The Engines of Narrative
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Chiaroscuro
harnessing the energy of tonal contrast
Elizabeth Gaffney
Aug 9
1
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Chiaroscuro
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Shouts and Whispers
modulating volume in dialogue
Elizabeth Gaffney
Aug 5
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Shouts and Whispers
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Levels of Diction
How do your narrator and your characters speak? What is their level of diction? In Thomas Pynchon's V., where ex-sailors hunt alligators in sewers…
Elizabeth Gaffney
Jul 29
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Levels of Diction
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Purity and Danger
Mary Douglas's classic work of cultural anthropology Purity and Danger points out the relativism inherent in our concept of dirt: Soil on the forest…
Elizabeth Gaffney
Jul 28
1
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Purity and Danger
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Curiosity, Not Virtuosity
Sometimes we fiddle and fuss with our prose but neglect the larger gyres of story. Other times the big plot arcs drive the writing. What is the thing…
Elizabeth Gaffney
Jul 27
1
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Curiosity, Not Virtuosity
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Doubles and Dichotomies
Dichotomy is a superb engine of narrative tension. Take the scene in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca in which the narrator appears at a costume ball dressed…
Elizabeth Gaffney
Jul 26
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Doubles and Dichotomies
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The Weather's (Not) Fine
It’s been a beastly summer in a lot of the world, so I can’t help being drawn to thoughts of ice. In Frankenstein, the monster is impervious to extreme…
Elizabeth Gaffney
Jul 25
1
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The Weather's (Not) Fine
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A Walk, Alone
At the beginning of WG Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, the protagonist sets off on a solitary walk in the county of Suffolk. He walks carefree for hours…
Elizabeth Gaffney
Jul 22
3
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A Walk, Alone
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Three Questions
With thanks to Emily Rubin, who was reminded, as we read Frankenstein aloud in The 24-Hour Room this week, of the three questions Anna Deavere Smith…
Elizabeth Gaffney
Jul 21
1
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Three Questions
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Cringeworthy
The best characters make the worst mistakes and fail egregiously to do the things they ought. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's sins of commission…
Elizabeth Gaffney
Jul 20
1
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Cringeworthy
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Tertiary Territory
In Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel, there's a spurned love interest, the protagonist's childhood friend Louise, who gets fairly little airtime and…
Elizabeth Gaffney
Jul 18
1
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Tertiary Territory
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A TIME TO WITHHOLD
In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as in so many horror stories and movies, the central horror is mostly kept out of sight. In Part I, Chapter V – the…
Elizabeth Gaffney
Jul 15
1
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A TIME TO WITHHOLD
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