How To Write

In 1886, Anton Checkhov wrote a letter to his brother Alexander in which he stated a list of conditions prose must fulfill to be considered art by him. They were: no long eruptions of words of a social, political or economical nature uninterrupted objectivity realistic description of persons and things dual succinctness (both in size and in formulation) daring and originality honesty I wonder how much prose is being produced by fiction-writing hopefuls that fulfills all of these requirements. And I shudder to think how much writing out there fulfills none of these requirements.