English Composition: Discussion and Paper

Chapter Two

Narrative Writing

“Don’t tell me that the moon is shining;

show me a hint of light on broken glass.” –Anton Chekhov

Timothy P. Goss, Tanya C. Klatt,

& Alexander V. Ames, Ph.D.

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Good Writing

What makes a joke funny? What makes us gravitate toward one person and not another? What

is the difference between good and not-so-good writing? Interestingly, these seemingly separate

phenomena share some compelling similarities. Like comedians, writers want their audience to

hang on every word they say. To do this, writers try to have their readers believe that there is a

certain amount of pleasure to be had at the end of the text they are reading (much like comedians

depend on the audience’s anticipation of an upcoming punch-line). Hopefully, the writer, like

the comedian, understands this desire and works hard to fulfill it. Writers also need their writing

to attract potential readers if they hope to be heard; they want readers to gravitate toward their

work (this is particularly difficult for writers just beginning to share their words).

To accomplish this, writers must write in ways that cause their readers to start reading and

continue to read their work. Initially attracting readers has much to do with formatting and titles

that call out to the intended audience. For instance, most people would be less compelled to read

an article titled, Metaphysical and Dietary Practices of New Guinea Aboriginal Culture, than

one called, Eating your Relatives, Friends, and Foes: Spirituality and Cannibalism in the

Modern World. However, if the article is intended to be published in a scholarly, sociological

magazine, the first title is probably more appropriate and would be more compelling to the type

of people who read that magazine.

Of course, having a reader pick up your writing is one thing—indeed, an accomplishment—but

keeping your reader interested enough to keep reading your work requires a deeper

understanding of the elements that go into good writing.

In an excerpt from his book Telling Writing (2009), Ken Macrorie describes good writing as

“clear, vigorous, honest, alive, sensuous, appropriate, unsentimental, rhythmic, without

pretension, fresh, metaphorical, evocative in sound, economical, authoritative, surprising,

memorable, and light” (pg. 311).

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We could add that good writing is also thoughtful, in-depth, demonstrative of an awareness of

the issue it is examining and its complexities, and experimental. There are, however, two major

problems with our list: 1) if we were to try to balance all of these ideals about writing every time

we sat down to write, we would likely get nothing done due to the sheer exhaustion from

worrying that we would never measure up to those standards; and 2) all of the things on our list

rely on opinion.

We had the question about what good writing is; now we have to ask what makes writing seem

“clear, vigorous, honest, alive,” and so on. While Macrorie’s elements of good writing are

important, happily, like everything else about writing, these elements tend to develop best

through practice, and we don’t have the time to worry about all of them in a single course. For

now, let’s just reserve a place for them in the back of our minds and try not to worry about them.

There are easier, simpler ways to approach the issue.

Our original question in this chapter had to do with the relationship between comedy, attraction,

and writing. The simplest answer is this: To be effective, each has to be ninety percent familiar

and ten percent odd (ratio not scientifically tested). A good joke, for instance, relates directly to

the audience, tells some small truth about the world, and then changes something about that

world in a way that is surprising to the audience. Likewise, physically attractive people have

symmetrical features that fit into the norm: their eyes are evenly set, their nose is centered, etc.

Physically attractive men are typically V shaped (shoulders to waist) and physically attractive

women tend to have an hourglass figure. But these attributes are not enough—in fact, because

they are what we consider to be the norm in terms of physical attractiveness, they can be quite

boring.

For people to be truly attractive (at least according to society’s standards) there has to be some

flaw to their beauty, something that disrupts our preconceived notions of what is and what is not

attractive—something surprising. Writing works in very much the same way; we start with

something our audience can relate to—some small truth about the world—then move toward a

new way of thinking about truth, in essence working with the audience’s previously held

assumptions and altering them in some way.

The simple rule: good writing starts broadly in order to establish a relationship with the intended

audience and then becomes more and more specific, eventually challenging and altering the

audience’s ideas about an issue or happenstance. Your number one goal as a writer, above and

beyond everything else, is to cause your readers to feel like they are somehow improved through

your writing—that their efforts to communicate with your ideas were met, if not exceeded, by

you, the author.

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Narrative Writing

In narrative writing, we start by inviting our audience into our world; we then show them around

a bit and begin to relate to them by sharing with them a unique, significant, and wholly human

experience. When we talk about connecting to our readers, one of the most effective ways of

doing so is through anecdotes or storytelling. The key to writing in the narrative mode is

developing an honest, profitable relationship with our audience. While there are many ways to

build this connection, we will spend this chapter isolating and exploring the three major elements

that are arguably the most useful: descriptive writing, dialogue, and dramatic action.

In narrative writing, these elements fold around each other to create something meaningful—

something we can more easily connect to because it is both compelling and familiar at the same

time. Through descriptive writing we are able to create visual images of the world; through

dialogue, we are drawn into the same room with the characters of the story—we hear, rather than

simply read what they say; and through dramatic action we are able feel the significance of the

moment and relate it to our own experiences.

