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PUTTING IN THE PUNCH 89 (k) His preparations for the suicide. (1) The announcement of Frank's death. (m) The discovery by Paul of the letter and the reconciliation. There is hardly a commonplace of life that cannot be raised in similar fashion to the story with the punch, but care must be used to provide natural and logical explanations of all incidents. The author cannot arbitrarily adopt a situation that does not belong to the story. It is not possible to drag in sensation to bolster up a weak plot. The strength must be the strength of the plot, not the strength of foreign matter interpolated into the story. It should also be borne in mind that the punch does not neces- sarily mean violence. To the contrary it is seldom that the punch is attained though the introduction of violence and crime. Through its very nature the punch should be an appeal to the dra- matic and not to the melodramatic. Punch is a matter of mind rather than spectacle. If the crazed foreman ties the girl to a log and starts the gang saws because she will not marry him, we have put sensation, not punch into the story. If two men fight over a girl, there is no added punch to the story. We have increased the sensation, and sensation may enable the story to gain attention, but it will not have the grip that the story with the punch possesses, because the appeal is made to the eye and not the brain. The sight of two men fighting is stirring, but the thought behind the fight is what carries the punch if there is one. Punch and violence are not synonymous but wholly the reverse of each other. The sight of the girl tied to a saw log with the saws running is thrilling, but the situation lacks the intensity that would be possessed by the situation if we knew that the foreman sat inside the mill with a gun on his lap ready to kill the girl the moment she appeared with her father's dinner and the punch was worked through the suspense of wondering whether the father, coming down another path, would meet the girl before she enters the mill. The punch is mental; violence is physical. In the comedy story the punch is brought about through the force with which the comedy idea is built up and driven home. A good example of the double comedy punch is found in Auntie's Affinity. Auntie falls in love with a distinguished stranger whom we know to be the chef in the hotel in which she lives. The punch is found in the thought that the old lady does not know that he is a chef, because he has told her that he is a nobleman. We wonder what she will say when she finds out just what he is. She finds out and collapses. That is the punch. Then it turns out that the Chef really is a nobleman and a wealthy one at that but he has not yet come into the posses-