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:—

Read now the following:—

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.