We use each of these elements to demonstrate the significance of our story, and by extension our

ideas and even our lives. Much like an attractive person can’t really walk up to you and

announce his or her attractiveness, and just like a comedian is less effective if he or she

announces that the joke to follow is funny, writers, especially in the narrative form, need to

practice the art of showing, not telling.

Anton Chekhov, arguably one of the greatest narrative writers to ever put pen to paper, probably

says it best when he writes: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on

broken glass” (In Zaran, 2006, pg. 14). Throughout the next few pages we will look more deeply

into the elements of the narrative form.

Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing is one of the most powerful ways to lure your audience into your writing. It

appeals directly to emotion, humanizes your work, and is easily relatable. When we write

descriptively, we discuss the way an object or a situation affects our five senses—sight, taste,

touch, smell, and sound. We don’t simply say an old man was having a hard time crossing the

street. Instead, we describe the situation:

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Notice how the descriptions add to the story. Can you picture the man? What else can you see

through these descriptions? Note how the second version doesn’t mention that the man is old.

Did you need to read that to know it? Also, note how the task of crossing the street wasn’t

explicitly stated. Did you have any trouble knowing what was happening? Think of the ways

you visualized this paragraph and go back and read it again.

Notice the things that were not there. Think about how you automatically added them to the

story. One of the most interesting things about descriptive writing is that we don’t have to

describe everything, just enough to get the audience to participate in the process. Readers

already have a wealth of images to draw from their own life experiences; a writer’s job is simply

to activate those images in the reader.

Another way we write descriptively is through simile and metaphor. Through these two devices,

we can paint our version of the world in more referential ways—ways that ask the reader to take

an active role in the communication process. A metaphor is a word or group of words that

replaces another; a simile is similar to a metaphor, but the new word is said to be relative to the

original word. Here are a few examples:

Simile Metaphor

Me n are like dogs.

Men are dogs.

She ’s like the wind.

She’s a tornado.

I’m like a couch, but man! I re ally bring the

room toge ther.

I am a couch—just something to sit on.

In the following story, look at the way the author uses description to bring her readers into her

world. Note her choices in simile and metaphor that she uses to show the internal world of the

characters.

He stood in the space between the sidewalk and the street on spindly legs that looked far too

weak to support his bent and fragile frame. He would look one way, then another to find a

space between the cars that he could move through with a measure of safety. I watched him

time and time again find his space and begin to muster up enough strength to cross—at thirty

miles per hour, however, the cars were far too fast, and it took him far too long to set himself

into motion.

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Because the above passage is only an excerpt from a larger story, we’re not getting the whole

picture, but what we can draw from this passage that might give us a hint about the rest of the

story? Think about key phrases or words that really leap out at you as a reader. How do they

make you feel? Can you relate something in your own life to this story, or at least the feelings

represented throughout this story? Consider the author’s use of language when she describes the

ocean through the eyes of her protagonist (the main character—in this case, the young girl): “. . .

jagged-tooth waves, salty salivating entity of blue nothing . . .” (pg. 834).

How does this particular description work to explain the way the girl feels about her

surroundings? Note what happens in the last part of the sentence: “. . . that keeps my mother

here” (pg. 834). What has the author given us through these five additional words? Can we

understand the relationship between mother and daughter more fully now? Consider some of the

author’s other descriptions: “I think of the ocean as an upside-down thunderstorm, or something

horrible, like a wasp on its back unable to fly” (pg. 834), or “the water she alters and scrapes and

mends . . . and it begins to look alive” (pg. 834). Note the way the author’s descriptions lend

Excerpt from “My Mother’s Work” by Sabrina M. Goss

“Look out at the water,” she says. I do.

“What do you see?” “The water,” I tell her. “No, I’m not asking what’s out there. I’m asking what you see.”

“I see the water, Mom.” She smiles at me and nods. “Me too. I can’t paint today.”

That makes me look again, to see what she might have seen. I don’t have any idea what I’m looking for, but I know that I hate the ocean and everything it has come to mean over the past few months. I can barely stand to look at it. I hate the white froth that comes

up with the jagged-tooth waves, salty salivating entity of blue nothing that keeps my mother here. I hate the way it stains the sand just briefly when the waves come then leave like

nothing ever happened, and I hate to think about the things that live in there, as if they choose to.

I start to tell my mother what I see, babbling at first, and she begins to paint. I

recognize the canvas ocean after about a minute, but it doesn’t look like what I mean; it’s too smooth. She moves to fix it and paints too much white on the cap of a wave. I tell her to

leave it because that’s okay and it looks pretty good. That fuzzy white triangle makes me think of clouds, so I tell her about how I think of the ocean as an upside down thunderstorm, or something horrible, like a wasp on its back unable to fly. She does something on the

canvas where the clouds should be, but they are outlines of clouds and not stormy, and any idiot can see that they’re just there to represent the idea of a storm without carrying the

storm’s energy. Her brush zips down the canvas in a flash, and lightning like an insect leg appears. The water she alters and scrapes and mends as I talk, and it begins to look alive.

(2009, pg. 834)

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themselves to that feeling of the ocean as a life form with a consciousness and with an agenda, as

if it really were alive.

