7 FICTION: PROSE NARRATIVES

Reading prose narratives

Prose narratives are novels and short stories, and are texts that tell a story.
Unlike personal writing, they are usually imaginary. Most of the examples of
writing that we have seen in earlier chapters have been relatively short, or broken
up into sections, similar to the length of the passages you
will be tackling in the examination. However, in this chapter we will be
concentrating on how writers put together longer works. Almost always the narrative
passage you are asked to read and answer questions on in the examination is taken
from a longer work, and a typical question can explore themes like how the writer
shapes a description to lead on into the story, or how he or she builds up the
tension before the next piece of action. The exercises on the passages in this
chapter aim to show you how the answers to those individual questions can fit
together to make a more general critical review of the whole piece, and to give you
practice in doing it. When it comes to the examination, having an idea of what the
questions are aiming to explore will help you to distinguish what sort of
information each question is asking for: the facts from the passage or the reason
for including them, what the imagery is or its effect.
Obviously within the time constraints of an examination you will not be asked to
write a complete novel or even a full short story. Consideration of the techniques
used by the writers of the stories contained in this chapter should help you,
however, to gain the skills required to write your own story in the examination if
you choose one of the narrative topics. But there are also occasions when it is
useful to think about what you are writing as part of a longer work, the
introduction perhaps to introduce the characters, or a description of the setting
which ends with the door opening � It gives a convincing focus to your choice of
details and vocabulary. And it often gives you a suitable point for a cliff-hanger
ending.
Writing prose narratives involves two key skills; one is to relate the events in
the story itself, making sure that the reader has a clear awareness of the sequence
of events. The second is more complex and involves producing a narrative that is an
entertaining and effective piece of writing. In order to judge whether a writer has
done this successfully it is necessary to consider certain key elements that have
to be convincing as well as the story itself. These include:
? Setting. The setting of a story simply means the place or places in which
the events of the story happen. No matter what the subject matter of the
story is, it is important that its setting is convincing to the reader and that
it is both consistent with and appropriate to the events being described. For
example, a setting featuring a mysterious and scary old house with creaking doors
and ceilings covered with spiders� webs is a likely background for a ghost story.
However, such a story could also take place in a modern housing development where
everything is apparently normal until unusual, mysterious events start happening.
Both of these contrasting settings can produce perfectly effective ghost stories as
long as they stay consistent. If the writer suddenly �forgets� his overall setting
and describes the next few actions as taking place in a creaking, haunted, old
house instead of a modern house (or a modern house in the middle of a wild and
ghostly landscape), the setting becomes less convincing and the reader becomes
distracted into thinking about the discrepancies instead of remaining fully engaged
in the story. A good writer will avoid mistakes such as these.
? Characterisation. Just as it is important for the setting of a story to be
convincing, it is equally important that the characters who feature in the story
are portrayed as believable human beings within its setting. For a story to be
effective, it is important that the reader can identify with some or all of the
characters and that those characters should be convincing and come across as real
people. Again, it is important that they are seen to be natural inhabitants of the
story�s setting: a fantasy landscape and setting requires mainly larger than life,
fantastic inhabitants. However, for a fantasy story to be fully convincing for its
readers at least one of the central characters must have enough of the
characteristics of an �ordinary� human being so that the readers of the story � who
are �ordinary� human beings themselves, and not fantasy heroes � can have a point
of reference in whom they can believe and with whom they can identify.
? Structure. Over 2000 years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle made the
point that a story should have a beginning, middle and an end. This observation
still holds true today. A good story should be carefully planned and structured in
order to keep the readers interested and to ensure that the sequence of events is
clear and easily followed. The best stories are not written by writers who make up
events as they go along, but are carefully planned and thought out before writing
begins. When we talk about the �structure� of a story, we are really considering
the way in which this planned sequence of events develops. A successful story does
not have to cover a range of exciting and heroic action leading to a devastating
climax � it can be much more low-key than that and the resolution of the story can
involve what is no more than an everyday action. For example, the story could be
about the experience of a very shy boy who finally plucks up the courage to speak
to the girl he passes every day on the way to school. As long as the writer has
presented the situation leading up to this decision convincingly, the ending to the
story will achieve greater significance than we would expect from a simple summary
of what happens. It is also worth keeping in mind that although the beginning,
middle and end of a story refer to the time scheme of events within the story, the
structure imposed on these events by the writer does not have to present them in
this order. For example, a detective story could start with the sentencing of a
criminal and then tell the story of what led to his arrest in flashback.
? Language. It is through the language they use in their stories that writers
make the most immediate communication with their readers. It is,
therefore, very important that they ensure that their choice of words, sentence
structures, etc. is appropriate to the events being described and the characters
who feature in them. Their descriptions of the setting must bring the places being
described to life, and allow the readers to feel confi dent that they can visualise
the places in which the events of the story take place. Similarly, the vocabulary
used to describe the thoughts of a character should be able to convey that
character�s individual nature as convincingly as possible. With short stories in
particular, writers must establish setting and character as convincingly as
possible in a relatively succinct way � the very nature of short story writing
means that writers are unable to indulge in the leisurely, lengthy descriptions and
scene-setting that might be used in a novel where length is not a consideration.
The points above contain some of the key things to look for when you are reading a
short story and considering what makes it good. It is now time to look at some
examples and some exercises based on them. The following passages make up a
complete short story written by a West Indian author; the first is from the
opening; the next is from the middle of the story and the third is from the ending.
The questions that follow the extracts will focus both on testing how well you have
understood what you have read and also on your appreciation of the structure of the
story and of the writer�s use of language.
Passage 1
Seashells
I was going down Breadnut Hill on my way to Saturday market when I heard a big
commotion and saw a crowd of people round a big hospital-looking van parked at the
roundabout. Somebody fl ashed past me yelling, �Whoi, whoi, people, run come here!
See they putting Lena inna �sylum van! They putting Lena inna �sylum van!� It was
my best friend Clancy�s mother�s sister. Two twos, before I could draw
breath, Clancy herself brushed past me like lightning. �Come on, Annette!� After
her, a whole crowd of people started coming out of their yards, running towards the
van. I ran after everybody else just in
time to see two policemen hoist Lena into the van and slam the door shut.
Lena�s face looked out at us through the window. It looked the way it always did,
like a clown�s mask, all white with powder, and three red slashes on her mouth and
cheeks. But this time she looked angry. It was the fi rst I saw Lena look anything
but serene. She looked like a ruffl ed whitefaced hen. Even though I was puzzled
and scared, it made me want to laugh.
�What they taking Lena away for?� I asked Mr Glenn, who was standing next to me.
