How to investigate structure in fiction texts

Structure refers to how written text is organised - the way the story is ordered and shaped. The structure of the writing directs the reader’s understanding of characters and plot - it helps to reveal the plot in a way that shapes the reader's understanding and response to the story.

There are many different structural techniques that a writer can choose to engage and guide the reader, from the overall structure (the story arc) to the order of words (syntax).

When writers write a story, they plan the structure of the story very carefully. A narrative or story arc is the name given to the overarching pattern of a story. Stories traditionally have a beginning, middle and an end.

To add more detail to this idea, we could split a story into sections:

• Exposition – the beginning of the story, where the scene is set and the characters are introduced.
• Conflict – a conflict or problem occurs which the character has to overcome.
• Climax – the conflict or problem hits its peak.
• Resolution – the problem is solved – either happily or sadly.

A classic example of this is the Greek myth of Icarus. Icarus is a boy who escapes his prison on an island by creating wings made from feathers held together by wax. Icarus though flies too close to the Sun, causing the wax to melt and Icarus to crash into the sea.

Imagine the arc of the story as a line curving up or down on a graph.

• The story starts with Icarus in a negative place (the exposition followed by the conflict/problem)
• He escapes (the graph starts curving upwards) and it looks like everything will be positive…
• But Icarus goes too high (climax)
• And the story ends in a negative place again (the graph curves back down for the resolution)

Lots of stories follow this arc from Macbeth by William Shakespeare to Great Expectations by Charles Dickens to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

All stories have movement – something has to change or happen – and this is what creates the pattern or arc of the story. The arc can take many different shapes.

Writers use structure to hook a reader’s attention in different ways. The hook engages the reader in the narrative (story). In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee begins her story:

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury.

In this opening, Lee suggests that the story will be told in flashback (memories) by using the past tense and referring to events over time. It also encourages the reader to connect with the main characters with feelings and experiences that the reader can identify with.

By contrast, Girl Missing by Sophie McKenzie begins:

Who am I?
I sat at the computer in Mum’s office and stared at the essay heading. New form tutors always give you homework like that at the start of the year.
Who am I?

Immediately McKenzie suggests the story will be told from the character’s first person point of view and that the story will unfold as it happens (using a mixture of present and past tense). The reader understands that the seemingly basic and straightforward question ‘Who am I?’ is not an easy question for this character to answer.

Read more about how to engage the reader in a story opening.

Sometimes stories have a neat 'closed' ending – a resolution or denouement when the problem/mystery is solved or the conflict is resolved and there are no loose ends left to worry the reader.

Sometimes the writer deliberately creates an 'open' ending. The story is left on a cliff hanger or is left ambiguous. The reader is left to wonder what will happen next or work out what has happened and deal with the fact that there may be more than one interpretation. For example in The Giver by Lois Lowry, the ending is left deliberately ambiguous and the fate of the characters is only resolved in later novels in the series.

More endings that are fun to write include:

• Unexpected twists, eg the detective was the murderer – eek!
• Cyclical narratives, eg the ending almost exactly mirrors the beginning or takes the reader back to where the story started.
• Expanded endings, eg often a jump forward in time which tells us about the characters years after the events of the story.

The narrative perspective is the point of view from which the story is told. A writer decides on the narrative voice and how to use this in the structure of the story. A story may be told in third person, as though the narrator is an outsider or observer looking in, and using pronouns such as ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’. Or it might be told in first person, from the point of view of one or more of the characters in the story, using the pronoun ‘I’ ‘we’ or ‘us’.

In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon uses first-person perspective to tell the story from Christopher’s point of view. This perspective helps to structure the text as a convincing internal monologue. As Christopher’s thought processes are unfamiliar to many people, the choice to write in his voice directs the reader’s response to events in the novel in unusual and unexpected ways. For example, in the opening his voice is unusually factual and precise about a shocking discovery:

It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears' house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead.

Writers can also shape their writing by choosing when to use dialogue and when to use internal monologue.

Dialogue

Dialogue is the words spoken by the characters in the story. What a character says and how they say it can help the reader understand a character more deeply. A couple of sentences of dialogue can be very revealing. For example, are they feeling happy or sad? Do they ask lots of questions or tell others what to do?

Internal monologue

Writers use this to express the thoughts in a character’s head. The inside of the mind (internal) is spoken by one voice (monologue). We can ‘hear’ what they are thinking. It allows us to understand their private thoughts and emotions, their ideas about other characters, and can be used to clearly show us any internal conflict (for example, when they are deciding what to do).

In Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman, there is a scene when one of the main characters, Callum, is questioned by the train guards. Blackman decides to use both dialogue and an internal monologue (written in italics) to reveal his private thoughts – what he wishes he could say aloud.

Where are you going?
None of your business.
Celebration Park.
Why?
To cut my toenails.
Picnic.
Where do you live?
On the moon.
Meadowview.

A flashback describes past events related to the present. Foreshadowing gives hints of future events - but the reader may only realise this later when the future event has happened.

Flashbacks can make readers feel more connected to the characters and help them to understand what is happening and why it is happening now in the story. For example, in Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo most of the novel is written in flashback. It is World War One. Tommo’s friend Charlie is to be executed for ‘cowardice’ in the morning. Tommo spends the night reflecting back on his past - revisiting in flashback all the events leading to this tragic moment when Charlie will be shot.

Foreshadowing can help build suspense, hint at future plot events or make connections between different moments in the story. For example, in Macbeth by William Shakespeare the witches’ predictions foreshadow the events of the play - Macbeth does indeed become King. More subtly, in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, we find out that Victor (who creates the monster) clearly remembers as a child being excited by a lightning strike and the power of electricity. This memory foreshadows the moment when Victor ‘infuses a spark of being’ into his monster; bringing it to life.

As well as arranging the events of the story, a writer uses other structural techniques to help shape their writing. These can occur at word, sentence or paragraph level.

Word order (syntax)

The syntax is the arrangement of the words and phrases in a sentence. At the start of Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier writes:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me.

The opening sentence straightaway provides the reader with a sense of time - "last night", place - "Manderley" and perspective - "I dreamt". The syntax implies fact and truth, which is immediately contradicted in the second sentence by the mystery which is created. Why should this place be ‘barred’ to the narrator?

Another example of using unexpected syntax is the opening to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens:

Marley was dead, to begin with.

At first the sentence seems very simple until the unexpected twist at the end. How can someone or something be dead ‘to begin with’? Straightaway the reader is left to puzzle out this mystery. Will it be a ghost story or something else?

Sentence and paragraph length

Short sentences can help to create a tense atmosphere. A one line or even one word paragraph can add dramatic impact. For example in Lark by Anthony McGowan, Nicky is terrified that his brother is in trouble:

But that wasn’t what made the sick feeling surge up inside of me. There was something else floating on the water along with the snowflakes.
It was a hat.
It was a Leeds United bobble hat.

The short sentences and one line paragraphs have been clearly structured to show Nicky’s shock when he spots his brother’s hat in the water.

Learn more about how to write a complex sentence.

When investigating narrative structure, you can look out for what decisions the writer has made in these areas of their story:

• the arc of the story and the order in which things happen
• the opening
• the ending
• the narrative perspective
• the use of dialogue and internal monologue
• the syntax

Be on the hunt for any choices where the writer does something unusual or different to what you expected.

Make sure to think about the impact these choices have on the reader and why the writer may have chosen them.

Here are some other examples of structural techniques and their possible effects on the reader to help you learn to spot them on your own.

Being able to link the effect to the technique is a really useful skill so always try to think of reasons the writer has used a particular structural device if you notice it.

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