Beginning in the Short-story

Beginning in the Short-story
Beginning, in the Short-story, is as indefinite in length. It may be a sentence, a paragraph, several paragraphs, or even pages. It may shade off into the story proper so delicately that one fails to recognize its limit. As soon as the reader is thoroughly interested, however, — in short, whenever he senses narrative complication, — a story may be said to be begun. One may thoroughly enjoy a narrative description or exposition without being aware that anything is going to happen. Yet one does not sense a story, until one sees a possibility of plot ahead. Some additional factor offering a chance of resistance must present itself. One need not be able to hazard a guess as to the main complication of the plot; one need merely feel that something interesting may result from the situation as indicated. One may read the records of two football teams and the lists of the weights and heights of their respectiv men, but not until one sees the two teams on o field, does one sense a game. Thus characters in story may be described one after the other and no complication be indicated. If, however, they are
shown, in a situation which will bring them into contact, one awakes to the possibility of interesting results. The introduction of new and different narrative factors always presupposes that something is going to happen. When plot thus begins to show itself, interest quickens, and the story is begun.
Although varying greatly in length and in content, beginnings are similar in their functions. A good beginning should set the emotional tone of a story, and should introduce its main characters. By setting the emotional tone at the beginning, much maybe accomplished toward a definite unity of impression; since a false or jarring tone will at once be felt as discordant and may then be excluded. Emphasized at the beginning, it is fixed and helps to shape the reader's attitude toward all the incidents of the story. This tone may be fixed actively by a striking of the dominant note of a story; passively, by setting. An active influence is more rapid than a passive; hence the beginning in which setting is prominent is likely to be longer than that in which tone is fixed by the dominant note. As the tones of stories differ, so also will beginnings differ in length and in nature. Not all tones are capable of the same expression. Some may best be expressed actively, some passively. With regard to the, second.
nction of the beginning, character must be present fore it becomes possible to sense complication. nce the limits of the Short-story are restricted and since minor characters are introduced simply as they affect a main character or the details of plot development, it is natural that main characters should be presented first. Because of their importance they should be granted the emphasis of the initial position. It is not necessary that in the beginning characters be fully described, or that they appear in action; they may be merely mentioned sufficiently to make one sense a new situation. A skilful beginning involves more than the necessity of making a start; it should be in some way significant.
It is usual in stories of character that character is strongly evident at the beginning; in stories of action that action is from the start indicated; in stories of atmosphere that setting is emphasized at the first. Yet aside from their use in indicating the kind of story, these elements of action and character and setting are of value as forms of beginning. Of these forms, action is likely to be the most immediately interesting. It may, even in a single sentence, set the emotional tone and introduce the main characters. Even action may be presented, however, in several ways more or less forceful as they are more or less direct. One may listen to a detailing of a plan for future action, one may hear a record- like statement of past action, or one may actually witness action as taking place. Although many times action offers the quickest way of presenting certain preliminaries, it is not always the best way of beginning.
The presentation of character or of setting, of necessity less definite and less immediately interesting, requires a more extended beginning than does action. Since character is necessary to complication, it may fittingly begin almost any sort of story. Yet character may be exceedingly interesting or exceedingly uninteresting, according as its presentation is of a living being or of an animated stick or company of sticks. Combined with action, character is much more natural and to that extent more effective as a form of beginning. Setting is used as a beginning, for the most part, in stories of atmosphere or in stories where atmosphere or setting is important as an influence. Since, however, it is valuable in effecting emotional tone, it may be used as a beginning for almost any sort of story. A gloomy description makes one gloomy, a bright description makes one joyous, a description of things vague and but half-seen makes one dreamy. Rarely will any of these forms of beginning be present to the exclusion of all others. They will be mingled in varying degrees. Thus their advantages may be combined.
