It requires a careful selection and rearrangement of materials for a definite pattern. It is also a working out of the laws of cause and effect. It is not a haphazard pitching together of incident and character until a fitting momentous event is found with which to finish off a story. It is not something accidental, but something thought out and prepared for. In it there is represented, not a succession of events, but a series where th relation of each incident to that which immediately precedes or to that which directly follows is clear and necessary. No loose ends are allowed; for in plot the weaving is compact and sure. - Each event comes in order, because it grows logically out of a preceding event. Each part bears a distinct relation to the whole and has a definite work. Plot is somewhat like a system of cogs: each part so works into the next part that it is actually necessary to the movement of that part. The value of the whole will be lost unless the parts are consistent and adapted -throughout. A plot is artistic just as a washing-machine or -a demonstration of a geometrical proposition is artistic. Neither is of itself burdened with ornament, but each is artistic in so far as it is adapted for the most complete service. For plot, this service is to attain through climax a single narrative effect. Although but an unfilled outline, it is essentially complete in itself — a garden laid out ready to receive its roses and hollyhocks in their places.