SHAPING OF LITERARY IDEAS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1162, 24 June 1911, Page 9

SHAPING OF LITERARY IDEAS.

The greatest mistake that a young writer can make is that of thinking oi ideas as being in any sense a lot of square pegs that must not be placed in round holes ,or vice versa. An uiea is not loreorduiiicd to any exclusive appropriation by any one artistic lorm; it is not iiicvititmy the beginning ot a sonnet or ot a loui'-acc drama, any more than a ball oi yarn is necessarily destined, as il' comes trom the spinmng-wtieei, either lor an atglian or a pair of stockings. Ideals are tue raw material of literature; what they are to bo worked into depends not upon the ideas themselves, but upon tho individual auihor's bent of mind, the way in which his thought' naturally takes snaps. We are too apt to think of a thought, a really big and important thought, as we think of a precious stone, something which can bo cut and polished, to be sure, but' only in accordance with its natural angles and lines of cleavage. We would come, nearer the truth if we likened ideas to pure gold in the ingot, that may be worked into any shape, applied to anv purpose, forming the standard of value"in tho world of letters, yet capable of boing spread out to infinitesimal thinness, in order to give cheapness the glitter of a snurious worth. What is wrought from the ingot depends upon tho skill and genius of the goldsmith; it is not the fault of the elemental gold, if, instead of delicate miracles of tho jeweller's art, it finds itself debased to an electro bath for ten-cent-store cuff-but-tons!

It follows that we can do no poorer service to a yoimy writer than to persuade him that' an idea which ho has already seen clearly in one form must not be used in that form, but for something quite dilferent. We sometimes hear a young poet receive advice, somewhat' after this fashion: "Yes, the idea that you have in mind for a sonnet is a good idea in itself, but the trouble with if is that it is not a sonnet idea; it make a good sonnet; give it up!" It always seemed to me that it must take an uncommon amount of boldness to assume such a responsibility as that! The utmost that any one has a right to say is: "That is an idea from which I, myself, could not' make a good 'sonnet; I, individually, cannot, see it in the sonnet form," or," perhaps, if the intimacy between the adviser and would-be poet justifies this attitude: "From what I know of your previous work, 1 cannot believe that you could give this particular idea the adctpiato treatment and development for a sonnet; udve it up, not. on account of the idea's limitations, but because of your own." But the usual and safe rule is that every writer must find out for himself what shane he may best give his ideas—and that is why it is fienerally

wiser, if a writer has critical friends whose advice he values, to get his start by himself, have his first draught finished, or at least well advanced, before asking for a critical opinion. It often happens that an idea, which, when presented in the rough, seem; to the critic quite hopeless, becomes with even a slight deyree of .working-un not only promising but triumphantly vindicated. Think how absurd it' would sound to say to a goldsmith: "Don't'try' to make a ring out of that piece of gold wire; there isn't a ring in that wire, there is nothing but a scarf-pin!" Yet that is precisely tho sort of misleading ndvice that is not infrequently given to story-writers. Many an author has wasted months on a bad novel, when he could have used tho same idea in a good short story; many a short story has spoiled an idea that might havo served for a ballad or an elegy, or a musical comedy—not because there was" ally 'incongruity in the ideas themselves, but because the author failed to follow his natural bent.—l'rcdcric Taber Cooper, in "Tho Craftsmanship of Writing."