�What she do?�
Mr Glenn, didn�t answer. People were surrounding the van and shouting and refusing
to move. The policemen waved batons but still the crowd didn�t move, and more
people were coming.
�What you taking her away for, Offi cer? What she do?�
�So, you recruiting madpeople now for the police force?�
�But Lena don�t trouble nobody! Look how much years now she peaceful. How long she
mad on the street and peaceful.� But the policemen shoved some people aside and got
in the van and drove off. Miss Prescott�s son Peril, whom everybody called City
Puss, shouted, �But this is thiefery, you know! Thiefi ng the woman from off the
street like that.�
Some people laughed, because everybody knew City Puss was the biggest thief in
town. That�s why they called him City Puss, because he stole worse than a cat, but
in big style. City Puss stole fi t for a city, not a small market town.
A policeman stuck his head through the window and shouted back, �So she belong to
somebody? You want me to pay you money for her?�
Lena was sitting in the window looking at us with that comical, annoyed look on her
face. When the van got to the corner she waved, slow and regal, like an African
queen. It was like she thought she was in a movie and somebody should take her
picture.
People started quarrelling and saying how the police was so rude, somebody should
put a stop to them, and how they can come in the town and move out a madwoman
without saying anything to anybody? There were some people who didn�t belong to the
town but had just come in to do their business. They said the same.
But the van was gone, so there was nothing anybody could do. Mr Glenn, who lived on
the avenue by the police station, said he would go down there and investigate, but
he couldn�t do it now because he was fi xing shoes in his shop. Everybody was busy
because it was market morning, so people just grumbled a bit more and said,
�Awright Mr Glenn, you check it out and mek we know,� and went back to their
business.
Nobody believed Lena was in any real danger. They were just mad at the police for
bad manners and not satisfying their curiosity. Lena had been our madwoman for ages
and ages. Everybody knew her, including the police. We knew it was nothing serious
and they would bring her back.
I hurried up quick quick to buy the things Aunt Vera sent me to buy because I
didn�t want her getting mad for I was staying too long.
But the police didn�t bring Lena back. In the evening we heard on the news they
were rounding up streetpeople and taking them to safe places where they could be
looked after. Apart from Lena, they had
rounded up lots of people in the parish and taken them in.
People in Lucea town were hopping mad. Aunt Vera never paid Lena any mind, but now
she said, �Streetpeople, which streetpeople? You see Lena is any streetpeople? Look
how long Lena live among us mad as shad and we taking care of her and she not
troubling anybody nor causing no nuisance to government!
Streetpeople what? Streetpeople where?� Clancy and I didn�t know what to think.
Lena was like fi xture in Lucea town and we couldn�t imagine passing the leaking
hydrant on our way to school or going by the beach and not seeing Lena. What the
people said was true. Lena was mad longer than for ever, but it was a nice mad. She
was tall and stately with fair skin and lots and lots of hair which she coiled
in a bun and pushed under a neat jippyjappa hat with side ribbons. She was always
dressed neat and squeaky clean in long straw-coloured skirts and matching blouses.
She had all these rows of palecoloured beads around her neck. She pasted white
powder on her face so thick it looked like somebody had their face in a cast. On
top of the powder on her cheeks and lips she plastered red red rouge and lipstick
like blood.
Lena never troubled anybody. She just used to come out every morning with her straw
basket on her arm, full of bathing things, and stop at the leaking fi re hydrant in
front of the post offi ce and wash herself
and put on her makeup again. That took her from dawn to about nine o�clock. If you
passed by her she said, �You bathe since morning?�
If you were stupid enough to answer, �Yes, Lena,� and stand, she would say, �Is
true? Mek me see in your nosehole,� and she would grab your face and peep down into
your nose.
You had to say, �Yes, Lena,� and run.
The hydrant wasn�t the only place Lena washed herself. She liked to have another
set of wash at midday, but by then the sun was real hot, so she went down to the
sea. During school holidays Clancy and me saw her by the beach a whole lot, because
we were always going there to look for shells and coloured rocks and kick our feet
in the breakers and sometimes, when no adults were looking, swim out to the buoys.
Lena was almost always there. She used to stand at the edge and throw seawater on
her face, dry off, then make up again. Then she would walk out into the water and
come back up the beach gathering shells, like us. She had this habit of putting the
shells to her ears and then putting them in front of her eyes and shaking them and
hissing her teeth, then fl inging them away. It was like she was listening for
something in the shells that she never heard.
If she saw us gathering shells, she hissed her teeth and said, �Lef the shell
alone, idiot. You bathe since morning?� And Clancy and me�d laugh and I�d run.
reading prose narratives
Boldface Clancy didn�t run, she just cocked her bottom at an angle and went
sideways like a crab so if Lena tried to grab at her nose she could run. Lena
noticed Clancy was set to run so she never troubled her. But one time Clancy with
her boldface pushed up her hand and poked Lena�s face to see if it would come off,
and Lena lifted her basket and swatted Clancy one swat on her hand with it.
�Rude,� Lena muttered, sounding like Aunt Vera scolding. Clancy yowled and sucked
her bruised knuckles. She never touched Lena again, but still she didn�t run.
Mostly Lena just ignored us, gathering shells and walking in the sea. When she�d
satisfi ed herself, she�d climb up the beach back into town. By sunset she was back
at the hydrant, washing her plaster-cast face again.
People in restaurants gave her food. Aunt Vera said nobody ran her out of the
restaurants because Lena knew how to be a lady. She carried herself like a queen.
She liked to clean the restaurant people�s bathrooms in return for her food. The
bathrooms didn�t need any cleaning because the people had workers to clean them.
But Lena cleaned them anyway.
One time Clancy and me went in the Kentucky Fried Chicken bathroom and Lena came
in.
�You fl ush the toilet?� she said in her gruff voice that didn�t fi t her whitey-
whitey appearance.
�Yes, Lena,� Clancy said, though we hadn�t used the toilet at all. We went in to
try out Clancy�s new lipstick that she bought and hid because we were too young.
Clancy just wanted to see what Lena would do. �Let me see,� Lena said, and opened
the toilet door. I got scared. The bathroom was
a confi ned space. Suppose she decided to hold us down and look in our noses? Lena
was tall and big and I was little and skinny and Clancy wasn�t so big either. I
turned tail and ran. Clancy ran after, but she was mad. �You wouldn�t even wait to
see what she go do,� she accused me angrily. �I wanted to see if she would wash her
face in the toilet water. People say she wash her face anywhere she see water.�
�Yuck!� I said, disgusted more with Clancy than Lena. But I wondered how come the
skin on Lena�s face never peeled off with so much washing. Maybe it did. Maybe
that�s why she put the powder cast on.
