Both James Joyce and Zora Neale Hurston’s voices and textures specialize in “the tiny sins, the tiny virtues, the tiny venalities, the tiny advantages that people look for in life….” Their characters and landscapes become the vehicles for presenting these tiny sins, virtues… on the canvas so that the reader can experience it all with a sort of clarity and contrast. Chiaroscuro. How does your narrative use voice and texture to create chiaroscuro?
Reading
Discussion
Below, in the discussion area, describe how chiaroscuro and texture are important within the 1000 word scene you are submitting this week. Respond to classmates’ descriptions. Use the below arc examples as you consider texture and chiaroscuro within your scene. I look forward to reading them.
| Character Arc | Structural (Plot) Arc | Textural Arc |
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Character vs. Self *If you have not yet read Their Eyes Were Watching God I’m strongly encouraging you to read it now. See links above. Story is built on conflict. As literary writers, we most often begin with the essence of our most intriguing character and that character’s primary internal conflict. Begin with a focus on character and internal conflict when drafting a first version of a short story, novel or even a single scene. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, we meet Janie as she returns home from burying her lover, after running off from her “proper” life. She is broken and vulnerable and her neighbors and friends in Eatonville assume Janie’s lover, Tea Cake, has “done her wrong.” |
Character vs. Character vs. Nature vs. Society vs. Supernatural Janie battles not only the gender position of being female in Eatonville and a man’s world and a “white” run world but also the position of being human in a hurricane and “under God.” It seems that all the conventions are against her. She is an innocent, smart, strong, beautiful and capable character and we have the privilege of being with her as she takes her journey through multiple external conflicts. How does Janie, in some way, regardless of gender, ethnicity, community… embody something of you as the reader? |
Imagery vs. Character vs. Place Symbolism vs. Character vs. Place Repetition vs. Character vs. Place Time plays an important motif in the novel. We repeatedly return to Janie’s age and the repetition of returning home and how individuals, like water, can move out with the tide and come back to land again. Water also presents as a motif in the different forms it can take: the sea and the freshwater as in a lake or pond in which Janie communes with her organic self. She not only moves out with the sea tide—leaves home, leaves Eatonville—she also communes with her “still self” when she wades and floats in the still freshwater. The repetition of age and water within the narrative creates a texture of human passage. Do we not all experience Janie’s movements within tides and stillness in our own ways? |
Writing Assignment
Before submitting your 1000 word or less scene, give it another read with a focus on fleshing out the chiaroscuro and texture within the scene. Submit your 1000 word or less scene below as a doc or docx attachment. I will give written feedback on each of your scenes. You are responsible for reading your classmate’s discussions and responding; however, it is your choice if you would like to read your classmate’s attached scenes and give feedback or not.
If you do choose to read and give feedback on attached scenes, make sure that you read and give feedback on all attached scenes. Also, keep in mind that scene editing is an acquired skill that will not be comfortable for everyone, as it requires dipping into the middle of a narrative. This is something that experienced editors become proficient in. For some writers and readers, this will come more quickly. That’s okay.
If you feel that this type of reading and feedback is not for you, no worries. It will not count against your course performance. I will be focusing on your individually submitted scenes and your discussion engagement for this week in terms of assessment.
Sources
A Handbook to Literature. William Harmon.
The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Literary Terms. Martin Puchner, et al.
Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. Janet Burroway, Elizabeth Stuckey-French & Ned Stuckey-French.
Their Eyes Were Watching God. Zora Neale Hurston.