Lesson 5: Not Hunting, But Hunted
Getting Started
"The more you leave out, the more you highlight what you leave in." — Henry Green, author of Loving and Living
Novels may take only a few days to read, but they often span years or even decades of the characters' lives. Authors choose which periods of time to summarize in a few paragraphs or pages and which moments to expand with great detail. Sometimes a character's entire childhood is summed up in a brief outline of one or two paragraphs that take the reader only 30 seconds to read. In contrast, an important moment that takes up only a few seconds in the life of the character may be drawn out with minute description that the same reader will need fifteen minutes to read. When an author chooses to portray a moment or a few moments with great detail, those moments have particular significance to the plot and message of the book.
Authors control the rate at which the plot unfolds in their stories; this movement is called narrative pacing. The term comes from narration — or telling of the story — and pace — the rate or speed — at which scenes seem to happen for the reader. To control the pace of how the story moves along, writers may mix dialogue and action, long and short sentences, an outline of what is happening, or a very detailed description. William Golding uses variations in pacing to keep the reader engaged, to cover varying spans of time, and to emphasize important scenes.
Novels may take only a few days to read, but they often span years or even decades of the characters' lives. Authors choose which periods of time to summarize in a few paragraphs or pages and which moments to expand with great detail. Sometimes a character's entire childhood is summed up in a brief outline of one or two paragraphs that take the reader only 30 seconds to read. In contrast, an important moment that takes up only a few seconds in the life of the character may be drawn out with minute description that the same reader will need fifteen minutes to read. When an author chooses to portray a moment or a few moments with great detail, those moments have particular significance to the plot and message of the book.
Authors control the rate at which the plot unfolds in their stories; this movement is called narrative pacing. The term comes from narration — or telling of the story — and pace — the rate or speed — at which scenes seem to happen for the reader. To control the pace of how the story moves along, writers may mix dialogue and action, long and short sentences, an outline of what is happening, or a very detailed description. William Golding uses variations in pacing to keep the reader engaged, to cover varying spans of time, and to emphasize important scenes.
Ideas to Think About
- How does a society maintain order?
- Are laws necessary?
- How do fear and desire for acceptance influence human behavior?
Stuff You Need
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- journal
Things to Know
- Writers can increase tension and suspense by controlling the order of and rate at which information and details are relayed to the reader.
- Narrative pacing refers to the rate at which the plot unfolds in a story.
Skills
- Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. (LA)
Introducing the Lesson
In this lesson, students will learn how an author's choices about how to structure a text, order events, and manipulate time create effects such as mystery, tension, or surprise. When an author chooses to portray a moment or few moments with great detail, those moments are very important to the plot and message of the book. Students will learn that a common technique for slowing down the pace of a scene is to interrupt the spoken words of dialogue with details about the mindset, voice inflections, posture, facial expressions, and physical motions of a character. This pacing technique makes it possible for the writer to create the same tension and suspense for the reader that the characters experience during uneasy and important moments in a scene.