NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION
Narration, or narrative, relates a series of events. Description gives
an account of the look of persons or things. Character description gives
both physical and mental traits. Recall to memory various stories you
have read, and say whether narratives of considerable length do or do not
have to give description as they proceed.
NARRATION
=Two Kinds.=—If a series of events actually happened, they are
historical, and the story of them may be called _historical narrative_.
If they did not happen, but owe their existence to the imagination, they
are fictional, and the narrative is _fiction_. If we are writing a story,
let the fact be understood; if a sober rehearsal of facts, let it be made
an exercise in the rare and difficult art of truth-telling.
=Exercises in Choice of Subject.=—(1) Examine a daily paper and pick out
several narratives which seem to you to have a general human interest,
and several that have not. (2) Write a list of twenty subjects for
narrative and submit them to the class for a vote as to which are the
most interesting. Choose events which you have witnessed or taken part
in. (3) Write a list of what are to you the most interesting events of
ancient, mediæval, and modern history.
=Choice of Details.=—In writing an account of a simple incident it
is possible to tell every detail of what happened. But evidently no
such thing is practicable in narrating the events of a day, a week,
a lifetime. What to omit will depend much upon the length of the
composition. A clear-headed writer will not put pen to paper before he
has decided just what points he is going to bring out.
=Written Exercise.=—(1) Jot down on paper memoranda of the important
things, the turning events, in your own past life. (2) Make memoranda to
show what events ought to stand out most distinctly in a history of the
United States.
=Plot.=—Read the following:—
Ichabod Crane was ridiculously frightened one dark night by a
boy who played ghost. The lad took the part of a traditional
spectre that rode a black horse. The joker had a cloak over his
head, and before him on the saddle a pumpkin, to represent the
head which the headless horseman was fabled to carry.
Read now the following:—
One dark night Ichabod Crane started homeward on horseback.
He approached the oak on which André, the spy, was hanged.
Ichabod’s heart quaked. He passed the haunted tree in safety,
but his heart almost stood still when, a little farther on,
he saw a strange rider on a gigantic horse. Horse and rider
kept pace with him. Ichabod however saw that the latter was
headless, nay, carried his head before him on the saddle. The
figure raised itself and hurled its head at Ichabod. When the
schoolmaster found himself on the ground, did he realize that
the grewsome missile was only a pumpkin?
Which of these accounts begets _suspense as to the outcome_? In other
words, in which is there _plot_? Recall some novel you have read, and
explain how the reader’s interest is held through to the end.
=Oral Exercise.=—Recall some anecdote, and present it orally with plot
interest.
=Theme.=—Write a simple historical narrative of about two hundred words,
giving without plot all the details of some brief incident in your own
experience. The following may suggest a topic: 1. My first day at the
lathe. 2. Examination memories. 3. How I earned some money and how I
spent it. 4. Spearing fish by night. 5. A personal adventure with a
window. 6. How I spent this morning.
=Theme.=—Write one or more imaginary newspaper items, without plot, each
detailing some simple incident. Choose a subject of local interest
if possible. For example: 1. A runaway. 2. Fire on Seventh Street. 3.
Trolley-car accident. 4. Curious act of a bird. 5. April 23 at the Brown
School. 6. Brave deed of a child. 7. He returned $500. 8. An old building
demolished. 9. The new library is opened. 10. Arrested for “scorching.”
=Themes.=—Select several topics for five hundred word themes, and write
outlines showing what details you would emphasize in composing. Then
write historical narratives from the outlines, making them as interesting
as you can without deviating from facts. Sample subjects: 1. My struggles
with cooking. 2. A day in the berry patch. 3. The first time I saw a
play. 4. An adventure of my father. 5. A few days with a doctor. 6. How a
certain town was named. 7. Misfortunes of our circus. 8. The tribulations
of a truant. 9. My first ocean voyage. 10. An uncomfortable call. 11. My
career as an actor. 12. A visit to the World’s Fair. 13. In a graveyard
after dark. 14. How Smith looked me up. 15. A week in the woods. 16.
The fall I had. 17. My experience as a clerk. 18. A glimpse of college
life. 19. What I saw some bees do. 20. An unwilling swim. 21. That Fourth
of July. 22. Experiences with a pony. 23. Haying. 24. How the vacation
passed. 25. When I was a book-agent. 26. Crossing a swollen stream.
=Complex Incident.=—Many a narrative must be composed of several
_threads_, telling different events that were going on at the same time.
