is supported by the fact that the supply of really good ones is
relatively small, while the number of writers who would write good
ones if they could, and who have tried and failed to write them, is
past computation. And one reason probably is that such stories,
for their success, must depend primarily upon structure--a sound
and perfect plot--which is one of the rare things in our
contemporary fiction. Our writers get hold of an incident, or a
sentiment, or a character, or a moral principle, or a hit of
technical knowledge, or a splotch of local color, or even of a new
version of dialect, and they will do something in two to ten
thousand words out of that and call it a short story. Magazines
may be found to print it--for there are all manner of magazines;
but nothing of that sort will serve for a riddle story. You cannot
make a riddle story by beginning it and then trusting to luck to
bring it to an end. You must know all about the end and the middle
before thinking, even, of the beginning; the beginning of a riddle
story, unlike those of other stories and of other enterprises, is
not half the battle; it is next to being quite unimportant, and,
moreover, it is always easy. The unexplained corpse lies weltering
in its gore in the first paragraph; the inexplicable cipher
presents its enigma at the turning of the opening page. The writer
who is secure in the knowledge that he has got a good thing coming,
and has arranged the manner and details of its coming, cannot go
far wrong with his exordium; he wants to get into action at once,
and that is his best assurance that he will do it in the right way.
But O! what a labor and sweat it is; what a planning and trimming;
what a remodeling, curtailing, interlining; what despairs succeeded
by new lights, what heroic expedients tried at the last moment, and
dismissed the moment after; what wastepaper baskets full of
futilities, and what gallant commencements all over again! Did the