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CHAPTER XII PLAUSIBILITY EVEN motivating tlie plot, motiving the actions of the characters and supplying the proper local color, does not render the plot wholly acceptable. The action of every character may be ac- counted for, the rise of every situation be prepared for, the color may be correct to a shade and yet the plot may be impossible because the average spectator cannot accept it as an actual happening because of its improbability. It may be possible and yet not probable, and Melville Davisson Post put the matter compactly in an article in the Satur- day Evening Post when he said that once past the bounds of proba- bility it was better to offer the absolutely impossible than the possi- ble but improbable. The entire subject matter of this chapter is com- prehended in the latter half of that statement. It is better to be im- possible than improbable. 2. Understand clearly the difference in meaning. Anything is pos- sible that can be accomplished, but it may not be probable. It would be possible to take the Capitol building at Washington, lift it into the air and drop it upon the top of the Parliament Buildings in London. This is possible. It is possible to move a house along the ground. It is possible to shore the foundations of the Capitol and to build bal- loons of sufficient lifting capacity. It is possible to do this, but it is highly improbable that it ever will be attempted. It is impossible for a man to lift the dome of the Capitol by the statue on the top. It is impossible, but it would be more readily accepted than the otlier and possible incident because we would present this latter feat as a rare- bit dream and not ask that it be accepted as a fact. 3. It is no unusual thing for an author whose story has been re- turned with the comment that it is too improbable to take issue with the Editor on the point and offer to present documentary evidence to show that the incident in dispute is an actual happening and not an imaginary event. This is a matter of supreme indifference to the Edi- tor. He does not care whether the fact be a truth or an invention. His experience tells him that the fact will not be accepted by the average person as a thing likely to happen. That is all that he cares about. The story is improbable no matter how possible it is that the thing may have happened. It will not be accepted; therefore it will not interest. Nothing else matters. 4. It is better to offer a plausible fiction than a possible but im- probable fact. Truth may be and often is stranger than fiction, which is precisely why fiction is preferred. It is immaterial that a thing has happened. That it has happened is not sufficient to require its ac- ceptance from those not familiar with the facts, and film stories can- not be accompanied by a mass of affidavits proving that an improbable story really happened. The fact must be plausible to gain acceptance, 37