Dialogue

Dialogue is another powerful technique to attract an audience and keep them reading. Dialogue

covers two different areas: what the characters say, and how they say it. Dialogue in narrative

writing is meant to bring the reader into direct conversation with the characters, but dialogue is

not added to a story without reason. Each piece of dialogue needs to add to the story—to edge it

forward, to give insight into how the characters think and feel, and to introduce new ideas and/or

situations.

Dialogue is also formatted in a specific way. Each time a speaker changes, a new paragraph

emerges. Every so often, you will want to add an attributive tag (she said, he laughed, I

remarked, etc.) to help your readers keep track of which character is speaking. Don’t put them in

every time or your work will seem choppy. Notice how this worked in the story we’ve been

analyzing:

“Look out at the water,” she says.

I do.

“What do you see?”

“The water,” I tell her.

“No, I’m not asking what’s out there. I’m asking what you see.”

“I see the water, Mom.”

She smiles at me and nods. “Me too. I can’t paint today.” (Goss, 2009, pg. 834)

Think about what this exchange reveals about the mother and the daughter. Does their

relationship seem close or distant? Which of these characters seems more free-spirited and

which seems more close-minded? Who seems to hold the power in the relationship? What is

happening in the story? Much like the way description can work to show us plot, character, and

conflict, dialogue also lets us learn about the characters in the story (in some cases, this may be

the only part of the story that really allows us to know them). Dialogue can be a powerful tool to

enhance your writing (a playwright, for instance, uses this tool almost exclusively).

We could write something like:

“I was angry when she walked in the door just before my alarm clock went off. She was

angry too, but she never told me why.”

Look at how much more we can say through dialogue:

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“Do you have any idea what time it is?” I barked at her when she finally came through the door.

“Who cares?” she said flatly. “I do!” I glared at her. “You’re not the only one who lives here!”

“I’m the only one who lives anywhere,” she said, biting her words at the last syllable and turning her hips as if bracing for impact. “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean!” “No.” I felt like I was bleeding the words through my teeth. “What do you mean?” I

seethed. “Nothing,” she said quietly, defeated, and that was the last thing she said—the last thing ever.

Dramatic Action

Dramatic action does not mean that the story you’re going to be writing has to be an action-

packed thrill-ride with explosions and drug smugglers with exotic accents; it is just that

something has to happen either to the characters or within them. Aristotle, still the expert in all

things dramatic, claimed that every good plotline contains five elements. Here is an incredibly

brief summary of Aristotle’s list:

 Exposition: a portion of the story, usually at the beginning, that explains the setting and

the characters.

 Conflict: in any story, something has to be overcome. This something is the conflict (in

our story, the disconnection between mother and daughter).

 Complications: complications are the little things the characters must overcome along the

way to facing and beating the conflict (in our story, the hate for the ocean and the

painting).

 Climax: the climax is generally the height if the action in a story. It is the point where

things reach their “boiling point” and start to be resolved.

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 Falling Action: falling action is the point in the story where the hero/heroine rides off into

the sunset. At this stage, things are as resolved as they are going to get. Sometimes this

section is hundreds of pages; sometimes it’s a word or two long.

Through dramatic action, we give our readers a measurable distance between the beginning, the

middle, and the end of our story (note that these do not always fall in that order). In the first

chapter, Writing with Purpose, we mentioned that the act of writing gave mankind something to

measure itself by—to judge how far it had come. The same idea applies here. Your readers need

to be able to see that there is some sort of progression within the story—these progressions

generally happen within the characters as they grow stronger and through the plotline as the

events eventually become resolved.

Characteristics of the Narrative Mode

 Descriptive writing – five senses, simile, and metaphor

 Dialogue – words that reveal something about the story or characters

 Dramatic action – a beginning, middle, and end—contains a conflict and a resolution

 Well-developed characters that appear to be real people

 Something to explain the story’s significance

The next step in the process of narrative writing is to write. Spend some time talking to your

fellow students and your instructor about possible topics about which you can write your essay.

Try to choose something that is significant to you— an event that defined who you are as a

person or changed something about your life. Below is a short list of topics that have worked

well in the past. These should get you thinking. Feel free to use any of these or find your own:

 A family vacation

 Birth of a child  Victim or perpetrator of a crime

 Medical operation  Divorce  Accident (car, boat, motorcycle, etc.)

 Philanthropic activity  College experience

 First job  And, many, many more.

* Be wary of topics that lack conflict and complications. Readers need some kind of tension to

become invested in what they are reading. Get started as early as possible so you can enjoy

writing this paper. Most of all, have fun with this! We look forward to reading your work.

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References

Goss, S. (2009). My mother’s work. In R. Yeary (Ed.). Kansas voices: Winning entries from

the third five years . Winfield, Kansas: Winfield Arts and Humanities Council.

Macrorie, K. (2009). From Telling writing. In S. Miller (Ed.), The Norton book of composition

studies. New York: Norton.

Zaran, L. (2006). The blondes lay content. London: Lulu Press.

© Grantham University 2012