lifelike. In the plot story, or in the impressionistic story, we
may accept the flat figures on the canvas; our interest is
elsewhere. But in the character story we must have real people
whose motives and conduct we discuss pro and con with as much
interest as if we knew them in the flesh. A character of this
convincing type is Hamlet. About him controversy has always raged.
It is impossible to think of him as other than a real man.
Whenever the writer finds that the characters in his story have
caused the reader to wax eloquent over their conduct, he may rest
easy: he has made his people lifelike.

Setting in the character story is important, for it is in this
that the chief actor moves and has his being. His environment is
continually causing him to speak and act. The incidents selected,
even though some of them may seem trivial in themselves, must
reveal depth after depth in his soul. Whatever the means by which
the author reveals the character--whether by setting, conduct,
analysis, dialogue, or soliloquy--his task is a hard one. In
Markheim we have practically all of these used, with the result
that the character is unmistakable and convincing.

Stories of scenes are neither so numerous nor so easy to produce
successfully as those of plot and character. But sometimes a place
so profoundly impresses a writer that its demands may not be
disregarded. Robert Louis Stevenson strongly felt the influence of
certain places. "Certain dank gardens cry aloud for murder;
certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set
apart for shipwreck. Other spots seem to abide their destiny,
suggestive and impenetrable." Perhaps all of us have seen some
place of which we have exclaimed: "It is like a story!" When,