Reading Standard RL05

Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within (e.g. parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g. pacing, flashbacks) create such effects such as mystery, tension, or surprise.

What strategies contribute to the mood, mystery, tension, or surprise in literature? Parallel plots Pacing Flashbacks Irony

Parallel plots The writer weaves two or more dramatic plots that are usually linked by a common character and a similar theme

Pacing a stylistic device which shows how fast a story unfolds. To increase pacing authors use or focus on: shorter paragraphs, sentences, and occasional sentence fragments. less description and more dialogue, more active verbs and less modifiers. Events that move action forward instead of switching to subplots

To decrease pacing authors use or focus on: Longer sentences & paragraphs More description and less dialogue/more modifiers and less active verbs Switching to subplots

Flashbacks a scene in a movie, novel, etc., set in a time earlier than the main story a sudden and disturbing vivid memory of an event in the past, typically as the result of psychological trauma

Irony Situational—when you expect one thing to happen and the opposite occurs Verbal--When you say one thing and mean another Dramatic—occurs when a reader knows more about a situation or characters than characters do

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