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YOUR STORY
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There are two basic patterns of story. In one, the effects are produced upon us, the spectators or readers, by the velocity of events. In the other, they are produced by the intensity of moments. In the first instance, we are excited by speed, while in the second we are excited by depth. We have a vague but accurate appreciation of this distinction whenever we say of a pure action story that it is superficial. We mean that things just happen one after another ; that we nowhere have a chance to pause and penetrate to the heart of any one of the events in this flux.
What we call melodrama is, in the last analysis, a story whose dominant effects are produced by velocities. All of the strength of melodrama derives from this effect, and so, too, do its weaknesses. In almost every instance we find that the people portrayed in the melodrama either have very primitive personalities or have none at all. The writer’s aim being to stimulate his audience by sheer action, it follows, of necessity, that he must beware of introducing characters as complex as the average man. The average man makes a very poor figure in an action story. Endowed with many traits and crystallized into a large variety of habits, he finds that all of these tend to assert themselves, more or less, in every crisis of his life. Whatever else they accomplish, we may be sure that they retard his behavior. He stops, looks, and listens; he ponders; he recalls; he analyzes; he is held back by fears; he moves warily; he plays safe. All of which reduces the number of happenings per minute, hour, and day.