Keeping the Reader Enthralled

Keeping the reader enthralled

TITLE: Unit 03 Keeping the reader enthralled

Introduction

What you’ll learn

The essential elements of fiction

What happens next?

Spotlight on character

It could only happen here

The theme

The storyteller’s art

Detail

Dialogue

Description

Introduction

In Section 2 you looked at beginnings of stories and how writers grab your attention. You also looked at the way stories end. In this section you’ll explore the many ways in which writers keep your interest during the story.

In some fiction the plot keeps us turning the pages; in some
we are captivated by the characters. The setting (the time and place) assumes great importance in some stories. Sometimes we are interested in the subject of the story and at other times in the theme. It may happen that the particular writer’s style of narration (or storytelling) may be something that we savour.

What you’ll learn

By the end of this section you’ll be able to:

• identify how writers keep us reading
• analyse different techniques of writing
• look at the part played by setting, character, plot, theme and style in keeping the reader’s interest.

The essential elements of fiction

The elements of plot, characters, subject, theme and style are present in all fiction but, in a particular story, one of them may be more prominent than the others. Let’s read some stories to see what element dominates each.

Good stories can be very vivid, and for a short while we may accept the impossible as being real. Get ready to suspend your disbelief as you read ‘The monkey’s paw’.

1What feelings did you experience as you read this story?

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2In a few lines, discuss the importance of the setting in the opening of the story. How did it prepare you for the story?

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3How did the sergeant-major build up the White’s (and our) interest in the monkey’s paw?

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4Select phrases that tell us the changes that took place in Major Morris’s behaviour as he talked about the paw.

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5Did all the Whites believe in the power of the monkey’s paw? How can you tell?

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6What words can you use to describe the fulfilling of the first wish?

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7Mr White calls his son’s accident a coincidence. What do you think?

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8Do you think it was Herbert at the door? Why or why not?

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9Why did Mr White not want to open the door?

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10What do you think was his last wish?

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11What techniques does the writer use to keep our interest?

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12In what ways are plot, characters and setting important in ‘The monkey’s paw’?

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Turn on your cassette and listen to the discussion on ‘The monkey’s paw’. Were the views of the speakers similar to yours? Add to your answers if you want to.

What happens next?

Once upon a time there was a Sultan who became disenchanted with women because his wife was unfaithful to him. He decided to take a new wife every day and have her beheaded the next morning so that she could not be unfaithful to him. It was the job of his Vizier (prime minister) to find him the women, a task that was becoming more and more difficult and that was making him the most unpopular man in the country. Then one day, the Vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade, offered to marry the Sultan and with a heavy heart the Vizier presented her.

Scheherazade did not have a death wish; what she did have was the skill of the storyteller. Every night she told the Sultan a story so gripping that he listened with eager interest. But as soon as she saw the pink of dawn, she stopped. The Sultan, unable to bear the suspense of not knowing what happened next, would grant her one more day of life to hear the end of her story. And so she kept him on the knife-edge of suspense for a thousand and one nights.

Every writer wishes to have the skill of Scheherazade so that the reader keeps asking, ‘What happens next?’ Did you find ‘The monkey’s paw’ had that quality?

Spotlight on character

The next story you’ll read focuses on character. Characters are people that an author creates. For readers to be interested, the characters must be believable. They do not have to be real. In Star wars, for example, some of the characters are space creatures and robots, but they are believable in their context.

Comments by other characters allow us to learn more about other characters in a piece of writing.

‘He could kill her!’ Cook told Hudson. ‘I’ve seen his eyes.’

‘So?’ said Hudson.

Cook shook indignant rolls of plumpness at the butler. Her eyes caught fire:

‘She treats him worse than a dog! All that money and he never has a penny. All she gives him is her tongue.’

‘She makes it,’ said Hudson.

‘With his companies,’ said Cook.

‘She’s trebled his fortune—in oil, in tin, in rubber. She has a most astute business brain.’

