Margin Notes

What I Was Reading:

As I neared the end of every little scrap and wonder by Carla Funk I came across yet another passage that at once transported my senses to the scene from the author’s childhood and into a memory of my own childhood. Her description of all the distinct gun noises that kids make while playing war were so perfect that I was simultaneously drawn into her narrative while re-living scenes from my youth. My mouth silently formed the noises she was describing, while my memory’s ears heard my childhood friends and I voicing the same array of gun noises.

What Moves I Notice the Writer Making:

• Specificity: The different gun noises are all linked to a specific gun.
• Onomatopoeia: Descriptions of the noises use original onomatopoeia.
• Functional description: By describing the gun’s firing mechanism, the reader is given a sense of the cadence the gun’s noise has.
• Physical description: The reader is encouraged to try each sound as they read because the author describes how the mouth is shaped and which part of the vocal system is used for that sound.
• Combinations: Most descriptions use a combination of multiple of the above-mentioned techniques in order to create a richer auditory description of the sounds.

Possibilities for Writers:

• Brainstorm noises and create an original onomatopoeia for those noises.
• Think of details you can include about how whatever is making the noise operates in order to give the audience a more complete picture of the sound.
• Describe the physical shape of the mouth or use of the vocal system in a description of a noise someone is making.
• Try to combine different noise descriptors to create a multi-faceted description of a noise.
• Explore other ways of communicating sound through text (physical sensation of the sound waves, rhythm, font, spacing, metaphor etc.).

Guest writer Michael Reeder is currently in the UNB education program, hoping to teach English Language Arts to high school students soon. He has always loved reading and believes that, since reading is one of the most powerful tools and individual can use to advance their lives independently, instilling a love of reading in students is one of the most important things a teacher can do.

What I Was Reading:

In a wonderfully fun but hauntingly dark fantasy series, Abercrombie uses a trick throughout the trilogy to give us a unique perspective on one character, an Inquisitor (torturer) named Glokta, one of his primary point-of-view characters throughout the series. Normally adhering to the old principle of ‘show, don’t tell,’ Abercrombie avoids any kind of internal dialogue, letting the characters’ actions speak for themselves, but he makes an exception for Glokta – Glokta can walk and talk like any character, but he is the only one with an internal monologue, signified by italics:

‘Impressive, eh Inquisitor?’ he asked, before dissolving into a fit of coughing.
Not really.… ‘It certainly produces a great deal of smoke,’ he croaked.

What Moves I Notice the Writer Making:

This allows Glokta to speak to himself, but it also allows him (and Abercrombie) to speak directly to the reader. We get a clearer picture of his motives and desires, and it also says a great deal about his character – he is explicitly two-faced. In almost every interaction we see him say one thing but think another. It also speaks to his intellect. Thinking and conspiring are Glokta’s main occupations, and with this running internal monologue Abercrombie can show the reader Glokta doing it in real-time:

The old man squinted across at Glokta. ‘Are you telling this story or am I?’
‘You are.’ And you’re taking your time about it.

Possibilities for Writers:

Think of a time you were speaking with someone but couldn’t tell them what you were really thinking. What was going through your mind? How might you represent that on a page, while writing dialogue?

Find an example of a dialogue where a character had to hide their true motivations. What might they have been thinking during this scene?

Guest writer Matthew Shaw is an education student and a longtime teacher of English as a Second Language and a former archaeologist. He lives in Fredericton, NB with his wife and three-year-old son, and likes reading and spending as much time as possible outdoors with his family. He hates how much time he spends on YouTube every evening.