Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-09-14

to tell or that he does not tell 1t well.
! No. in this day and age, after edu-
cation has been getting in its work for
decades. there are bound to be many,
many persons, both men and women
land even children. as far as that goes)
who possess an ability which at one
time in history seemed confined to q
comparatively few.
| This state of affairs had to happen.
narratives OF the everyday in a way to
interest those to whom they are inter-
eSting.
1t was only natural, then, when edu-
cation became the privilege of all per-
sons that the number of these who
could tell story well in print should
! increase.
Just that has happened. There are
more fiction writer's to the square inch
today than at any ten times in the his
tory of the world.
| Much OF it is very good work. Much
OF 1t Is hastily done, but a great deal Of
that, too, is good.
The use Of the first person in telling
story enables one who cannot handle
the old-time plots. or at least thinks he
cannot. to tell the thing in a straight
o"oE' Lively lllC very UC~
! ginning to the end
| Seeing everything from one sole single
! STANDPOINT, he Is net required D look
into other minds and hearts, or TO dart
here and there, in the fictional flow, as
so many Of the classic authors of the
Victorian era did.
| With Dickens and Thackeray, and
Scott, and Dumas, novel was some
thing which was plotted q great deal
like stage play
! There were entries and exits, and he
who could contrive the most fetching
entries and the most unexpected exits
was accounted the master story teller.
( Such authors have never been sur
passed, in their handling OF material
by such methods. Nor can they be eX-
celled. This method is still the popu-
lar-in fact, almost the only-method
used in the making Of motion picture
nlms. 1t IS, in word, theatric.
y
Using the first person singular, an
author is enabled to go right ahead with
his story. He is not forced to know
anything he could not, in nature. know,
nor must he look into the minds of
others and tell what they are thinking
about.
The whole world comes to him. not
MN 70 IL, ana this happy state OF az
fairs gives the author hero an opportu-
nifty for great naturalism. II he has the
ability to avoid the boasting side OF ~
There Of course, lies the great STUN
bling block
For that reason most Of the personal
narrators OF their own stories in fiction
are endowed bv their creators with a
certain great simplicity OF character.
This enables them. as fictionized per-
sons. to talk about themselves without
ofense. The too free use OF Il in per-
Sonal conversation. almost always be-
comes tiresomc to others.
II must be confessed that it does
so. in particular, when the listener
either rightly or wrongly has a les
sened opinion of the speaker.
The book character, happily. has to
work under no such handicap. The
reader knows nothing of him at all
except what the author lets the man
| tell about himself.
And it is the author, in the last
analysis, who is the r. of any good
story. The reader senses. as he goes
along, that he is really being given two
men-the man who is writing. and the
man who is pretending to tell his own
story. He cannot be offended at two
men who share a pronoun between
them.