‘In the construction of plot, for example, in fictitious literature, we should aim at so arranging the incidents that shall not be able to determine, of any one of them, whether it depends from any one other or upholds it’
P71
This is perhaps the most crucial piece of advise to any writer wishing to write a story. The key is to keep a reader until the very end. The only reason to do this is to give them a question, which needs answering, usually based within the plot. If you set us a question as the beginning, then the reader will be forced to continue reading until it has been answered. So the best place to put the answer it at the end. Stories should also take a narrative structure. So each event is read in term of the time frame it is presented, so one scene leads naturally into the following scene and so on. The Grimm brothers used this technique wisely. For instance, in ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, the story starts of with a girl being watched by a wolf, on here way to Grandmothers house. We wonder what does the wolf plan to do to her. For the answer to this question, we have to continue reading. As the story progresses, the wolf show us it’s true intensions. We learn more about the wolf’s plan as the story develops and eventually we arrive at the conclusion where all the questions finally become answered. So arranging a story, one incident at a time helps the reader stay focused, and addicted to the story.
‘The thesis of the novel may thus be regarded as based curiosity. Every point is so arranged as to perplex the reader, and whet his desire for elucidation…’
P66
This was written under the sub-heading of mystery, but is an important lesson for all genres. By getting the reader curious about the outcome of a character or how they will solve a task is to get the reader interested, but on top of that, you should place devises which allows the reader to think up there own escape plan. The reader will then continue reading to find out if there answer was right. The Grimm brothers used this principal in ‘a hare and a hedgehog’ amongst others. They started the question of a race between a hare and a `hedgehog as being a stupid race because at first glance, a hedgehog is thirty time slower than a hare. So the question was, what was the point of the story? But then as the plot progresses, the hedgehog makes some advances over the hare and we begin to doubt our initial expectations. Therefore, as more facts came to light, our desire to learn more become greater and so we continued to read to discover the truth about who is faster, the hedgehog or the hare.
So the principles laid out in Poe’s article have helped many other authors over the years, and even those without the aid of his teachings, they discovered these necessary theories on their own to create masterpieces with these principles amongst them. They are a necessary formula for writing publishable work and will continue to guide authors for many years to come.