Twain lays out the offences thus "There are nineteen rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction -- some say twenty-two. In "Deerslayer," Cooper violated eighteen of them." Now I have no knowledge of these rules, and there is no reference, so I submit that these eighteen make up the fullness of Twain's rules, and the NINETEENTH is a ruse, a mystery, a comical device. This would be supported by his previous sentence "Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record." This can only be goofiness.
So, that being concluded, allow me to summarize: Mark Twain's RULES GOVERNING LITERARY ART:
- 1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.
- 2. The episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.
- 3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.
- 4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.
- 5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.
- 6. When the author describes the character of a personage in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.
- 7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven- dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it.
- 8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the tale.
- 9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.
- 10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.
- 11. The characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.
In addition to these large rules, there are some little ones. These require that the author shall:
- 12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
- 13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
- 14. Eschew surplusage.
- 15. Not omit necessary details.
- 16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
- 17. Use good grammar.
- 18. Employ a simple and straightforward style.
