Africa-Press – Lesotho. What effect does a piece of writing has on the reader? This is a very interesting question we want to explore today. To illustrate, let’s explore an extract.
“I peered out into the street. On the other side, there was a street lamp with a dying bulb. I was opening my mouth to say ‘What?’ and then I saw it. Half a block from us, an enormous shadow was moving along the street. ”
Have you seen how the extract aptly captures a sense of a disserted street in a very sombre mood or atmosphere? The night evoked a sense of fear in the reader.
Think of the faintly glowing street lamps aptly expressed using good word pictures, the street lamp had a ‘dying’ bulb! When we talk or refer to the effect of a writing, we are basically focusing on the mood/atmosphere and the emotions invoked by the piece of writing or text.
To produce that effect, a writer uses/employs various strategies; he uses his words skillfully, utilising word pictures (imagery) such as similes, metaphors and the right choice of words, that is, diction.
Are you also seeing that a beautiful narrative carefully blends mood and setting? This is so because the setting of the extract above is the night, in a deserted and cold night.
And then, a very big shadow appeared. One can see the terrifying night being painted by the stroke of a pen here. Mood must aptly capture certain elements of place, time and weather.
It also captures the scents, colours and hues associated with a certain place, time or events. A good piece of narrative must engage the reader, captivate him or make him frightened; it must make someone feel or visualise the thing or object thus painted.
Narrative effect is that which is evoked by the text in the mind or heart of the reader. If it is cold, the reader, as it were must shiver. Let’s demonstrate this through another colourful extract.
In the following extract the narrator, using his poignant pen to bring the narrative effect, aptly argues that professional hunting is not that bad. “You must properly respect what you are after and shoot it cleanly and on the animal’s own territory.
You must fix forever in your mind all the wonders of that particular day – the blue of the sky, the smells, the feel of the breeze, the scent of the flowers.
Then you will not merely have killed an animal; you will have given a kind of immortality to a beast because you loved him and wanted him forever, so that you could always capture that moment.
What an evocative and enchanting piece of writing! As you were reading, what were your feelings? I think you have appreciated how the narrative justifies professional hunting in a very enticing way.
Look at how the animal being killed is given an ‘immortality’ through the impression of the prey, taking to heart the scent of the flowers, capturing the sky, the weather and the totality of the animal’s existence and the environment around it.
This brings to mind what one writer has said about the narrative effect and how it blends with mood or atmosphere, “If the atmosphere is to be foreboding, you must forebode on every page.
If it is to be cold, you must chill, not once or twice, but until your readers are shivering. ” What an interesting and exciting way of expressing how a piece of fine reading can make you feel as you read.
Let me show you how a fine writing can make you ‘experience’ winter in a warm, cozy environment. As you read, focus on the atmosphere painted. “When we came back to Paris it was clear and lovely.
The city had accommodated itself to winter, there was good wood for sale at the wood and coal place across our street, and there were braziers outside of the good cafes so that you could keep warm on the terraces.
” Have you seen the warm mood and the painting of Paris? As you read, you get a ‘feel’ and ‘air’ of Paris.
Paris is captured as an enchanting and glamorous city. It’s depicted as a blossoming, beautiful city. Let me once more furnish you with another example. The passage colourfully narrates a character’s first sight of a very huge elephant, we will call the narrator Natalia. Let’s go!
“Its ears were folded back against the domed, bouldered head with big-lidded eyes; the arched roll of the spine fell away into the hips; dry folds of skin shook around the shoulders and knees as it shifted its weight.
It seemed to take up the whole street. It dragged its curled trunk like a fist along the ground. ” In the extract above the narrator brings to the reader’s attention Natalia’s horrifying experience at meeting the huge and hideous elephant during the night.
Her impressions of the elephant are that it was very hideous or grotesque, to say the least; the elephant’s huge and lumpy body and features are captured using word pictures such as “bouldered head” and “big-lidded eyes.
” One can simply imagine the huge head and huge eyes almost bulging out.
The writer was awed and overwhelmed by the ordeal or experience, this is brought by the writer’s evocative statement, “It seemed to take up the whole street.
” It seems as if everything around the writer and the street just stood still and the elephant was the whole street, the whole world, as it were.
The elephant further “dragged” its trunk, one can see that the elephant was moving with difficulty because of the enormity of its rough and hideous features
As we learn the art of creating effect through writing, we will get to a point where we immerse ourselves in the texture on the text, listening to the sound and the hues of the text, the colours painted, the smell, etc, which the writer presents to us through the skillful and evocative use of language.
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