Exercise 1
In previous chapters, the questions asked about the passages have mostly been about
individual details of the content or the language, and sometimes you have been
asked to go back and put those details together to create a longer response dealing
with a longer part of the passage. The following questions are asking you to do the
same exercise of sorting out the relevant details and then putting them together,
but this time you have to identify the details yourself. There are some hints to
help you tackle each of the questions.
1 From what you have read so far, what have you learnt about the
appearance and character of Lena? Answer as fully as you can.
Start by making notes of all the details of Lena�s appearance that the writer gives
� there are quite a few, and they are straightforward. Her character, on the other
hand, has to be deduced from what she says and does. Again there is quite a lot of
information, but remember that the narrator who is telling you about Lena is
writing from a child�s viewpoint, which may modify your impressions. Then look at
your two lists and think about how you will put all the information together to
make a coherent whole. The passage says many times that Lena is a madwoman; that
gives you a focus round which to construct your description. Are there details of
her appearance that suggest she is mad, and others that suggest she is not? And the
same for her actions. Think about how you will order your details, putting comments
that apply to the same feature together perhaps and removing repetitions. Then
write your description.
2 Consider how well the writer has created a convincing setting for this
story.
Before you start noting the details for your answer, note that the question has
asked you for a judgement: how convincing the setting is. This is your focus, and
slightly less straightforward than Question 1. You have to think about what would
make a convincing setting for this story, and then put together the details you
find in the passage to make the picture and decide whether it matches. Has the
writer told you enough? Or are there a lot of extra details that don�t fit?
Remember that it is not just the physical description that gives you the setting.
Clues can also be given by things like how the people talk and what they are doing.
Work through the same sequence as in Question 1, and be aware that even if it does
not explicitly say so, this sort of question always requires you to make close
reference to the text in your answer.
3 What makes this section an effective opening for the story? You should
refer to the text in your answer.
If you have not already read to the end, you will probably feel you need to skim
through the rest of the story before you answer this question, but the detail to
consider is all in this section. Look back at what we said at the beginning of the
chapter about setting, characterisation, structure and language. What decisions has
the writer made about how to present the story? Is the setting consistent? Are the
characters and the way they interact believable? What part of the story comes
first? Is there anything that looks forward to the rest of the story and its
ending? How do these features combine to make an effective opening? Although the
question assumes that you will agree it is effective, you don�t have to! But
whether you agree or not you have to give your reasons and the evidence for them.
Passage 2
The day after they took Lena away
hell broke loose in Lucea town and Mandeville. Mandeville people came out on the
streets demonstrating because a whole tonload of streetpeople suddenly appeared on
their clean clean streets where was no streetpeople before. Nobody could tell where
they came from. Lucea people started to demonstrate because Lena�s people came out
in the town cussing and swearing to prosecute whoever took Lena, and they had
better bring her back. So the townpeople went and joined them.
That was when Clancy and me knew that Lena had people. We always used to wonder
where she came from. We fi gured she must live with somebody to have such nice
clothes and look so neat, even though she washed at the fi re hydrant. It turned
out her people lived in Granville and every morning Lena got money to take the bus
so she could do her daily work washing herself at the fi re hydrant.
�I guess it keep her occupied,� Clancy said facetiously. �People say having no work
can drive you mad. They don�t want her to get mad.�
�You idiot. Lena mad already.� �Not really. She just quiet.�
�So because she�s quiet, she can�t be mad?� �Huhn-huhn. But not Lena. You ever see
mad person so neat?�
�Maybe she a neatness freak. Maybe that her kind of madness.�
�Or maybe she tired how the town damn dirty. After how many years she can�t get
nobody to follow her example. She will be glad she reach at clean cool Mandeville.�
�Mandeville can�t suit Lena. It don�t have neither sea nor river.�
�It have fi re hydrant though. What the hell Lena doing with sea and river?�
I hissed my teeth because I could see Clancy just wanted an opportunity to swear
�damn� and �hell�, and now she got it. I ran off and left her and went to join the
demonstration.
The demonstration was sweet because people dressed up and painted their faces like
Jonkunnu and played loud music and waved funny placards. One lady had a placard
that said, GIVE WE BACK. WE MADPEOPLE. EVERYTHING YOU ALL SEE POOR PEOPLE HAVE, YOU
WANT IT. I got to dance to all the nice musics Aunt Vera would corn me if she
caught me listening to. It was like Christmas.
But the demonstration spread and got nasty. This is how it went. Some people from
the Citizens for Justice and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Streetpeople came, and TV with big cameras. At fi rst it was funny. The TV people
asked a fat lady why she was demonstrating. The fat lady laughed and said, �I don�t
really know, you know, sar. I passing and see the excitement so I join it too.� She
skinned her gold tooth wide wide for the camera. Later she must was happy because
it came on TV.
The TV people asked the Citizens for Justice and they said a lot of things I didn�t
understand about injustice to streetpeople and streetpeople rights and how the
streetpeople would suffer from when they were taking the Citizens for Justice
lady�s picture. She wanted to come on TV too. The police came and threw teargas and
Clancy got some in her mouth and was sick for days. She didn�t come on the TV.
In the end the government got in trouble because the TV people found out the police
took out all those streetpeople to clean up Lucea town and took them to mess up
cool clean Mandeville. They didn�t take them to any safe place at all at all. The
government had to promise to investigate. The police got in their vans and went and
got back most of the streetpeople and put them on the street again.
But they didn�t bring back Lena. Lena couldn�t be found.
Clancy said, �Let�s go and ask the Citizens for Justice and the Prevention of
Cruelty people to help fi nd Lena.�
�Who, me? No way, Jose.�
I wasn�t going anywhere with madhead Clancy. No way was I going to these people to
show off so I could be told I was just a child and to leave bigpeople business
alone. I was always having to rescue Clancy from all sorts of ambitious schemes. I
never knew a girl so, always trying to act like she was big.
Furthermore, the Prevention and Citizens people were busy. After most of the
streetpeople came back, a big advertisement from them appeared in the newspaper
saying JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED. WE STAND FOR THE PEOPLE. The Citizens and
Preventioners had a big rally commemorating the anniversary of the streetpeople�s
return.
They put on a big streetplay showing how it had all happened, how the streetpeople
were taken away and how they were fought for and returned. The head lady was a very
good actress and it was really great fun to watch. I couldn�t believe how they made
the baglady and drughead costumes so realistic.
Exercise 2
1 How does this episode of the story help you to understand further the
attitudes and behaviour of (a) the people from Mandeville, (b) the people
of Lucea, (c) the police?
