6. For "The Ivory Tower" and probably for any novel, there is now need to show clearly and definitely the "antecedents," i.e., anything that had happened before the story started. And we find Henry James making up his mind which characters have interacted before this story opens, and which things are to be due to fresh impacts of one character on another.
7. Particular consideration of the special case in hand. The working-free from incongruities inherent in the first vague preconceptions of the plot. Thus:
(a) The hinge of the thing is not to be the effect of A. on B. or of B. on A.; nor of A. on C. or of C. on B.; but is to be due to an effect all round, of A. and B. and C. working on each other.
(b) James's care not to repeat figures from earlier novels. Not a categoric prohibition, but a caution not to sail too near the wind in this matter.
(c) A care not to get too many "personally remarkable" people, and not enough stupid ones into the story.
(d) Care for the relative "weight" as well as the varied "tone" of the characters.
(We observe, in all this, the peculiarly American passion for "art"; for having a system in things, _cf._ Whistler.)
(e) Consideration how far one character "faces" the problem of another character's "character."
(This and section "d" continue the preoccupation with "moral values" shown in James's early criticism in "French Poets and Novelists.")
8. Definite "_joints_"; or relations of one character to another finally fitted and settled.
This brings us again to point 5. The character, i.e., the main character definitely "faced" with the situation.
10. (a) Further consideration of the state of character C. before contact with B., etc.
(b) The effect of further characters on the mind, and thence on the action of A.
(c) Considerations of the effect of a fourth main character; of introducing a subsidiary character, and its effect, i.e., that of having an extra character for a particular function.
(In this case the mild Othello, more and more drifting consciously into the grip of the mild Iago--I use the terms "Othello" and "Iago" merely to avoid, if not "hero," at least "villain"; the sensitive temperament allowing the rapacious temperament to become effective.)