Reading as a Writer: The Technique of Writing

MCW4011: CW1
Reading is an essential part of writing that can not only
reinforce techniques but provide inspiration and create ideas
spanning all genres and literary forms. It is important to read things
which arent necessarily of the same genre of form as your own
writing as many techniques are transferrable and can make you
think of new ways of incorporating them into your own work. Patrick
Ness novel The Knife of Never Letting Go (2008) and Alice Munros
collection Friend of my Youth (1996) are two examples that I found
contained many techniques I may be able to use, although they are
not necessarily of a genre or form that I normally write in.
The title plays a huge role in literature. In Ness novel, The
Knife of Never Letting Go it has multiple meanings that are
interwoven throughout the novel. One of the main, perhaps, being
that we often repeat mistakes even though we dont forget them.
History has a habit of repeating itself and this not only features in
the novel but is easily relatable to our world too. It also has many
more literal meanings within the novel such as Todd wanting a knife
at the beginning and Viola using one near the end. The latter is also
a symbolic act as it goes against the misogynistic treatment of
women that we see throughout the novel.
Alice Munro cleverly entitles her collection of short stories
Friend of my Youth in reference to an old fashioned way of
addressing someone. This is a term used by the narrators mother in
the title story. The story revolves around such friends, rather than
the mother herself, something that enrages her daughter who
seems to doubt their existence, or perhaps just her mothers
presence in their lives. The title serves to remind the readers of this
aspect of the collection. Rather than focusing entirely on the lives
and stories that are told, the title reinforces the presence of the
people who are telling them second-hand. In the first story in
particular, it reminds us of the narrators mother, who, despite dying
a slow death, still manages to communicate this story about one of
her friends all over the country. The focus is on Flora rather than
herself. All of the stories in the collection are told in past tense.
These examples of clever titles can act as a reminder to writers of
how important the title is. It is the first thing a reader will notice and
can be used to reiterate the meaning or meanings behind a story or
novel. It can be taken from a particularly significant line within the
story without seeming clichd.
Exposition is another thing that can be incredibly hard to reveal
naturally within a story. Ness expertly drip-feeds his readers details

of the world his characters inhabit in a very subtle way. Like any
novel or story that doesnt involve characters finding themselves in
a new world, Todd, as the narrator, has no reason to explain his
world because he grew up in it. Its all hes known so the use of
letters from his mother and casual descriptions of the town help
teach the readers about his world without taking them out of the
story through unrealistic exposition.
Not only are the techniques clever but so is the structure of
the exposition. Ness delivers it very slowly, keeping it realistic and
interesting to keep reading as we are continuously discovering small
details about the world, even towards the end of the novel when
what we think we know, along with Todd, is turned on its back.
As a whole, Ness novel is hugely original, something that
every writer strives for but not many achieve. This is perhaps most
relevant to the science fiction genre but is equally transferable
across the literary spectrum. Despite having all the elements
necessary to define it as a science fiction, Ness avoids falling into
the clichs of the genre by making it so much more than that. It has
many themes including childhood innocence, isolation, death, and
the distrust of authority. This offers some hope for other writers that
there are still original stories to be found, even in such an overused
genre, which has become perhaps overrun with overused narratives
not only from the published books but more recently with fan fiction
as well.
Friend of my Youth plays constantly with dreams and
perception. In the first story again, it turns out that Robert, someone
we are told very little about, is the heart and driving force of the
plot. We can only know what the mother has told her daughter, and
neither was present for the major plot points. Instead of being
frustrating however, the absence of these details only adds to the
readers experience. By playing around with perception, Munro
ensures the story is thought provoking in terms of the readers
perception of characters like Robert and Audrey without being
judgemental.
Although this is not an entirely original technique, it is not
very common to leave intentional gaps such as these in a story. The
success of Munros stories in using this technique shows that it is
not necessarily essential either, to fill in all the gaps of a story. As
long as the plot is clear and there is at least one character to follow
throughout, it can sometimes be more interesting to leave out detail
about certain characters. By writing Flora as a character who avoids
making any moral judgement, Munro allows us more time to decide
on the nature of characters like Robert and Ellie, who we might
otherwise quickly dismiss as hopeless.

