The Mentor: Makers of American Fiction 1

The Mentor: Makers of American Fiction 1

The Mentor: Makers of American Fiction, Vol. 6, Num. 14, Serial No. 162, September 1, 1918

: Arthur B. Maurice

 

Contents

 

Fiction

Makers of Modern American Fiction

Booth Tarkington

Robert W. Chambers

Richard Harding Davis

Jack London

Rex Beach

Stewart Edward White

Makers of Modern American Fiction

Norris’ Realism and McCutcheon’s Romanticism

John Fox and Harold McGrath

A Group of Popular Story-Tellers

Dreiser and Dixon

Harrison and Bacheller

Fiction Notes in Varied Keys

Fiction of Adventure

Each Holds a Place of His Own

Supplementary Reading

The Open Letter

The Couriers of the Postal Service

The Mentor in the Desert

Transcriber’s Notes

 

 

 

 

[Illustration:

 

LEARN ONE THING

EVERY DAY

 

SEPTEMBER 1 1918 SERIAL NO. 162

 

THE

MENTOR

 

MAKERS OF MODERN

AMERICAN FICTION

(MEN)

 

By

ARTHUR B. MAURICE

 

DEPARTMENT OF

LITERATURE

 

VOLUME 6

NUMBER 14

 

TWENTY CENTS A COPY

]

 

 

 

 

FICTION

 

 

There is a popular notion that anyone can write a story. A good novel

is easy reading, and it seems, on that account, to be easy writing.

Many a reader, in the comfortable enjoyment of good fiction, misses the

genius of it altogether. He is like the skeptical young man who could

see nothing difficult in the art of sculpture. “All you need to do,”

he said, “is to get a block of marble, then take a hammer and chisel,

and knock off the parts you don’t want.” So stated, sculpture does seem

very simple. But, after all, there is some importance in knowing what

parts of the marble to knock off.

 

* * * * *

 

Many of us feel, at times, an inward stir that prompts us to express

ourselves in the written word. We are quite sure that we could write

a novel or a play. That we don’t do so is simply because we are so

busy--or something else. “I could write plays as well as Shakespeare

if I’d a mind to,” said someone years ago to Charles Lamb. “Yes,”

answered the gentle humorist, “anyone could write plays as well as

Shakespeare--if he had the mind to.”

 

* * * * *

 

Some take their pen in hand to prove to themselves how easy it all is.

When they have tried out several of the productions that they have

dashed off so readily, they sometimes discover that what was easy

writing for them was hard reading for others, and the wise ones then

come to realize that the good fiction that makes such easy reading is

often the finished and refined product of double and re-doubled labor.

 

* * * * *

 

For those that are determined to win their way in fiction, the means

for study and observation are ample. There are many books on the art

of writing to inform and guide the aspiring author, and there is a

wealth of fiction literature ever at hand to supply him with examples

of good story writing. In a helpful, informing book on the technique

of fiction, Professor Charles F. Horne makes clear the essential

elements of the novel--which he finds to be six in number: (1) Plot,

(2) Motive or Verisimilitude, truth to life, (3) Character Portrayal,

(4) Emotional Quality--Sentiment, Passion, (5) Background, (6) Style.

“A novel,” Professor Horne writes, “cannot consist simply of a fixed

picture, a description of a man in repose. It must show him acting

and acted upon. In other words, it deals with man in his relation

to his environment. Hence it must have two essentials: the man and

his movements; that is, the characters and the story. The causes and

effects of these two essentials give us two more. The man can only move

as he is swayed internally by his emotions; and the movement can only

be seen externally in its effect on his surroundings, his background.

These four form the positive elements or content of the novel, and they

must be presented under the limitations set by man’s experience of life

or verisimilitude, and by his modes of conveying ideas, his style of

speech.”

 

W. D. M.

 

* * * * *

 

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SEPTEMBER 1, 1918 VOLUME 6 NUMBER 14

 

Entered as second-class matter, March 10, 1913, at the postoffice

at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright,

1918, by The Mentor Association, Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

_MAKERS OF MODERN AMERICAN FICTION_

 

 

[Illustration: BOOTH TARKINGTON]

 

_Booth Tarkington_

 

ONE

 

 

Towards the close of the last century Booth Tarkington wrote “The

Gentleman from Indiana.” It is _as_ the Gentleman from Indiana that Mr.

Tarkington has been widely known ever since. There was a time, some

fifteen or twenty years ago, when every native Hoosier was supposed to

have the manuscript of a “Best-Selling” novel concealed somewhere about

his person. Some of the authors died, and some of them went into other

occupations, and the state has managed to live the belief down. But Mr.

Tarkington remains the most conspicuous living figure linking Indiana

with letters.

 

Born in Indianapolis on July 29, 1869, he studied at Phillips-Exeter,

and later at Princeton. In both places he was recognized as one likely

to go far. Princeton he entered as a junior, but “made” the editorial

boards of both college publications, the _Tiger_ and the _Lit_--his

sketches for the former being rather better than his literary

contributions to the latter. He wrote the play for the Triangle

Club, and, at graduation, was voted the most popular and promising

man in the Class of 1893. There followed, however, lean years, when

the prophecies seemed unlikely of fulfillment. That was a period,

when, like the John Harkless of his own story (“The Gentleman from

Indiana”), he was figuratively “sitting on a rail fence in Indiana.”

Always a hard worker, he toiled unremittingly at invention and

rewriting, only to have the manuscripts that he submitted with bright

hopes come back to him with disheartening regularity. That was the

story of the five or six years after 1893. His first tale to be sold

was “Cherry,” a whimsical romance of the country about Princeton and

undergraduate life at the College of New Jersey in pre-Revolutionary

days. Accepted by _Harper’s_, it was not published until long after.