Sometimes one finds another sort of beginning — that which consists of generalizations on the theme or purpose of a story. Such an introduction is really a prelude to the actual beginning. In generalizations themselves, one can sense no complication. One must await the beginning of the application, which is not expository but narrative in method. This generalized form rarely adds to the force of a story; it is not vital. It may set the tone, but it cannot easily introduce the main characters. While in many cases introductory generalizations are mere commonplaces of mediocrity, sometimes they are so
originally expressed that they are of real value in giving the spirit of a story. A dull and awkward beginning is a mark of a dull and inartistic story. Unnecessarily long or irrelevant introductions are foreign to the nature of the Short-story and but hamper progress.
A beginning, whether long or short, should from the first arouse interest of some sort. It should be so uniquely suggettive of character, of action, of setting, that it will awaken curiosity and stimulate to further reading. A first sentence need rarely set in motion a whole story. Yet it should win attention. It may arouse interest by any one of several slightly varying ways. Perhaps the simplest of these is to put the reader in a questioning attitude. The first sentence may -seem incomplete or vague: it does not tell all that one wishes to know. It stirs up in the reader's mind questions which it leaves unanswered. In the hope of satisfying curiosity, one continues to read. An opening sentence, however, may present no questions; it may in itself be mildly interesting and put the reader in a receptive mood in which he is willing simply to settle back in his chair and listen. Or it may create an unsatisfied longing for one knows not what —just as does an autumn day or a curve in the rpad ahead. It calls one away from the commonplace, and lures one on by its simple charm. Rarely, it becomes still stronger and irresistibly grips one with the intensity of its gloom or brightness. At times, the first sentence
may be but a fact statement made impressive by the unusual significance of its content. Occasionally, too, an unexpectedly exact description, in a first sentence, of something familiar, rouses not only one's admiration, but a question as to the reason for such exactness. All these forms are but slightly varying appeals to one's curious interest. The first sentence should have the power of stirring this interest; every sentence thereafter, that of sustaining it until a narrative complication is sensed and the story is under way.
In order to illustrate these principles, it may be worth while to examine several beginnings in their completeness. The one-sentence beginning of The Cask of Amontillado has been already quoted and its strenett suggested. Direct and vigorous as it is, it scarcely surpasses the opening words of The Revolt of Mother:
‘1Tatherl"
"What is it?"
"What are them men diggin' over there in the field for?"
The first word makes one listen. It is insistent. The answer but continues the question in 'one's mind. The next sentence is still a question. It relieves one's anxiety. There has been no AaccIdent in the home. Yet it arouses more than curious interest. One wonders why so simple a question demanded so much urgency. The " diggin' over in the field" evidently means more than curiosity
to the questioner. Something was going on which she had a right to know and did not know. She had not been consulted. A tone of wounded sensibility is felt. At this point, one may be said to sense complication. There is trouble of some sort in the air. In this beginning, the main characters are introduced, and the special anxiety of the questioner singles her out as of the two the more important. Though the beginning takes the form of action, both character and action are plainly indicated as entering into the story.
Markheim begins:
"Yes," said the dealer, "our windfalls are of various kinds. Some customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior knowledge. Some are dishonest," and here he held up the candle, so that the light fell strongly on his visitor, "and in that case," he continued, "1 profit by my virtue."
The first sentence here puts the reader at once into a questioning attitude. To whom was the dealer talking? In what was he a dealer? Of what sort were his windfalls? What had just been passing in conversation? All of these questions arise from the first sentence. They are not all answered even when one has read the whole of the beginning, for as one reads, one's curiosity is turned to suspicion. The visitor's purpose becomes doubtful. Perhaps he is not a simple customer. Complication is sensed and the story begun. The main
characters have been introduced, the dominant tone of restless suspicion has been set. The beginning fulfils all that is demanded of it.
