The man who sets out to " write a book
" about his own experi- ences may imagine that the problem of proportion, the actual plan, will be determined by the chronological sequence. This is an in- correct assumption. Only those who possess an acute sense of audience realise that those passages of time which interest them
personally are not necessarily the passages which will interest their readers. Most adults, for instance, have a nostalgic affection for their own childhood which is rarely communicable to those whose associations have been different. Many autobiographical writers tend to dwell lovingly and at length on passages of time which for them are illumined by an experience which they are too reticent to relate ; their readers, being ignorant of the significant event, fail to be warmed by the required glow of reminiscence. It often occurs, moreover, that a man who is recounting his own adventures is unduly interested in the mood of anticipation which surrounded him before the adventures began ; he will thus tend to devote dis- proportionate space to his prelude, to " the journey out," without realising that the reader is becoming impatient. The purely chrono- logical method, moreover, unless it is firmly controlled, is apt too accurately to reflect the intermittences of actual life. It is seldom that adventure moves in a continuous curve from prelude, through climax, to solution ; there is liable to occur a suspension or, what is worse, a repetition, of climax ; that in itself may prove an, interesting theme ; but it requires skill and management on the part of the writer to convince the reader that these gaps and repetitions are due to competence rather than to incompetence.
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