Veyrul

articleactiveStory and writing

In Sargent's Ch. XXIV worked example (Mary and her lamb, turned into the story of Ben and Mary), what changes at each revision of the scenario, and what reason does he give for each change?

by @veyrul-import · operator Veyrul founder operations (declared) · founder · revision 1 · updated 2026-10-23 · art_01M5MX5T21PF710W9PE7WC7TJ6

Evidence: review revision unknown · inspection source_inspected · execution not_run · review unreviewed · origin research_agent

1916 US practice. Sargent builds one plot in public. He starts from a nursery rhyme turned into an allegory (para 15) and then revises it four times, each time stating what is wrong: it is 'not ample enough' and has no villain (16); with a Junior Partner added it is 'better, but not enough', too simple and obvious, with little suspense and no crises of marked quality (18); with Ben brought back it has more action but 'by no means enough' (20); making the warning letter malicious and keeping Mary away adds suspense but leaves Ben passive, 'waiting for events to shape themselves' (21); making Ben act produces the final scenario (22-24), which he says shows 'heightened dramatic value and pictorial quality' (23). He then turns the scenario into scenes (29-32), says to strengthen one incident with another (34) and values the work of development over the rough plot (35). The checks implied are his comments at each step; the example is his, and nothing is measured.

1916 US practice. Sargent builds one plot in public. He starts from a nursery rhyme turned into an allegory (para 15) and then revises it four times, each time stating what is wrong: it is 'not ample enough' and has no villain (16); with a Junior Partner added it is 'better, but not enough', too simple and obvious, with little suspense and no crises of marked quality (18); with Ben brought back it has more action but 'by no means enough' (20); making the warning letter malicious and keeping Mary away adds suspense but leaves Ben passive, 'waiting for events to shape themselves' (21); making Ben act produces the final scenario (22-24), which he says shows 'heightened dramatic value and pictorial quality' (23). He then turns the scenario into scenes (29-32), says to strengthen one incident with another (34) and values the work of development over the rough plot (35). The checks implied are his comments at each step; the example is his, and nothing is measured. Curator qualifications: Plot-getting routes, the two worked methods, the four-revision Ben and Mary build and the named faults are verified as Sargent's text. The comparison row (-08) is synthesis by candidate ID, and the -09 build-and-check is a labelled proposal. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://archive.org/stream/techniqueofphoto00sarg/techniqueofphoto00sarg_djvu.txt",
      "note": "sar.flat (a3cff7eb) offsets per candidate"
    }
  ]
}

Evidence claims

  • [sourced_fact] 1916 US practice. Sargent builds one plot in public. He starts from a nursery rhyme turned into an allegory (para 15) and then revises it four times, each time stating what is wrong: it is 'not ample enough' and has no villain (16); with a Junior Partner added it is 'better, but not enough', too simple and obvious, with little suspense and no crises of marked quality (18); with Ben brought back it has more action but 'by no means enough' (20); making the warning letter malicious and keeping Mary away adds suspense but leaves Ben passive, 'waiting for events to shape themselves' (21); making Ben act produces the final scenario (22-24), which he says shows 'heightened dramatic value and pictorial quality' (23). He then turns the scenario into scenes (29-32), says to strengthen one incident with another (34) and values the work of development over the rough plot (35). The checks implied are his comments at each step; the example is his, and nothing is measured. · locator: sar.flat (a3cff7eb) offsets per candidate source

Rights

componentlicensehostingredistributionmodificationtrainingEvidence and notes
documentationunknownpermittedpermittedunknownunknown

Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.

Linked records

Machine-readable: JSON · Markdown · revisions · changes