9 Elements of narrative
Recognition, Reversal, Suffering, Agent, Action, Time, Place, Cause, Manner
3 virtues of narrative
Clarity
The principles in “The Elements of Style” by Strunk & White give useful tactics for achieving clarity. Principally, the active voice is indispensable for this purpose.
Active voice: The subject acts on the object.
“He took his book, and read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled.”
– John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, (Part 1, Chapter 1)
Passive voice: the object is acted upon.
Then were the poor men brought before their examiners again, and there charged as being guilty of the late hubbub that had been in the fair.
– John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, (Part 1, Chapter 2)
Another principle promoted by Strunk & White is the use of the positive form. The positive form aids clarity. Avoid the negative.
It was not unnatural that I should have some suspicion of him, or at least of his intentions; nor was it impossible that I might have been mistaken.
– Herman Melville, Moby Dick (The Ship)
I will have blood for blood. I will hunt him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames, before I give him up!
– Herman Melville, Moby Dick (The Quarter-Deck)
Compare this to:
“I will not deprive myself of his blood. It is not impossible that I might seek revenge. I am not inclined to abandon the chase. I will not forsake the hunt. I will not give up.”
In his famous denunciation of Catiline in the Roman Senate, Cicero employs heavy litotes (stating an affirmative by negating its opposite):
“Non dubito, patres conscripti, quin… neque enim est obscurum…”
(“I do not doubt, conscript fathers… nor indeed is it unclear…”)
– Cicero
Brevity
“Vigorous writing is concise.”
This foundational principle is best captured in Strunk & White’s famous rule:
“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary lines, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”
Counterexamples:
Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man, with a fat smile, and a general appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system; Mr. Chadband moves softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk upright; he is sufficient in flesh, and fat having laid much hold upon him; he is agreed to be, as is natural in such a case, a large consumption of food; and he consumes it, as is also natural, with a large intake of breath.
– Charles Dickens, Bleak House (Chapter 19)
“He had no time to think about the matter, however; for Mr. Bumble gave him a tap on the head to wake him up, and another on the back to make him lively, and bidding him follow, conducted him into a large whitewashed room where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round a table, at the top of which, seated in an armchair rather higher than the rest, was a particularly fat gentleman with a very round, red face.”
– Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (Chapter 2)
“The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters; Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal; but he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part.”
– Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (Stave 1)
Plausibility
“Be definite, explicit, concrete.”
Strunk & White’s take on plausibility rests on the principle that credibility comes from specific, grounded facts rather than exaggerated or abstract claims. They summarize this mandate in Rule 12:
“Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract… The surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite, and concrete.”
Counterexamples:
In Aeneid, when the Trojan priest Laocoön warns against bringing the Wooden Horse inside Troy, Virgil introduces two monstrous sea serpents in terms that sacrifice concrete physical proportion for dramatic hyperbole:
Their crests reared high, blood-red above the waves, while their remaining length swept the sea behind, coiling their vast backs in endless folds… Their blazing eyes were suffused with fire and blood, and they licked their hissing mouths with flickering tongues.
– Virgil, Aeneid (Book2)
The shadow of a gigantic helmet, touched with a beam of the moon, appeared on the wall of the court… and the words were scarce out of his mouth, when a clap of thunder shook the whole castle, and an enormous helmet, a hundred times larger than any made for mortal man, and shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers, fell from the sky and crushed the young prince to death.
– Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (Book 1, Chapter 1)
Exercises for in class
Clarity (Active Voice & Positive Form)
- Weak: “There were many mistakes made by the team, and they were not careful.”
- Strong:
Brevity (Omit Needless Words)
- Weak: “He is a man who is interested in the field of modern digital technology.”
- Strong:
Plausibility (Concrete Detail vs. Overstatement)
- Weak: “The performance was completely unbelievable and totally life-changing for everyone.”
- Strong:
“It was decided by the management that an employee meeting should be held for the purpose of discussing goals.”
“At this point in time, we are in a position to offer assistance in terms of financial support.”
“The revolutionary product will undeniably solve every single one of your daily productivity nightmares.”