No rule can be laid down for the compass of a story; it may
cover a small incident, as in many short stories, or it may embrace
the whole or the most significant part of a life. The requirement that
there be a beginning, middle, and end holds, but does not enlighten
us as to what constitutes an end. Death makes one natural end to a
story, since it makes an end to life itself; but within the span of
a life the parts are not so clearly defined. Yet despite the continuity
and overlapping of the parts of life, there are certain natural breaks
and divisions,--the working out of a plan to fulfillment or disaster,
the termination or consummation of a love affair, the commission of
a crime with its consequences, or more subtle things, such as the
breaking up of an old attitude and the formation of a new one. In life
itself there are incidents that are closed because they cease to affect
us deeply any more, purposes which we abandon because we can get no
farther with them or because they have found their natural fulfillment,
points of view which we have to relinquish because life supplies us
with new facts which they do not include. The unity of a story should
mirror these natural unities. The search for the wholeness of life
should not blind us to the relative isolation of its parts; and there
is fate in the parts as well as in the whole.
The selection of incidents for their bearing upon fate, the selection
of significant traits for the construction of character, with the
resulting unity and simplicity of the parts and the whole, is
responsible for most of the ideality of fiction as compared with real
life.
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