In this section Lena is not present, as she has been taken away, and the focus
shifts to the wider population around her and their reactions to her and to what
has happened. You will probably find it easiest to take one of the three groups at
a time, and make notes of each time they are mentioned. It is always useful for
this sort of question to ask �Why?� So don�t just write, �The people from
Mandeville came out on the streets
reading prose narratives
demonstrating�, but ask, �Why did the people from Mandeville come out on the
streets demonstrating?� That will lead you to think about what sort of people they
were, their attitudes, as well as what they did, their behaviour. And then there�s
a second layer of �Why?� Why did the writer include that detail? What impression
does it make on the reader?
2 Explain as fully as you can how this section of the story develops from
the previous section and provides the reader with a fuller understanding
of events.
We have already seen in several contexts that the words �explain how� in a question
require more in your response than just the facts given in the passage. So start
with the facts: what the police did, who told them to do it, how the different
groups of people reacted, how the truth came out, etc. Then � since you are asked
how they develop from the first section � look for the links. For example, people
were upset and cross in the first section; did they stay upset and cross and what
did they do as a result? And then consider the development. How does the writer
introduce the new facts? For example, does the circle of people widen, and what is
the result of their actions? Does the reader end up knowing everything he or she
might want to know? There is, of course, one substantial loose end left, and that
provides the link to the next passage.
Passage 3
Then one day, long long after all the excitement died down, I was sitting by the
sea and Lena came.
I was sitting there feeling sad because I had to go away to boarding school, and
Clancy was staying.
I was there wondering what I was going to do without my best friend.
�You bathe since morning?� a familiar voice said behind me.
I turned around faster than light. She looked different. Her clothes were
tattered like she hadn�t changed them for a long time. You could see they had been
washed over and over but they weren�t very clean. She didn�t have her jippy-jappa
any more and her hair needed combing.
It looked like she had tried, but hadn�t done a good job of it. She also didn�t
have her straw basket with the cleaning things in. She had a conch shell. It was
white with blue streaks the veins. I wondered where she got it from. There were no
conch shells on this beach, so she must have got it from wherever she was coming
from.
�Lena!� I cried, so relieved I forgot she was mad. �Lena, where you come from?
Where you was?�
Lena stood over me looking down. �Face want wash,� she said disapprovingly.
It was true. I had been crying and then I wiped my hand in the sand and wiped it in
my face. I could feel the sand grains like rough, sticky tears.
I laughed. �Is eyewater, Lena,� I said. �It fossilize on m� face.�
Something seemed to connect because she jumped like somebody had come to arrest her
again. �Eyewater? Eyewater? What you have eyewater for? Anybody trouble you?�
I didn�t know Lena had so many words in her head. Suddenly it didn�t feel stupid to
be talking to this madwoman. �I going to boarding school and I go miss my friend,�
I told her, like I was talking to somebody real. �But where you come from, Lena?
Where you was all this time?�
She was looking at me like she was hearing something else. �Who trouble you?
Somebody trouble you? Here, tek this.� She pushed out her arm in a sudden way, all
jerky, and gave me the shell. I was so surprised I took it before I realized.
Lena gazed at me earnestly. �Listen up,� she said. �Hold it up and listen up. World
in there.�
I put the shell to my ear and listened. I heard a sound like the sea was inside and
it was so soft and whispery and wonderful and sad, I wanted to laugh and cry and
fall asleep and run all at the same time. Lena watched me anxiously for a while. I
closed my eyes to hear the shell better, but I could still feel her watching me.
Finally she squatted down beside me. �World in there. Lena listen, Lena listen.
Lena listen and follow the sound come back home.�
�You mean when you were there in Mandeville, where it don�t have no sea, is the
shell show you how to fi nd back here �cause it tell you to walk by the sea?� Lena
looked at me blankly as if I was mad.
Then it looked like she lost focus, for she just got up and walked out into the
water far away from me. I sat there watching her and listening sometimes to the
waves in the sea and sometimes to the sea in the shell.
After a long time she came back up to the beach and she had a lot of little shells
in her hand. I held out her big conch shell and said politely, �Thank you, Lena,
that was very nice.�
�Keep it. You don�t want it?� Lena looked disgusted. Then she said, �Lena reach
home now. Keep it. Idiot.� Then she hissed her teeth and went up the beach into the
town, leaving me holding the shell.
When I left I took Lena�s shell with me. Nights when I felt really homesick I sat
up in bed in the dorm and put it to my ear and listened to Lena�s world of the sea.
It made me feel better.
Nobody ever found out how Lena got home from Mandeville. But when I told Aunt Vera
about the shell, she agreed with me that maybe Lena found or stole the shell
somewhere and it somehow reminded her of where she came from, so she just walked
along the coast roads until she got to where she recognized.
We will never know. But the journey and the shell seemed to change Lena in some
way. I guess the way going to boarding
reading prose narratives
Exercise 3
1 What makes this final passage an effective conclusion to the story?
Explain in detail the narrator�s thoughts and feelings and what she has
learnt from her meetings with Lena.
The final words of this question give you the main clue as to what this whole short
story is really about, and what you should judge �effective� against. But as
always, start with the facts of what happens. How do they grow out of the two
previous passages and how are they linked in? Do they leave the reader with a
satisfied sense that the end of the story has been reached? Then consider the
narrator�s thoughts and feelings, which are more evident in this passage than they
have been earlier. Why is that? What has she learnt? Finally think about why this
is the third passage of quite a long short story. The story could just have started
with �One day Lena gave me a shell ��. Why did the writer decide to write all the
detail of the streetpeople being taken away and other people�s reactions to it?
2 Now that you have read the whole story, write a critical account of it. You
should consider the development of the story and the ways in which the
different episodes further your understanding. You should also consider
the ways in which the author has presented the characters involved in the
story and the language she uses.
If you put together all your work so far on this story, you have gone a long way
towards answering this much more general question. But before you leave it, read it
through and consider whether having all the material in one sequence suggests any
other ideas to you. All good writing has many layers of meaning and response, and
successful reading depends on being open to everything the writer is trying to
convey.
school changed me. Aunt Vera said it was all part of growing up. I guess we both
were growing up, Lena and me.
Clancy wrote and said Lena was OK again. Her people in Granville took her back in
and she had new clean clothes and a new basket and fresh rouge and lipstick. Redder
than ever, Clancy said. But she didn�t wash by the fi re hydrant any more. Now she
washed only in the sea. Clancy said any time of day you went down by the beach you
could see Lena, either washing herself or walking along the shoreline
combing the beach for shells. It was like she felt she had lost the sea that time
they took her to Mandeville, and she didn�t want to risk losing it any more. Maybe
she thought if she stayed by it all the time, she could keep it from going away,
Clancy said.
