文档介绍：Characterisation
The method an author uses to acquaint the reader with his characters.
An author may use any of all of four different methods of characterization:
a, he may describe the character’s physical traits and personality.
b, he may show the character’s speech and behavior.
c, he may give the opinions and reactions of other characters toward this individual.
d, he may show the character’s thoughts and feelings.
Conflict
Every story, novel or play develops around a struggle or conflict. Sometimes the conflict may be obvious, as in some westerns in which the only conflict is the struggle between the good guys and the bad guys. In a more complicated western, besides the obvious conflict with the villain, the hero may have to struggle with a wild animal or a fierce blizzard or he may have to struggle with his conscience. In other words, he may be involved in several conflicts.
Conflicts in literature are of two general types:
1) external conflict, in which the character or main figure (sometimes an animal or group) struggle against another character, nature or society; and
2) internal conflict; in which the character struggles against some element of his own personality (his conscience or code of values, for example).
Varieties of Suspense and Expectation
Stories hold our attention by creating an atmosphere of suspense around the characters and events. We turn the pages because we want to learn what happens next. Suspense creates expectation through the holding back of information; there is a promise of revelation to come. Sometimes the promise is implicit in the situation: the two men are fighting to the death and we read on to see who will win. In other cases, the author may subtly prepare the ground for us through foreshadowing-that is, passing along cues and hints about what will happen.
［Supplementary Reading］
Making contact with fictional world
The reading of fiction is at once simpler and more demandin