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CHAPTER XXIV BUILDING UP THE PLOT NOT all persons can think up plots, but more persons can think plots than can think good plots and more persons can think good plots than can take these plots and, through arrange- ment, lift them to the highest level of excellence; yet the best pos- sible development of a given plot is the objective of the author, and the quality of this development marks the difference between the 'prentice and the master. 2. Developing the plot means something more than merely adding plot factors to the original theme. That will build up the plot, but something more than this is needed. Development is, first, the recog- nition of the most available features in a plot suggestion and, sec- ondly, the presentation of these features in the form that will make the strongest and most positive appeal. 3. Shakspeare had this appreciation of plot values in its nicest sense and, even granting that he had the advantage of seeing them first, his art took much from obscure sources and raised the themes to undying fame. Comparatively few persons have read the "His- tories of the Kings of Britain." In that quaint old book Lear is not made more conspicuous than ^^ortiger and far less conspicuous than others, but Shakspeare was quick to perceive the value of the theme of the thankless daughters and he lifted this from its obscuring his- torical facts and gave us a story that is regarded as one of his best. He made the theme so much his own that now a story based on this is regarded as a steal from the poet and not from the historian. If the volume is accessible in your public library it will make an inter- \ esting study in plot suggestion if you wall first read the original and I then the play and realize the skill with which a genius saw the hu- ■;man side of the historical record. ("Histories of the Kings of Brit- ain," Geoffrey of Monmouth, Book II. Chapters XI, XII.) 4. Shakspeare wrote few, if any, original plots, but he immortalized many obscure sources through his genius for plot recognition and de- velopment. It was this that made his fame as much as his elegance of diction and the depth of his philosophy. He had the faculty of seeing the best that was in an old plot and the best possible devel- opment for that part of the story he wished to reconstruct. As it was I in his day so it is now; the man who makes the most of what he has does better than the man who has more and yet who makes small use of it. The really great author is the man who can make his plots vivid and appealing, not he who gets good ideas and then spoils them through slovenly or incompetent handling. 5. Too often tlie student, having evolved a plot, rushes it into some sort of shape and submits it to a studio before the ink is fairly dry upon the paper. Then he starts work on another and another; never 82