effectively the many ideas arising from our daily experiences.


+14. Advantages and Disadvantages of Imaginative Theme Writing.+--Ideas
furnished by the imagination are no less your own than are those furnished
by experience, and the same freedom in the choice of language prevails.
Such ideas are, however, not likely to be so clear and definite. At the
time of their occurrence they do not make so deep and vital an impression
upon you. If not recorded as they occur, they can seldom be recalled in
the original form. Even though you attempt to write these imaginary ideas
as you think them, you can and do change and modify them as you go along.
This lack of clearness and permanent form, while it seems to give greater
freedom, carries with it disadvantages. In the first place the ideas are
less likely to be worth recording, and in the second place it is more
difficult to give them a unity and directness of statement that will hold
the attention and interest of the reader until the chief point is reached.


+15. Probability.+--Not everything that the imagination may furnish is
equally worth expressing. If you choose to write about something for which
imagination supplies the ideas, you may create for yourself such ideas as
you wish. Their order of occurrence and their time and place are not
determined by outward events, but solely by the mind itself. The events
are no longer real and actual, but may be changed and rearranged without
limit. An imaginative series of events may conform closely to the real and
probable, or it may be manifestly improbable. Which will be of greater
interest will depend upon the reader, but it will be found that the story
which comes nearest to reality is most satisfactory. In relating fairy
tales we confessedly attempt to tell events not possible in the real
world, but in relating tales of real life, however imaginary, we should