‘His fortune! His money!’ Cook opened wide, tuppenny-weekly eyes, imaginatively dilated by such fare. ‘He’ll kill her yet, mark my words, or he’d like to.’

‘The last is perhaps nearer to the mark in my estimation,’ said Hudson, sleekly moving away.

From ‘Nice and hygienic’ by Dal Stivens (in Australian short
stories, 2nd edn, edited by Heather Chatfield and Jan
Williamson).

To be believable, the characters must have good and bad qualities and we must be able to react to them in some way; for example, with sympathy, anger, fear or amusement.

The next story you’ll read is titled: ‘The open window’ by Saki, in which our interest revolves around a girl called Vera.

1What was your reaction to the story?

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2Were the characters believable? What techniques does Saki use?

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3Comment on the title of the story. Do you think it is suitable? Explain.

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Turn to the Suggested responses to check your thoughts with ours.

It could only happen here

In some stories the setting is the focus of attention. The characters behave in a particular way because they are in a particular place at a particular time. Events happen that couldn’t happen elsewhere. One such story is ‘The shell’ by Colin Thiele. For a pre-reading exercise, let’s look at the first three paragraphs.

Remember what we said in Section 2 about Thiele’s favourite way of beginning a story—he likes to lay in the setting. The first paragraph of ‘The shell’ does just that.

The green sea swept into the shallows and seethed there like slaking quicklime. It surged over the rocks, tossing up spangles of water like a juggler and catching them deftly again behind. It raced knee-deep through the clefts and crevices, twisted and tortured in a thousand ways, till it swept nuzzling and sucking into the holes at the base of the cliff. The whole reef was a shambles of foam, but it was bright in the sun, bright as a shattered mirror, exuberant and leaping with light.

One of the characters, a woman, is introduced in the second paragraph, but we hear only her reaction to the scene. Notice again how effectively Thiele uses comparisons to create the movement of the wave.

Thiele uses skilful devices to create this picture of the sea. The very first sentence contains words beginning with the letter ‘s’—sea, swept, shallows, seethed, slaking—which echoes the sounds made by the sea on the shore. The verbs, swept and seethed together with surged in the next sentence, vividly describe the action and sound of the sea.

Thiele also uses imaginative comparisons to make the picture clearer: tossing up spangles of water like a juggler and catching them deftly again behind; bright as a shattered mirror, and slid slowly like a boy on his stomach slipping backwards down the steep face of a gable roof. He gives life to the sea by speaking of it as if it were something alive: It raced knee-deep through the clefts and crevices, twisted and tortured in a thousand ways.

No wonder the woman on the tiny white beach in the tuck of the cliffs pressed her sunglasses close and puckered the corners of her eyes into creases. Before her, the last wave flung itself forward up the slope of the beach, straining and stretched to the utmost, and then just failing, slid back slowly like a boy on his stomach slipping backwards down the steep face of a gable roof.

The shell, the title of the story, is introduced in the third paragraph and we see it from the point of view of the woman. Again Thiele paints word pictures so we can visualise the shell on the rock. We are tempted to ask: What is the significance of the shell? What will the story reveal about it?

The shell lay in a saucer of rock. It was a green cowrie clean and new, its pink undersides as delicate as human flesh. All round it the rock dropped away sheer or leaned out in an overhang streaked with dripping strands of slime like wet hair. The waves spumed over it, hissing and curling, but the shell tumbled the water off its back or just rocked gently like a bead in the palm of the hand. Its clean gleam caught the woman’s eye as she squinted seawards, and her heart stirred acquisitively. It was something she could wade out for when the tide went back; a way of bringing the sea right into the living room. Just one shell to give artistic balance to her specimen shelf for parties or bridge afternoons with her friends.

1How does Colin Thiele make the sea appear as a living creature? How important is the setting in the story?

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2As you read the story, were there any clues about how it would end,
or did it come as a surprise?

