Too frequently, there is "no story":
a series of episodes however charmingly strung out is not a story; a
sketch, however clever or humorous, is not a story; an essay, however
wisely expounding a truth, is not a story. So patent are these facts,
they are threadbare from repetition; yet of them succeeding aspirants
seem to be as ignorant as were their predecessors--who at length found
knowledge. For obvious reasons, names of authors who succeed in a
certain literary form, but who produce no story are omitted.
Again, some stories just miss the highest mark. A certain one, praised
by a magazine editor as the best of the year, suffers in the opinion of
the Committee, or part of the Committee, from an introduction too long
and top-heavy. It not only mars the symmetry of the whole, this
introduction, but starts the reader in the wrong direction. One thing
the brief story must not do is to begin out of tone, to promise what it
does not fulfil, or to lead out a subordinate character as though he
were chief.... Another story suffers from plethora of phrasing, and even
of mere diction. Stevenson believed few of his words too precious to be
cut; contemporary writers hold their utterances in greater esteem.... A
third story shows by its obvious happy ending that the author has
catered to magazine needs or what he conceives to be editorial policies.
Such an author requires a near "Smart Set" sparkle or a pseudo-Atlantic
Monthly sobriety; he develops facility, but at the expense, ultimately,
of conventionality, dullness and boredom.
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