I just hoped she found a shell with worlds inside, like the one she gave me.
Because at boarding school whenever I was lonely, Lena�s shell made me feel like I
was safe and coming home.
From Flying with Icarus and other stories by Curdella Forbes
Further reading exercises on narrative texts
Here is the opening of a short story by H.G. Wells.
The Door in the Wall
One confi dential evening, not three months ago, Lionel Wallace told me this story
of the Door in the Wall. And at the time I thought that so far as he was concerned
it was a true story.
He told it me with such direct simplicity of conviction that I could not do
otherwise than believe in him. But in the morning, in my own fl at, I woke to a
different atmosphere; and as I lay in bed and recalled the things he had told me,
stripped of the glamour of his earnest slow voice, denuded of the focused, shaded
table light,
the shadowy atmosphere that wrapped about him and me, and the pleasant bright
things, the dessert and glasses and napery of the dinner we had shared, making them
for the time a bright little world quite cut off from everyday realities, I saw it
all as frankly incredible. �He was mystifying!� I said, and then: �How well he did
it! � It isn�t quite the thing I should have expected
of him of all people, to do well.� Afterwards as I sat up in bed and sipped my
morning tea, I found myself trying to account for the fl avour of reality
that perplexed me in his impossible reminiscences, by supposing they did in some
way suggest, present, convey � I hardly know which word to use � experiences it was
otherwise impossible to tell.
Well, I don�t resort to that explanation now. I have got over my intervening
doubts. I believe now, as I believed at the moment of telling, that Wallace did to
the very best of his ability strip the truth of his secret for me. But whether he
himself saw, or only thought he saw, whether he himself was the possessor of an
inestimable privilege or the victim of a fantastic dream, I cannot pretend to
guess. Even the facts of his death, which ended my doubts for ever, throw no light
on that.
That much the reader must judge for himself.
I forget now what chance comment or criticism of mine moved so reticent a man to
confi de in me. He was, I think, defending himself against an imputation of
slackness and unreliability I had made in relation to a great public movement, in
which he had disappointed me. But he plunged suddenly. �I have,� he said, �a
preoccupation ��
�I know,� he went on, after a pause, �I have been negligent. The fact is � it isn�t
a case of ghosts or apparitions � but � it�s an odd thing to tell of, Redmond � I
am haunted. I am haunted by something � that rather takes the light out of things,
that fi lls me with longings ��
reading prose narratives
He paused, checked by that English shyness that so often overcomes us when we speak
of moving or grave or beautiful things. �You were at Saint Athelstan�s all
through,� he said, and for a moment that seemed to me quite irrelevant. �Well� �
and he paused. Then very haltingly at fi rst, but afterwards more easily, he began
to tell of the thing that was hidden in his life, the haunting memory of a beauty
and happiness that fi lled his heart with insatiable longings, that made all the
interests and spectacle of worldly life seem dull and tedious and vain to him.
Now that I have the clue to it, the thing seems written visibly in his face. I
have a photograph in which that look of detachment has been caught and intensifi
ed. It reminds me of what a woman once said of him � a woman who had loved him
greatly. �Suddenly,� she said, �the interest goes out of him. He forgets you. He
doesn�t care a rap for you � under his very nose ��
Yet the interest was not always out of him, and when he was holding his attention
to a thing Wallace could contrive to be an extremely successful man. His career,
indeed, is set with successes. He left me behind him long ago; he soared up over my
head, and cut a fi gure in the world that I couldn�t cut � anyhow. He was still a
year short of forty, and they say now that he would have been in offi ce and very
probably in the new Cabinet if he had lived. At school he always beat me without
effort � as it were by nature. We were at school together at Saint Athelstan�s
College in West Kensington for almost all our school time. He came into the school
as my co-equal, but he left far above me, in a blaze of scholarships and brilliant
performance. Yet I think I made a fair average running. And it was at school I
heard fi rst of the �Door in the Wall� � that I was to hear of a second time only a
month before his death.
To him at least the Door in the Wall was a real door, leading through a real wall
to immortal realities. Of that I am now quite assured.
And it came into his life quite early, when he was a little fellow between fi ve
and six. I remember how, as he sat making his confession to me with a slow gravity,
he reasoned and reckoned the date of it. �There was,� he said, �a crimson Virginia
creeper in it � all one bright uniform crimson, in a clear amber sunshine against a
white wall. That came into
the impression somehow, though I don�t clearly remember how, and there were horse-
chestnut leaves upon the clean pavement outside the green door. They were blotched
yellow and green, you know, not brown nor dirty, so that they must have been new
fallen. I take it that means October. I look out for horse-chestnut leaves every
year and I ought to know.
�If I�m right in that, I was about fi ve years and four months old.�
He was, he said, rather a precocious little boy � he learned to talk at an
abnormally early age, and he was so sane and �oldfashioned�, as people say, that he
was permitted an amount of initiative that most children scarcely attain by seven
or eight. His mother died when he was two, and he was under the less vigilant and
authoritative care of a nursery governess. His father was a stern, pre-occupied
lawyer, who gave him little attention and expected great things of him. For all his
brightness he found life grey and dull, I think. And one day he wandered.
He could not recall the particular neglect that enabled him to get away, nor the
course he took among the West Kensington roads. All that had faded among the
incurable blurs of memory. But the white wall and the green door stood out quite
distinctly.
As his memory of that childish experience ran, he did at the very fi rst sight of
that door experience a peculiar emotion, and attraction, a desire to get to the
door and open it and walk in.
And at the same time he had the clearest conviction that either it was unwise or it
was wrong of him � he could not tell which � to yield to this attraction. He
insisted upon it as a curious thing that he knew from the very beginning � unless
memory has played him the queerest trick � that the door was unfastened, and that
he could go in as he chose.
I seem to see the fi gure of that little boy, drawn and repelled. And it was very
clear in his mind, too, though why it should be so was never explained, that his
father would be very angry if he went in through that door.
Wallace described all these moments of hesitation to me with the utmost
particularity. He went right past the door, and then, with his hands in his pockets
and making an infantile attempt to whistle, strolled right along beyond the end of
the wall. There he recalls a number of mean dirty shops, and particularly that of a
plumber and decorator with a dusty disorder of
earthenware pipes, sheet lead, ball taps, pattern books of wallpaper, and tins of
enamel. He stood pretending to examine these things, and coveting, passionately
desiring, the green door.
Then, he said, he had a gust of emotion. He made a run for it, lest hesitation
should grip him again; he went plumb with outstretched hand through the green door
and let it slam behind him. And so, in a trice, he came into the garden that has
haunted all his life.
It was very diffi cult for Wallace to give me his full sense of that garden into
which he came.
