Craft of Writing: Stream-of-Consciousness, Reported Speech, and Anadiplosis

Here is one more installment of some Craft of Writing mini-lessons before the HSC examinations are upon us. These are mini-lessons designed to support students in practising writing craft all year-round. Below are three writing techniques or elements that can be brought into close-up to make the craft of writing more explicit for students. 

Stream of Consciousness 

What is it: In psychology this refers to a person's thoughts and reactions and the way they can be perceived as a continuous flow. In literature it refers to an author's attempt to represent this by an uninterrupted stretch of the character thinking, uninterrupted by dialogue or a traditional narrative.

Example:

• "Should he cast by type or against type? Uglies in parts that call for beauty, a gorgeous hunk for Caliban? Put them into roles that will force them to explore their hidden depths, or are those depths better left unexplored? Challenge the audience by showing them well-known characters in surprising and possibly disagreeable guises?" - Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood.

Why use it:

• Developed by a group of early 20th century authors to put the reader inside a character's head and demonstrate greater depth of characterisation.
• Can convey to the reader a greater sense of a character's motivation in regards to the narrative.
• Authors can use it to explore a character's past through glimpses of flashbacks.
  

Quick Activity: Pick a supporting character from Hag-Seed or The Tempestand write a paragraph (using stream of consciousness) that explores their feelings mid-way through the narrative. 

Reported Speech

 

What is it: There are two kinds of speaking in literature. Direct speech refers to speech that takes place in quotation marks, such as "Hey, what's up?" The other kind, reported speech, refers to a character paraphrasing or reporting what a character has generally said.

Examples:

• "She's insisting on greenery, she's making him eat kale" - Felix indirectly conveys Miranda's dialogue in Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
• "When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease." - From the short story 'The Story of an Hour' by Kate Chopin.
  

Why use it:

• Allows for the narrator to retain 'control' of the story; what the audience 'hears' is only what the narrator tells them. This can also reinforce an author's attempt to create an unreliable narrator.
• The author can use reported speech to blend dialogue and action together more seamlessly.
• Creates a greater distance between the reader and the events of the text, and can help to condense time into smaller amounts of text.
  

Quick Activity: Pick a segment of The Tempest or Hag-Seed that uses direct dialogue and rewrite it as a short paragraph that shows both direct speech and reported speech.  

Anadiplosis

What is it: A rhetorical form of repetition in which the last word or clause of a paragraph/sentence is repeated near the beginning of the next section of text. The word 'anadiplosis' comes from the Greek word for 'doubling / folding up'.

Examples:

• "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hates leads to suffering" - Yoda in The Phantom Menace, directed by George Lucas.
• "It begins, I think, with that act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing" - 'Redfern' speech by Paul Keating (1992)
• "Don't blame me, blame me fucking hormones" - Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
  

Why use it:

• To emphasise the significance of a particular word or idea.
• The changing placement of the key word or clause in question helps to shift the way a reader thinks of it. 
• Can show a chain of events / cause and effect when used multiple times in close proximity.
• Allows writers to sometimes indicate multiple meanings associated with one word.
• Can make a suggestion or an order more effective when delivered with authority.

Quick Activity: Write a short persuasive speech that includes an example of anadiplosis. This speech should be about why the voting age should or shouldn't be lowered to 16. 

You can find all these together on one handy sheet below:

• Writology Issue 8

Happy writing!