Creating plot from character

Mr. Henry James has given in his Partial Portraits an intimate view of how a great Russian fictionist looked upon his character creations.

" Nothing that Turgenieff had to say could be more interesting than his talk about his own work, his manner of writing. What I have heard him tell of these things was worthy of the beautiful results he produced ; of the deep purpose, pervading them all, to show us life itself. The germ of a story, with him, was never an affair of plot — that was the last thing he thought of : it was the representation of certain persons. The first form in which a tale appeared to him was as the figure of an in¬dividual, or a combination of individuals, whom he wished to see in action, being sure that such people must do something very special and interesting. They stood before him definite, vivid, and he wished to know, and to show, as much as possible of their nature. The first thing was to make clear to himself what he did not know, to begin with ; and to this end, he wrote out a sort, of biography of each of his characters, and everything that they had done and that had happened to them up to the opening of the story. He had their dossier, as the French say, and as the police have that of every con¬spicuous criminal. With this material in his hand he was able to proceed ; the story all lay in the question, What shall I make them do? He always made them do things that showed them completely; but, as he said, the defect of his manner and the reproach that was made him was his want of architecture,'— in other words, of composition. The great thing, of course, is to have architecture as well as precious material, as Walter Scott had them, as Balzac had them." 5