There was something in the very air of it that exhilarated, that gave one a sense
of lightness and good happening and well-being; there was something in the sight of
it that made all its colour clean and perfect and subtly luminous. In the instant
of coming into it one was exquisitely glad � as only in rare moments, and when one
is young and joyful one can be glad in this world. And everything was beautiful
there �
Photocopying prohibited 135
reading prose narratives
Exercise 4
1 By referring closely to this extract, write out as fully as you can what you
have learnt about:
? Lionel Wallace
? the narrator
? the story that Wallace told.
You should use your own words, but remember to quote from the passage.
The question is asking for facts, what the passage says, but remember that some
things you learn by deduction, rather than being told directly. For instance, it is
clear almost from the start that this is not a modern story. How do you know? Is it
the language used? Or some of the details of the description? And what occupation
did the two men have?
2 Consider fully why this is an effective opening to the story. In particular,
you should think about:
? the writer�s narrative standpoint
? the setting of the story
? any clues that are given as to how the story might develop and which
will make readers want to know what will happen next
? the language used by the writer.
The narrator doesn�t tell the story about himself; he looks back and recounts how
it was told to him (a story within a story). Why do you think he does this? What
does it enable him to do? What effect does it have on the story? On the setting?
3 For each of the words underlined in the passage, write down the letter
which has the same meaning as the word has in the passage.
a conviction
Extension tasks
4 Write your own version of how the story ends. You should use clues and
details from the opening of the story and try to write in a style similar to
the original.
5 Find a copy of the whole of the original story and read it. Was it what you
expected? Did you find it convincing? Why, or why not?
Here is a complete short story. Read it for enjoyment and then answer the questions
that follow.
The Necklace
She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered
over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations,
no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and
distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry
of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any
other, but she was as unhappy as
though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty,
grace, and charm serving them for birth or family. Their natural delicacy, their
instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put
the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.
She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She
suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly
curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have
been aware, tormented and insulted her. The sight of the little Breton girl who
came to do the work in her little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless
dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental
tapestries, lit by torches
in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large
arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons
hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless
ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of
intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every
other woman�s envious longings.
When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old
cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming
delightedly: �Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?� she imagined delicate
meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and
strange birds in faery forests;
she imagined delicate food served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries,
listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifl ed with the rosy fl esh of trout
or wings of asparagus chicken.
She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved;
she felt that she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be
desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after.
Reading prose narratives
She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she
suffered so keenly when she returned
home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.
? ? ? ? ?
One evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large envelope in
his hand.
�Here�s something for you,� he said. Swiftly she tore the paper and drew out a
printed card on which were these words: �The Minister of Education and Madame
Ramponneau request the pleasure of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel at the
Ministry on the evening of Monday, January the 18th.�
Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she fl ung the invitation
petulantly across the table, murmuring:
�What do you want me to do with this?� �Why, darling, I thought you�d be pleased.
You never go out, and this is a great occasion. I had tremendous trouble to get it.
Every one wants one; it�s very select, and very few go to the clerks. You�ll see
all the really big people there.�
She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently: �And what do you
suppose I am to wear at such an affair?� He had not thought about it; he stammered:
�Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me ...�
He stopped, stupefi ed and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was
beginning to cry. Two large tears ran slowly down
from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth.
�What�s the matter with you? What�s the matter with you?� he faltered.
But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice,
wiping her wet cheeks:
�Nothing. Only I haven�t a dress and so I can�t go to this party. Give your
invitation to some friend of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I
shall.�
He was heart-broken.
�Look here, Mathilde,� he persisted. �What would be the cost of a suitable dress,
which you could use on other occasions as well, something very simple?�
She thought for several seconds, reckoning up prices and also wondering for how
large a sum she could ask without bringing upon herself an immediate refusal and an
exclamation of horror from the carefulminded clerk.
At last she replied with some hesitation: �I don�t know exactly, but I think I
could do it on four hundred francs.�
He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a
gun, intending to get a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre with
some friends who went lark-shooting there on Sundays.
Nevertheless he said: �Very well. I�ll give you four hundred francs. But try and
get a really nice dress with the money.� The day of the party drew near, and Madame
Loisel seemed sad, uneasy and anxious. Her dress was ready, however. One evening
her husband said to her: �What�s the matter with you? You�ve been very odd for the
last three days.� �I�m utterly miserable at not having any
jewels, not a single stone, to wear,� she replied. �I shall look absolutely no one.
I would almost rather not go to the party.� �Wear fl owers,� he said. �They�re very
smart at this time of the year. For ten francs you could get two or three gorgeous
roses.�
She was not convinced.
�No ... there�s nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of
rich women.�
�How stupid you are!� exclaimed her husband. �Go and see Madame Forestier and ask
her to lend you some jewels. You know her quite well enough for that.� She uttered
a cry of delight.
�That�s true. I never thought of it.� Next day she went to see her friend and told
her her trouble.
Madame Forestier went to her dressingtable, took up a large box, brought it to
Madame Loisel, opened it, and said:
�Choose, my dear.�
First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross in gold
and gems, of exquisite workmanship. She tried the effect of the jewels before the
mirror, hesitating, unable to make up her mind to leave them, to give them up. She
kept on asking:
�Haven�t you anything else?�
�Yes. Look for yourself. I don�t know what you would like best.�
Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace; her
heart began to beat covetously. Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened
it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at the sight of
herself. Then, with hesitation, she asked in anguish:
�Could you lend me this, just this alone?� �Yes, of course.�
She fl ung herself on her friend�s breast, embraced her frenziedly, and went away
with her treasure. The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She
was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above
herself with happiness. All the men stared at her, inquired her name, and asked to
be introduced to her. All the UnderSecretaries of State were eager to waltz with
her. The Minister noticed her.
She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything,
in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride
Reading prose narratives
of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and
admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so
dear to her feminine heart.
She left about four o�clock in the morning. Since midnight her husband had been
dozing in a deserted little room, in company with three other men whose
wives were having a good time. He threw over her shoulders the garments he had
brought for them to go home in, modest everyday clothes, whose poverty clashed with
the beauty of the ball-dress. She was conscious of this and was anxious to hurry
away, so that she should not be noticed by the other women putting on their costly
furs.
Loisel restrained her.
�Wait a little. You�ll catch cold in the open. I�m going to fetch a cab.�
But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the staircase. When they were
out in the street they could not fi nd a cab; they began to look for one, shouting
at the drivers whom they saw passing in the distance.
They walked down towards the Seine, desperate and shivering. At last they found on
the quay one of those old nightprowling carriages which are only to be seen in
Paris after dark, as though they were ashamed of their shabbiness in the daylight.
