Narrative Strategies:  Detail*

I.          Writers use essential “props” so that readers can see the key people and the place in which a dramatic event occurs and so that the writers themselves can examine the effect of that place.  That place is part of context:  it affects how people think, feel, and behave; and it affects outcome.

In the following excerpt, student Judith Noyes writes of returning as an adult to St. Paul’s school where she had been on scholarship in the summer program.  In this paper she compares her experiences in school with her experience at the reunion.  She still has much less money than her old schoolmates, but for the first time she feels that the subject of money has become important.  Before the dialogue begins, she makes sure readers can see the setting:

We returned to Bill’s apartment where a delicious display of bread and fine cheese awaited us.  We gathered around an old lobster trap table as two bottles of Bordeaux began to circulate.  It was the same scene we had played before, five years ago, only the props were changed.  The apples crates we had sat on were replaced by a plush couch and large cushions, the no-name potato chips had transformed into Brie and Camembert, and the French wines replaced the warm Riunite we used to buy for a few dollars.

            I was the only one who still wore faded jeans.  Theresa’s cotton dress came from Milano.  Roberta bought almost exclusively Gloria Vanderbilt and even Bob, who prided himself on being practical and simple, bought his pullover at L.L. Beans for a price that would have fed my cat and me for three weeks.  I leaned back into the shadows and lifted my glass to my lips.

This is the kind of scene setting that you should incorporate into your narrative papers.  Obviously, the details that she uses pertain directly to the situation – all of the details are important for her to make her point.  Where can you add similar details to your draft?  List several such places and details here.

II.                    Class Exercise

The time stretch exercise is to take a one- to five-minute experience that you feel strongly about and write a page or more about it.  This exercise will help you learn to recognize important points or moments in your work and emphasize them.  It helps writers include their readers in an experience by using specific facts and details, by relying on the five senses, especially sight.  In the interest of time, you will not be doing this exercise today, but you are to listen to the following student paper (which was, by the way, revised several times in order to get the details and discover meaning in those details).  Listen for details, then list here three similar ways that you can slow down the time in your narrative paper.

III.       “Time Stretch”

This is a student paper by Judy O’Donoghue.  It has been lengthened and revised through several drafts with great attention to effective detail.  Notice how she SHOWS what happened, rather than TELLS what happened:

My father pulled open the heavy glass door of the Nursing Home.  Each Saturday he came to visit my grandmother.  The time had come for me to see her.  The air was stale and warm.  He guided me with his hand on the back of my neck into the black-tiled hall.  I was ten, and ever since I could remember, I hated how he led me around by my neck.

            The hall was wide and long.  Light came through the windows but didn’t reflect off the dirty floor.  A flickering overhead light stretched down the center of the ceiling.  It reminded me of a school corridor with rows of windows on either side.  Some windows were open, some were shut.  The shades were pulled halfway and were stained with large brown rings.

            Old women lined both sides of the walls.  They slumped in their wheelchairs or sat in chestnut rocking chairs.  A silent television rolled its picture in a corner.  One old woman stretched from her wheelchair and stroked the screen with bent fingers.

            They smelled of urine and soiled clothing.  Their clothes were wrinkled and fit loosely about their figures.  Gingham dresses were faded, and old sweaters stained and crusty.  They wore black leather slippers and orthopedic shoes.  In one corner, an old woman clawed through a hamper stamped in red, “Dihnan Memorial for the Elderly.”

            My father’s hand fell from my neck and I followed him almost stepping on the backs of his shoes.  I kept my eyes on the floor and counted the number of tiles that my father stepped in.  His pace grew faster and each stride covered more tiles.  I moved beside him and glanced up to his face.  His eyes were fixed on the far wall.  The halls were so wide and the old women seemed so small.  One woman sat in a large armchair with gray stuffing hanging from the torn seams. . . . She startled me with a tug on my skirt.  I tried to pull away.  Her hand quivered under the hem of my skirt and her fingers gently touched the fabric.  Her hand was thin and had brown spots connected by ribbons of blue veins. . . .

Judy continues this description, then discusses the meeting with Grandmother.  She begins to see how much her father resembles the old woman.  Finally she comes to this insight, which she could not possibly have come to had she not written precisely:

The longer I looked, the more and more they looked alike.  Grandma’s face had fallen and Father’s was beginning to pull from his cheekbones.  His chin hung down like a hammock attached to his neck.

            I shifted my chair and looked up to the clock above the exit light.  I wanted to leave.  I wanted my father to go away so he wouldn’t catch it.

            I moved my hand to his and he squeezed hard.  It was still tight with muscle.  I smiled at his strength and I let his large fingers spread mine apart.  I wanted to tell him that I loved him and wished he’d never get old.

*Excerpted from:  Wheeler, Susan.  “Exercises for Discovery, Experiment, Skills, and Play”  Nuts and Bolts:  A Practical Guide to Teaching College Composition.  Ed. Thomas Newkirk.  Portsmouth, NH:  Boynton/Cook, 1993.