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THE DRAMATIC STORY 103 CHAPTER XVI. THE DRAMATIC STORY Easier than comedy to most persons—crime and violence not in themselves dramatic—death not always dramatic— heart interest makes the strongest appeal—things to avoid. It would seem 'that most beginners start in with comedy stories with the idea of working over to the dramatic play when they have had a little more experience. This is a mistake, for of the two the dramatic play is more apt to bring results for the reason that the story may carry faulty dramatic construction where comedy requires a more exact technical development. If they do start with the drama, they try to write "strong' stories, and jumble crime, violence, murder and sudden death into a horrible hodge podge of plotless nothing. They aim at the tragic rather than the happy ending and seem to think that if they cram enough sensational incident into their story, the fact that it has little or no plot will be overlooked. Until literary judgment is formed, the supposedly strong story makes the greater appeal <to the writer and in that stage of progress he is apt to write what he wants rather than what he should. The really dramatic moment is not the result of an act of vio- lence, but the idea back of the act. It is this fact that gives value to the cut-back when used in a dramatic story. You do not fear the crime. You fear that the crime will be committed. There is nothing particularly dramatic in the sight of a man standing on the edge of a cliff. Thousands of men have stood on the edges of hundreds of cliffs and nothing has happened. There is nothing dramatic in that. But suppose that we know that the villain has undermined that particular part of the cliff so that the removal of a single prop will cause tons of earth to fall down the steep, carrying the hero along. At once the situation becomes dramatic, not because anything has happened to the man standing there but because something may. Within certain limits we grow more apprehensive for the hero's safety as the moments pass. The strain of waiting tells on us,