It brought them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they walked up to
their own apartment. It was the end, for her. As for him, he was thinking that he
must be at the offi ce at ten.
She took off the garments in which she had wrapped her shoulders, so as to see
herself in all her glory before the mirror. But suddenly she uttered a cry. The
necklace was no longer round her neck!
�What�s the matter with you?� asked her husband, already half undressed. She turned
towards him in the utmost distress.
�I ... I ... I�ve no longer got Madame Forestier�s necklace ....� He started with
astonishment.
�What! ... Impossible!�
They searched in the folds of her dress, in the folds of the coat, in the pockets,
everywhere. They could not fi nd it. �Are you sure that you still had it on when
you came away from the ball?� he asked. �Yes, I touched it in the hall at the
Ministry.� �But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall.�
�Yes. Probably we should. Did you take the number of the cab?�
�No. You didn�t notice it, did you?� �No.�
They stared at one another, dumbfounded. At last Loisel put on his clothes again.
�I�ll go over all the ground we walked,� he said, �and see if I can�t fi nd it.�
And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes, lacking strength to get into
bed, huddled on a chair, without volition or power of thought.
Her husband returned about seven. He had found nothing.
He went to the police station, to the newspapers, to offer a reward, to the cab
companies, everywhere that a ray of hope impelled him.
She waited all day long, in the same state of bewilderment at this fearful
catastrophe. Loisel came home at night, his face lined and pale; he had discovered
nothing. �You must write to your friend,� he said, �and tell her that you�ve broken
the clasp of her necklace and are getting it mended. That will give us time to look
about us.� She wrote at his dictation.
By the end of a week they had lost all hope. Loisel, who had aged fi ve years,
declared: �We must see about replacing the diamonds.�
Next day they took the box which had held the necklace and went to the jewellers
whose name was inside. He consulted his books.
�It was not I who sold this necklace, Madame; I must have merely supplied the
clasp.�
Then they went from jeweller to jeweller, searching for another necklace like the
fi rst, consulting their memories, both ill with remorse and anguish of mind.
In a shop at the Palais-Royal they found a string of diamonds which seemed to them
exactly like the one they were looking for. It was worth forty thousand francs.
They were allowed to have it for thirty-six thousand.
They begged the jeweller not to sell it for three days. And they arranged matters
on the understanding that it would be taken back for thirty-four thousand francs,
if the fi rst one were found before the end of February.
Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs left to him by his father. He intended to
borrow the rest.
He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, fi ve hundred from another, fi
ve louis here, three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous
agreements, did business with usurers and the whole tribe of money-lenders. He
mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without
even knowing if he could honour it, and, appalled at
the agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at
the prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get
the new necklace and put down upon the jeweller�s counter thirty-six thousand
francs.
When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to
her in a chilly voice:
�You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it.�
reading prose narratives
She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she had noticed the
substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she not
have taken her for a thief?
Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty. From the very fi rst
she played her part heroically. This fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay
it. The servant was dismissed. They changed their fl at; they took a garret under
the roof. She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the
kitchen.
She washed the plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the
bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish-cloths, and hung
them out to dry on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the
street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And,
clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a
basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fi ghting for every
wretched halfpenny of her money. Every month notes had to be paid off, others
renewed, time gained. Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a
merchant�s accounts, and often at night he did copying at twopencehalfpenny a page.
And this life lasted ten years.
At the end of ten years everything was paid off, everything, the usurer�s charges
and the accumulation of superimposed interest.
Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the other strong, hard,
coarse women of poor households. Her hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her
hands were red. She spoke in a shrill voice, and the water slopped all over the fl
oor when she scrubbed it. But sometimes, when her husband was at the offi ce, she
sat down by the window and thought of that evening long ago, of the ball at which
she had been so beautiful and so much admired.
What would have happened if she had never lost those jewels. Who knows? Who knows?
How strange life is, how fi ckle! How little is needed to ruin or to save!
One Sunday, as she had gone for a walk along the Champs-Elysees to freshen herself
after the labours of the week, she caught sight suddenly of a woman who was taking
a child out for a walk. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful,
still attractive.
Madame Loisel was conscious of some emotion. Should she speak to her? Yes,
certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?
She went up to her. �Good morning, Jeanne.�
The other did not recognise her, and was surprised at being thus familiarly
addressed by a poor woman.
�But ... Madame ...� she stammered. �I don�t know ... you must be making a
mistake.�
Extension task
1 Write a detailed review of this story. You should write about:
? the ways in which the writer has described and presented the main
characters
? the setting of the story
? the use of humour
? the writer�s use of language
? the way the events in the story develop
? the ending of the story.
2 Would you recommend this story to your friends and would you want to
read other stories by the same writer? Give your reasons.
Writing narrative texts
Narrative standpoint
We have already in Chapter 5 looked at personal narratives where the narrator, in
the first person, is recounting some events from his or her own past life. And we
have already established that such narratives do not have to be truly from the
narrator�s own life, and that a writer can use a fi rst-person
�No ... I am Mathilde Loisel.� Her friend uttered a cry.
�Oh! ... my poor Mathilde, how you have changed! ...�
�Yes, I�ve had some hard times since I saw you last; and many sorrows ... and all
on your account.�
�On my account! ... How was that?� �You remember the diamond necklace you lent me
for the ball at the Ministry?� �Yes. Well?�
�Well, I lost it.�
�How could you? Why, you brought it back.� �I brought you another one just like it.
And for the last ten years we have been paying
for it. You realise it wasn�t easy for us; we had no money .... Well, it�s paid for
at last, and I�m glad indeed.�
Madame Forestier had halted.
�You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?�
�Yes. You hadn�t noticed it? They were very much alike.�
And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness.
Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands.
�Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most fi ve
hundred francs! ...�
Guy de Maupassant
Photocopying prohibited 143
Tips for narrative writing
narrator where there is no intention of being autobiographical. It is just as
likely that the writer will have invented the character who is telling the story
and imagined the situations he or she experiences. Choosing to tell a story through
a first-person narrator can have many advantages. It means that the story will be
told through the words and experiences of a single character (�I�) and that the
events described can, therefore, only be those in which this character is in some
way involved. This approach has the advantage of allowing the reader to identify
and sympathise with the narrator quickly and closely and allows the writer to
explain the narrator�s thoughts and motivations directly. However, it is important
for a writer to be consistent in this approach and not to spoil the continuity of
the story by including incidents that it is impossible for the narrator to know
about.
