The Impossible Assignment Is Accomplished

A publicity agent for a motion picture studio is ordered by
is firm's promotion director to meet in New York six headhunting
cannibals who are being shipped over from Africa to
public ize a recent African picture the studio has made. Along
with the cannibals, he is to meet the young actress who is the
star of the film and somehow transport the seven of them to
Chicago where the picture's publicity campaign is to begin.
Naturally, any news stories he can whip up on the way will
be appreciated. To make matters more difficult, the Midwest
is currently inundated by seasonal floods.
The enterprising young publicity agent intends to turn the
catastrophe to his own ends by telling the press that the cannibals
escaped, are fearfully dangerous, and are at large in the
flooded areas. In the meantime, the promotion director, the
agent's boss, receives word that the cannibals who he had
understood were actually harmless are in reality genuine headhunters.
He tries to get word to the agent before he begins
his trip. But too late—the agent has started cross-country in
a touring car.
The party is marooned in the flooded area, and it turns out
that the cannibals—not cannibals at all, —save the populace of an entire town through
their resourcefulness. The publicity obtained becau se
of the rescue surpasses all expectations. The party gets safely
t o Chicago. All is well.
The mystery writer will do his darnedest to conceal the
criminal, then give his detective genius so that the criminal
can be found out. The "impossible-assignment " story
relies on the same kind of trick. Instead of a crime having
been committed, a hero assumes an assignment. Difficulty
upon difficulty is put in the way of the hero so that he can
see no way clear to accomplishing his mission. Finally, instead
of the detective using the subtlest clues to identify
the criminal, astounding good fortune or the hero's extraordinary
inventiveness see him through his impossible
assignment.
Just as the reader of the mystery never for a moment
doubts that the detective will reveal the criminal, so the
reader of the "impossible-assignment " tale is at all times
certain that, despite the seeming impossibility of the hero's
task, he will accomplish it.
In a sense, the impossible assignment stories have largely
taken the place of the who-dun-its. Both types of story are
synthetic, chess-game affairs in which only the show of
emotional entanglements are made. No real anxiety is ever
ar
oused for the hero. But just as the magician would never
admit to the fact that he is not really cutting the woman
°n the stage in half, so the writer must never admit that his
hero has a chance of accomplishing his assignment. It's a
tried
-and-true theatrical mannerism which the audience
has come to expect and which will disappoint by its
absence.
A young, promising member of an engineering firm is by his boss back to his alma mater to sign up a graduatsienngt
engineer for the company. Engineers have become intolerably
scarce. None but the biggest firms seems to be able to get
enough of them. The scout's job is made doubly difficult by
two facts: his firm is a small one, and the student he has been
sent to get is top man in his class.
The scout's first stop on reaching the campus is at his old
frat house. And, although he is only thirty-one and considers
himself still a boy, he is immediately made to feel like an old
man by the distant, respectful treatment he gets from the frat
members. He gets the lowdown on the prize engineering student,
though, and makes his first move by looking up the
student's girl. His situation is further complicated when he
promptly falls in love with the girl. After various tries with
both the girl and the prize student, he about gives up on both
counts, when the girl finally convinces the student to go with
the scout's firm, and the girl herself admits her affection for
the scout. As a premium, three additional students sign up
with the firm along with the top man.
Not all, not even a majority, of these "impossible-assignment"
stories are as lighthearted as the two described. The
plot-type may concern a soldier who undertakes a behind
the-lines mission when the chances of returning to safety
are negligible; or a detective who goes out singlehanded
to get a criminal gang which murdered a friend; or the
hunter who insists on tracking down the killer tiger no
one else has been able to capture.
This type of assignment is not merely dangerous, but impossible
by virtue of the fact either that the hero himself
does not believe it can be accomplished, or that no one in
the story but the hero believes it can be accomplished.
If the hero himself doubts that the feat can be done, the
writer must take pains to provide him with an unusual
motive for undertaking the business. A strong sense of duty
is good, the behest of another, perhaps even the desire to
prove the very impossibility of the assignment is sufficient.
A suggestion and a warning. Slick editors and readers are
always open to gentle parodies and unexpected switches.
To turn a standard slick story-type inside out successfully
(successfully according to slick standards) is always welcome.
Such tricks in respect to impossible-assignment
stories would dictate that the assignment not be accomplished,
after the writer has seemed to go through all the
motions of writing a standard product. The warning: a
reader must not be tricked unfairly. If the writer is certain
that leaving an assignment unaccomplished will improv e
his story, or even make his story, he must gently telegrap h
the fact to the reader. If a reader, on finishing a story, says
in outrage, "What!", the story is a failure. If he says in
sudden recognition, "Of courser, it's a success.
category:plot lines