In the Knife of Never Letting Go, the story is told from Todds
perspective. This device is used to great effect in this novel. It is not
only consistently obvious that it is a childs thoughts we are reading,
but the subtlety of Todds changing language says a lot about what
he is going through. When he first notices the silence, he refers to it
as it. He then meets Viola, and this changes from her to the girl.
As he gets to know her, he finally begins to use her name. As Todds
perception of his town changes, so does ours and this makes
reading the novel and his story seem more personal and relatable,
despite being out-of-this-world. We also see a clear difference in the
beginning of the novel as Todd matures, a hugely important aspect
of the novel. In Prentisstown, boys become men at just 13 and we
are reminded throughout of how young Todd actually is. In the
opening chapter he believes a knife is a present for a real man,
whereas by the end he wants nothing less than to have to use a
knife on Aaron, though he is almost forced to. In this way, he
maintains his childhood innocence, as it has always been known to
him, by not committing a violent act. The knife is symbolic of this
theme, one that is consistent throughout the novel with Viola trying
to protect Todds innocence.
Both of these stories play around with perception to great
effect, and in ways that are not necessarily expected. This is
something that writers need to always consider but may forget
unless it is part of the plot. In Friend of my Youth it is not essential
to the plot but still adds to it whereas in The Knife of Never Letting
Go, it also serves as an essential part of the story as Todds
perception of Prentisstown changes. It is important to remember
both of these ways in which perception can add to a story.
Humour is a technique that perhaps isnt always used to its
full potential. It is most present in Philip Terrys Shakespeares
Sonnets. Although Terrys reimaginings of these sonnets are works
of humour, they can be useful in teaching us how to inject humour
into stories that arent necessarily comedic. One of Shakespeares
most well known lines Shall I compare thee to a summers day? is
changed to Shall I compare thee to a Smirnoff ad? The humour is
clear and upfront in these sonnets and they may be seen as trivial,
but they are a good example of how modern language and concepts
can be used to turn the meaning of what was originally a declaration
of love. Humour is found in everyday life all the time, something
that Terrys collection reminds us of with his pop culture references
to Kyle and Victoria Beckham. It is only fitting that most stories will
make use of humour in at times, and using such references is a
great example of how to do it and is transferrable across other
platforms of writing. It can be easy to ignore the comedic side of
things with a story that is definitively a drama or science fiction, but
it is realistic that there would be some humour, however subtle.

A clear example of subtle humour would be from The Knife of

Never Letting Go. Manchee the dog is a constant source of humour
that doesnt always fit with the situation. This acts as some comic
relief for the audience and makes it more entertaining for the reader
without taking us out of the scene, another critical thing a writer
needs to remember. The initial concept of talking animals is
somewhat humorous, and Ness extends this by making this
realization a lot less meaningful than you might have imagined.
Instead of having any deep or interesting thoughts, the humour
comes from Manchee only ever thinking about poo or squirrels. As
Todd says in the opening of the novel, the first thing you find out
when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs dont got nothing much to
say. About anything.
Munro also uses humour in a situation that at its core, is not
particularly funny in Oranges and Apples. Munro finds the humour in
the potential affair going on between Barbara and Victor. The image
of Murray, a man with binoculars watching a man with binoculars,
is, as Munro points out, like a scene from a comedy despite being
the moment when Murray potentially discovers his wife may be
having an affair, or is at least considering it, as he suspects she
knows she is being watched and does not seem to mind at all. These
examples show that it is possible to find the humour in these
situations, though the characters within the story do not necessarily
have to find them funny. It also reminds us as writers, that it is
important to have some comic relief, particularly in a darker story,
to keep a balance so as not to overpower readers with negative
plots.
As someone who is new to short story writing, Alice Munros
collection served as a teaching point on how to structure a story of
that length. There are many ways to structure a story but Munro
doesnt always stick to the typical methods. Typically there is a
problem that needs to be solved (and does), but Munro manages to
successfully deviate from this standard story arch. In Friend of my
Youth, Flora does not seem as if she is attempting to solve any of
the problems within her family. As readers, we are biased first by the
mothers views, and then by the narrators, but we see no attempt
by any of the characters to solve their own issues perhaps of course.
In Oranges and Apples, we never find out whether the affair was real
or not. Munro utilizes interesting characters much more than finding
the solution to a problem.
These works of literature are all sources of inspiration to
writers, whether that be from the use of humour in Terrys
Shakespeares Sonnets, or the wholly original storytelling in Ness
The Knife of Never Letting Go. As a writer, reading is an essential
part of writing. With writing science fiction, you need to have read a
huge amount of it to know whether you are being original, or just

copying an idea without knowing it. The structure of a short story is

something which you will not come across without reading them and
Munros collection has the potential to help with that aspect of
writing.

Bibliography
Ness, P. (2008) The Knife of Never Letting Go. Walker Books Ltd:
London
Munro, A. (1996) Friend of my Youth. Vintage: London
Terry, P. (2010) Shakespeares Sonnets Carcanet Press: Manchester