In a third-person narrative the writer chooses to describe the events from an
impersonal viewpoint � the narrator has an overall, objective approach to
describing what happens and what characters are thinking, and uses third-person
pronouns (�he�, �she�, �they�) or the characters� names. Such an approach allows
the narrator to show a complete understanding of all that happens to all the
characters involved in the story � this is sometimes referred to as an omniscient
narrative approach � and perhaps allows for greater complexity of structure than a
firstperson approach. Both types of narrative can be used very effectively when
writing a story.
Most examination Writing papers will include a narrative as one of the choices for
a student. This is frequently seen by examination students as an attractive option.
However, it should not be entered into without thinking carefully. Constructing a
convincing and original story on a topic which you have read only a few seconds
previously is not an easy task. Many students who choose to write a story as their
examination essay do little more than reproduce a half-remembered and not fully
relevant story that they have read somewhere before. The best advice is not to
attempt to write a short story under limited time conditions unless you feel fully
confident that you can do justice to the subject and to your own ability in the
time available. On the other hand, writing short stories for your own interest or
as part of a class assignment where time is not a constraint can be very enjoyable
indeed. Doing so still needs much thought and preparation, however.
Now we are going to look at points to remember when you write an imaginative
narrative of your own. We will continue to focus on short-story writing although
the techniques required can, of course, be expanded into writing your own novel if
that is what you are interested in doing!
Tips for narrative writing
Before writing your story (whether in an examination or at home) it helps to keep
the following points in mind:
? Try not to make your story too complicated; remember it is a short story\ and it
is a good idea to keep the events tightly focused. You need to engage your readers
immediately and ensure that they stay interested throughout. Too complicated a plot
is likely to lead to readers becoming unsure of what is happening � this warning
applies especially to stories written under examination conditions.
? Try to keep the content of your story to events that are or could be within your
own experience. It is much more difficult to write convincingly about things that
you do not know. This applies especially to the setting of the story and the
situations in which you place the characters. However, there is nothing wrong with
taking details of two different places that you know and combining them in such a
way that you produce a new, fictional town or village as the setting for your
story. It is particularly important that you keep things within your own experience
when you write a short story under examination conditions. If your time is limited
you don�t want to complicate things further by trying to create a completely
imaginary landscape, for example.
? Try to break up long sections of narrative with passages of direct speech.
Remember that direct speech can be an effective way of lightening a lengthy
narrative and can speed up the passing on of information to the reader. However,
writing direct speech effectively needs care and thought � you need to be selective
about what you decide to put into it and be fully confident in your ability to
punctuate it correctly.
? Remember that there are only a limited number of potential plots and situations
for any story that you choose to write � it is important that what you write
reflects your individuality but that can best be conveyed in the way you write.
However, if you are writing an examination essay you should avoid uncritically
repeating a story you have read or written elsewhere � a memorised story seldom
fits the given topic properly, and your attempts to make it do so will always be
noticed.
? Tone/register: The tone and register you use in your story will help to convey
the atmosphere of the story and, in the case of a first-person narrator, the
character and personality of the person telling the story. This is another way by
which key points can be communicated to the reader in an economical way. The
vocabulary and syntax used by the narrator of the story are also effective means of
establishing character and the words used may also help to suggest the atmosphere
of the events you are describing. Look back at the story of Lena (page 122) and
remember how much the language of the narrator contributed to the setting of the
story.
? Conclusion: It may sound silly, but the first thing you plan should be your
ending. Before you start writing you must know where and how you are going to stop.
When you plan the events of your story make sure that you have a clear picture of
how you intend it to finish. It is up to you whether you want to tie up all the
loose ends of your story in a concluding section or whether you intend deliberately
to leave your readers guessing what may happen next. Both approaches are perfectly
acceptable, but it is important that you, as the writer, have planned the ending �
it may, of course come as a complete surprise to the reader!
Punctuation: dashes and hyphens
These two punctuation devices should not be confused. The dash is used for a
variety of purposes. Its main use is to show where there is an interruption to the
intended structure of a sentence, for example when an afterthought is added or an
interruption occurs. In these cases, a dash is placed before and after the words
that are interjected � unless the interruption occurs at the end of a sentence when
it will be concluded with the conventional device such as a full stop, question
mark or exclamation mark. For example:
�She offered me some of her lunch � and very tasty it was too � before we went back
into lessons.�
�She offered me some of her lunch before we went back into lessons � and very tasty
it was too!�
A dash is also used to show when a word or sentence is not completed. For example:
�I�ll tell you who the murderer is; it was �� a single shot silenced him before he
could pronounce the name we had all been waiting for. �He was found in the gard ��
�No, don�t tell everyone!� the detective interrupted.
Another use of the dash is to indicate a dramatic pause, usually to draw attention
to the end of a sentence. For example:
�I�ll tell you who committed the murder,� said the detective. �It was � the mayor.�
A hyphen is not really a punctuation mark at all; it is simply a way of linking
compound words together (for example, �the sea was a bluish-grey colour�). It holds
the two parts of the word together for ease of reading and avoids possible
confusion. Note that hyphens are necessary when using a phrase adjectivally, even
if that phrase would not have them when not being used as an adjective. For
example:
�Please give me the up-to-date figures.� �Those figures are up to date.�
The hyphen�s only other use is as a sign that a word has been split into syllables
when there is no space to fit the complete word in at the end of a line of writing,
for example �eat-ing�. In this case, it is important that you place the hyphen
between syllables and not between letters at random (for example �eati-ng�). But
better still is to keep an eye on how close to the end of the line you are when
writing, so that you move to the next line and avoid using a hyphen at all.
Punctuation exercise
Here is an extract from a short story with all the punctuation removed. Put in the
punctuation (including dashes).
it was very slowly I recovered my memory of my experience you believe now said the
old man that the room is haunted he spoke no longer as one who greets an intruder
but as one who grieves for a broken friend yes said I the room is haunted and you
have seen it and we who have lived here all our lives have never set eyes upon it
because we have never dared ... tell us is it truly the old earl who no said I it
is not I told you so said the old lady with the glass in her hand it is his poor
young countess who was frightened it is not I said there is neither ghost of earl
nor ghost of countess in that room there is no ghost there at all but worse far
worse well they said the worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal man said I
and that is in all its nakedness Fear fear that will not have light nor sound that
will not bear with reason that deafens and darkens and overwhelms it followed me
through the corridor it fought against me in the room I stopped abruptly there was
an interval of silence my hand went up to my bandages
From The Red Room by H.G. Wells
Narrative writing exercise
Write a story based on one of the following prompts.
1 Title: �An Unexpected Visitor�
2 Beginning: �We waited anxiously for five minutes but still no one had
emerged ��
3 Title: �The Old Lady with the Bag�
4 Ending: �I told you that would happen,� she said.
5 Title: �The Family Outing