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3What do we learn about the characters?

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4What were the main events in the story?

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5How would you describe the atmosphere in the story? Does it change? If you feel it does, explain how.

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Turn to the Suggested responses to check your thoughts with ours.

The theme

Through the plot, character and setting the writer presents ideas about a topic or topics. We call this the theme. It could be a view about some aspect of life, such as friendship as in ‘Twenty years’or a general comment on life; for example, that one must not meddle with the occult as in ‘The monkey’s paw’.

The writer does not say, ‘Here’s my view of life’, but lets us work it out as we read the story from the way the characters behave and the action happens. There will be times when we disagree with the themein ‘Twenty years’, for example, we may have a different view of friendship. That is okay. The writer is not saying, ‘My view is correct’. What’s important is that we think about the views that are put forward and re-assess our own.

Themes can sometimes be light-hearted as in ‘Private eye’, which suggests that it can be fun to do something different for someone special.

The storyteller’s art

A story may have all the features that we have discussed and still not be interesting. What ultimately makes a story memorable is the writer’s art as a storyteller. When you read a story you like, ask yourself how the writer handles detail, dialogue and description. Of course there are many more features you can look at, but these are the most important.

Detail

Because space is limited in a short story, the writer selects detail which is important for the reader to know. Whether it is detail about the setting or characters, it should be there for a purpose. Detail about a character, for example, should tell us something important about the person. We do not need to know when and where they were born or family history as in a biography. In the setting, the writer should provide details that are necessary for the reader to understand the events and the characters.

Dialogue

Dialogue brings characters alive. We hear voices utter ‘real’ words. Through dialogue characters reveal themselves, their emotions and their thoughts. Dialogue also shows the relationship between characters.

Other functions of dialogue

In addition to giving the reader clues about a character and relationships, dialogue dramatises conflict, creates suspense and provides humour and pathos.

Read over the stories you have in your anthology and find examples of these functions of dialogue. In ‘The monkey’s paw’, for example, there are examples of conflict and suspense when Mrs White prevails on her husband to wish on the monkey’s paw. There is humour in ‘Private eye’.

Some writers effectively convey actions by using verbs and adverbs. In ‘The monkey’s paw’, Jacobs makes clever use of adverbs. We’ll look at some of the more unusual ones.

Try to guess the meaning of the adverbs in italics in the sentences below.

1the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire.

There are two ways in which you can work out the meanings of words in a sentence without reaching for your dictionary.

• Think of where you heard or saw the word before. For example, you may have read of placid lakes, meaning they are peaceful.
• You can guess from the general sense of the rest of the words in the sentence. Here it appears that compared to her husband who seemed restless, she was knitting in a relaxed way.

So we could guess that the word placidly means peacefully or in a relaxed way.

2‘Never mind, dear,’ said his wife soothingly; ‘perhaps you’ll win the next one.’

3‘Better let it burn,’ said the soldier solemnly.

4‘I won’t,’ said his friend doggedly. ‘I threw it on the fire.’

5Mr White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it dubiously.

6His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity…

7He gazed furtively at Mrs White…

8‘You’ve not brought bad news, I’m sure, sir’ and he eyed the other wistfully.

9‘I only just thought of it,’ she said hysterically…

10…the old woman came silently and apathetically beside him.

Check your answers in the Suggested responses section at the end of the module.

Description

You have already looked at this feature in the stories you have read, like ‘The shell’ by Colin Thiele. Writers can describe places, people or events. Description is not an end in itself, but enhances our feeling for the setting and our understanding of the characters.

You’ve read many stories by now in which there have been descriptions. Look through the anthology now and select two descriptions we have not discussed in detail. You may make your selection from any other stories you have read. Write a paragraph on each description, pointing out its features and what feelings it evoked in you.

4918AK: 3 Reading for Pleasure1

 OTEN, 2001/629/005/8/2003 P0027504