Understanding Narrators


Lesson 3  Assignment 1-3

Target


Assignment


Understand your purpose for reading


  • When you read stories, do you usually know what to expect?
  • Do you like being surprised at the end of a story?

When you read stories, you want them to come to life.
You want the opening of the story to be so interesting that you cannot help but continue to read. Sometimes, you know exactly how a story will end and sometimes you do not. When you finish the story, you want the story to feel complete even if the ending is a surprise. You want the story to be believable, something that could really happen.

Beginnings and Endings

One way authors enhance our enjoyment of stories is to have strong beginnings and satisfying endings.

  • A strong beginning captures the reader’s attention.  A writer might use vivid imagery and description or might start in the middle of the action or conversation so that you wonder, “What happened before, and what happens next?”
  • The story ending has to be strong as well.  You have to believe the ending could really happen given the events.  A writer might reveal the character's final thoughts or actions, make a connection back to the beginning, or show how the character has changed.  If the character has changed, the change must be believable.
  • A cliffhanger ending is a different one altogether. It does not wrap things up neatly, but rather leaves the main character in a precarious situation or dilemma, perhaps confronted by a shocking revelation. This might be familiar from tv shows and movies that may or may not be followed by a sequel.

Flashback and Foreshadowing

Authors also use two other techniques to help us enjoy their stories: 

  • Foreshadowing: The author inserts clues that hint at future events.
  • Flashback:  A character reminisces or remembers a previous event, thought, feeling, etc.

Plausibility

Plausibility = believable. If your response to a story is that it is believable or true, the story has verisimilitude. This word comes from the Latin verisimilitudo, "likeness to truth", and is used to describe stories. When a story has verisimilitude, all the story elements have combined to make the story believable.


 Read one of these stories:
"Guess What?  I Almost Kissed My Father Goodnight" by Richard Cormier.  Click here to read.
or
"Moving Mountains" by Shawn Elgby, page 78 in the Language Arts 9 Anthology.