If you were giving an account of how two hunters after being separated in
the woods finally reached home again, you would relate first how one got
home, then how the other got home; or, having narrated the wanderings of
the first, you would let the second tell his own story on rejoining his
companion.
=Theme.=—Relate a complex incident, either historical or fictional, in
a theme about five hundred words long. Two or three threads are enough.
The following may suggest a subject: 1. Two roads to town. 2. How our
party reached the top of the mountain. 3. Adventures of a lost child and
its parents. 4. The rescue of an amateur sailor from a wreck. 5. What
happened at our club meeting. 6. Three boys and a boat. 7. An overheard
discussion.
DESCRIPTION
Language is better adapted to narrate than to describe, for words follow
each other, just as events do; they cannot flash the whole picture, with
all the details, upon the reader. Consequently writers often combine
narrative and description in order to dwell on details. Homer[54]
describes the shield of Achilles by telling the story of its forging—how
Vulcan wrought each part in turn. What is called the _traveller’s view_
is description from successive points of view. There is a good example of
this kind of description in Hawthorne’s _American Note Books_, p. 181.
In some descriptions the writer is willing to sacrifice the general look
of the object, in order to secure accuracy of detail. Giving each detail
is called _description by inventory_. This is often useful, particularly
in business or in science. Turn to any book of natural history and read
the inventory description of some bird or animal. But ordinarily a
description should give a general impression whether it afterward gives
details or not. The most common way of doing this is to tell what in
general the object to be described makes you think of. If the object is
a river, it may remind you of a snake or a letter S; if a village, it
may recall to your mind a flat-iron; if a little old lady, it may appear
to you, as to Dickens, in _Hard Times_, “a bundle of shawls.” The main
impression thus received is called the _fundamental image_.
Not every object will furnish a fundamental image, but every object is
sure to be remembered for a few _chief details_. If of a given landscape
there lingers in the memory only a dim sense of green woods, with here
and there a patch of white, it is as much description to record this
dim image as it would be to detail kinds of trees, distances, etc.
Indeed, it is a mistake often made to report in a description things
that could not possibly have been seen from the given point of view. To
_keep the point of view_ is vital. It is a good practice to describe a
photograph—such as those published by the Soule Company, of Boston—in
order to learn the art of proportion in these matters of living details.
It must not, however, be thought that details have no place in
description. In studying an object with a view to writing about it, one
should have the eye of a hawk for every _visible_ detail, in order that
what he writes may be truthful. There is no better training for the
powers of observation than description. Send a careless person to the
lake to describe it. He reports “myriads of ripples dancing in glee,”
things that every wretched poetaster has seen before him. Send a careful
observer, and he will report wonderful shades of color, and curious
surface effects, like corrugation and damascene.
_Suggested Topics for Description_
=By Inventory.=—1. The bluebird. 2. A jellyfish. 3. A luna moth. 4. Kinds
of clouds. 5. In a museum. 6. Flags of different nations. 7. A bottle
of ink. 8. A small boy’s pocket. 9. What my room contains. 10. A shop
window. 11. The old swimming-hole. 12. A bit of old silver.
=By Narrative.=—1. A day in Boston. 2. An oil well. 3. A crowd. 4. A
quaint tea party. 5. A country fair. 6. A fire. 7. A dream. 8. The
matinée. 9. A masquerade. 10. How the farm looked when I went back. 11.
The dynamo I made. 12. My tent-making. 13. Our hut. 14. Decorating a
church for Christmas. 15. My baking. 16. Up Pike’s Peak.
=By Fundamental Image and Details.=—1. Kinds of noses. 2. A bit of old
architecture. 3. A church altar. 4. Famous deltas. 5. The shop. 6. The
lunch-room. 7. A little old man. 8. This town in A.D. 2000. 9. An old
fireplace. 10. A wreck. 11. Profile Mountain. 12. The football field. 13.
The baseball ground described for an Englishman. 14. The capitol. 15. An
old horse.
=By Chief Details.=—1. Uncle Billy. 2. A hermit. 3. Our postmaster. 4.
Our mail-carrier. 5. An Indian. 6. A southern girl. 7. My chum. 8. The
procession of the pines. 9. A moonlight scene. 10. A wood interior. 11.
An American boy of 1925. 12. Houses I have lived in. 13. Two generals.
14. The boy who grins. 15. Queer street characters. 16. A cat. 17. The
fortune-teller. 18. Curious advertisements. 19. Betty in her best dress.
20. A sunset. 21. A wave.