To these short beginnings that of Mrs. Knollys, comprising the whole of the first section, presents a contrast. More than a page is given to the description of the Pasterzen glacier, more than two pages to a description of Charles and Mary Knollys. Not until the end of the section, when Charles Knollys slips into the crevasse, is there any sensing of possible complication. Meantime, we have been made acquainted with the main characters and have seen the glacier slow and silent in its moving, "like a timepiece marking the centuries." As the shadows of the planets find reflection in the face of the glacier and the moonbeam in the face of Mrs. Knollys, so the tone of quiet strength of the one seems echoed in the changeless affection of the other. Character and atmosphere thus mingle in creating a single impression. The beginning is long because of the necessary harmony between structure and tone. The spirit of the glacier could not be expressed in a few short, hurried sentences. It must be impressed slowly and gradually. Here, too, the long waiting through five and forty years must find its counterpart. Notice even the first sentence:
"The great Pasterzen glacier rises in Western Austria, and flows into Carinthia, and is fourteen or seventeen miles long, as you measure it from its
birth in the snow field or from where it begins to move from the higher snows and its active course is marked by the first wrinkle."
Slow in movement, mildly interesting in content, this sentence puts the reader in a receptive mood during which he is willing to listen to anything which may follow.
The first sentence of They provokes no questions. It does more than put one in a receptive mood; it creates an unsatisfied longing. Although one senses no complication until the appearance of Miss Florenqle, one is interested from the first in the beauty of shifting landscape. Like the narrator, the reader is called by a lingering curiosity from one view to another, from "one hill top to its fellow half across the county" — until one has passed over the Downs and along the coast and through the wooded hills to the ancient lichened house and has seen the children looking out from mullioned windows. Here is set a dreamy, vague atmosphere in which indeed a Shakespeare or a Queen Elizabeth might appear and call one in to tea. It is with quickened interest, then, that one greets Miss Florence and finds that she is blind. Surely one is about to encounter some unusual experience. Here, then, one may set the limit of the beginning. The tone of mystery has been set. Even the children are out of reach and seem of the atmosphere. The main characters, too, Miss Florence and the narrator, have been introduced.
A long beginning was here made necessary by the elusiveness of the story's tone.
The beginning of The Masque of the Red Death extends through the first sentence of the second paragraph. The opening sentence interests one because of the startling significance of its content: "The 'Red Death'• had long devastated the country." The remainder of this paragraph of expository setting, by thrilling one with its extreme awfulness, sets the emotional tone of horror. It is, however, not until the first sentence of the second paragraph that one senses complication. "But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious." This sentence sounds the note of alarm. Something is about to happen.
After Twenty Years begins with descriptive character-sketching and setting. Until the third paragraph, when the policeman and the stranger meet in front of the hardware store, there is no possible chance for complication. Character and setting have both combined in giving the tone as one of security. The shops are closed for the night, the rain has driven the people off the street. A policeman alone is seen on his round. Then when he meets a stranger in the door of a darkened hardware store, suspicion arises. The first sentence here is different from any yet examined. "The policeman on the beat moved up the avenue impressively." The description at once appeals because of its exactness move impressively is the manner of all policemen. Yet the picture presented is so familiar that exactness is unexpected and awakens immediate interest. From the first sentence to the last, the beginning is skilful.
The Man Who Would Be King begins with a generalizing prelude which sets the "happy-go- lucky" tone of the whole story. The first sentence is not interesting. The motto to which it refers is, however, interesting. It is doubtful whether the first paragraph adds anything to the interest already awakened by the motto. The second paragraph suggests the rather unusual setting of a rather unusual story. It is not until the third paragraph, when the narrator and the huge gentleman in shirtsleeves come in contact, that complication is sensed. The main characters of the outer story are introduced, and the story is begun. Within this first story, Daniel Dravot, who is to become the main character of the inner story, is introduced. When Carnehan returns to tell the story of his adventures, the inner story begins. The picture of the man now scarcely recognizable as a human being stirs curious interest, but when Carnehan says, "Kings we were, with crowns upon our heads — me and Dravot — poor Dan — oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never take advice, not though I begged of him!" complication is sensed. One tone serves for both stories, for the two are after all one complete story.
It is evident that beginnings may vary widely, yet be equally perfect. They may be long or short, descriptive or expository, indicative of complication in the first sentence, or but mildly interesting.
They are whatever the nature of the story dictates as best. It should be yet more clearly evident, too, how close is the relationship between the end and the beginning. Until the end has been determined, the method of the introduction of the main characters cannot be determined or the tone settled upon.