The plot and composition of a literary work. Composition Basics: Elements and Techniques

The concept of composition is broader and more universal than the concept of plot. The plot fits into the general composition of the works, occupying one or another, more or less important place in it, depending on the intentions of the author.

Depending on the ratio of the plot and plot in a particular work, they talk about different types and receptions plot compositions... The simplest case is when events are linearly arranged in direct chronological sequence without any changes. This composition is also called straight or plot sequence.

The composition of the plot also includes a certain order of communication to the reader about what happened. In works with a large volume of text, the sequence of plot episodes usually reveals the author's thought gradually and steadily. In novels and novellas, poems and dramas, each subsequent episode reveals something new to the reader - and so on until the finale, which is usually, as it were, a pivotal moment in the composition of the plot.

It should be noted that the temporal coverage in the works can be quite wide, the pace of the narration can be uneven. There is a difference between a concise author's account that speeds up the run plot time and "dramatized" episodes, compositional the time of which goes "toe-to-toe" with the plot time.

In some cases, writers depict parallel theaters of action (that is, they draw two storylines running parallel to each other). Thus, the proximity of the chapters of "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy, dedicated to the dying of old Bolkonsky and cheerful name-days in the Rostovs' house, outwardly motivated by the simultaneity of these events, carries a certain meaningful load. This technique tunes readers in tune with Tolstoy's reflections and the inseparability of life and death.

Writers do not always report events in direct sequence. Sometimes they seem to intrigue readers, for some time keeping them in the dark about the true essence of events. This compositional technique is called by default... This technique is very effective, because it allows you to keep the reader in the dark and stress until the very end, and at the end to amaze with the unexpectedness of the plot twist. Due to these properties, the method of silence is almost always used in adventurous and roguish works and works of the detective genre, although, of course, not only in them. Realist writers also sometimes keep the reader in the dark about what happened. So, for example, the story of A.S. Pushkin's "Snowstorm". Only at the very end of the story does the reader learn that Marya Gavrilovna was married to a stranger who, as it turns out, was Burmin. In the novel "War and Peace" the author for a long time makes the reader, together with the Bolkonsky family, think that Prince Andrei died during the Battle of Austerlitz, and only at the moment the hero appears in Bald Hills does it become clear that this is not so.

An important means of plot composition are becoming chronological permutations events. Often these permutations are dictated by the desire of the authors to switch the readers' attention from the outside of what happened (what will happen to the heroes next?) To its inner, deep background. So, in the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov's "A Hero of Our Time" plot composition serves a gradual penetration into the secrets of the inner world of the protagonist. First, readers learn about Pechorin from the story of Maksim Maksimych ("Bela"), then from the narrator, who gives a detailed portrait of the hero ("Maksim Maksimych"), and only after that Lermontov introduces Pechorin's own diary (stories "Taman", "Princess Mary" , "Fatalist"). Thanks to the sequence of chapters chosen by the author, the attention of the reader is shifted from the adventures undertaken by Pechorin to the riddle of his character, "unraveled" from story to story, right up to The Fatalist.

Another technique for breaking chronologies or plot sequence is the so-called retrospection, when, in the course of the development of the plot, the author makes retreats into the past, as a rule, at the time preceding the outset and the beginning of this work... This kind of "retrospective" (facing back, to what happened earlier) plot composition presupposes the presence in the works of expanded backstories of the heroes, given in independent plot episodes. In order to more fully discover the successive ties of eras and generations, in order to reveal the complex and difficult ways of forming human characters, writers often resort to a kind of "editing" of the past (sometimes very distant) and the present of characters: the action is periodically transferred from one time to another. So, in "Fathers and Children" I.S. Turgenev, in the course of the plot, readers are faced with two significant retrospections - the prehistories of the life of Pavel Petrovich and Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov. It was not Turgenev's intention to start a novel from their youth, and it would clutter up the composition of the novel, and it seemed to the author that it was nevertheless necessary to give an idea of ​​the past of these heroes - therefore, he used the technique of retrospection.

The story sequence can be broken in such a way that events of different times are mixed; the narrative all the time returns from the moment of the performed action to different previous time layers, then again turns to the present in order to immediately return to the past. This composition of the plot is often motivated by the memories of the heroes. It is called free composition and to one degree or another is used by different writers quite often. However, it happens that free composition becomes the main and defining principle of plot construction; in this case, it is customary to speak of a free composition proper ("Shot" by AS Pushkin).

Internal, emotional-semantic, that is, compositional, connections between plot episodes sometimes turn out to be functionally even more important than the actual plot, causal-temporal connections. The composition of such works can be called active, or, to use the term filmmakers, “ editing room". Active, montage composition allows writers to embody deep, not directly observable connections between life phenomena, events, facts (an example is the novel by MA Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"). The role and purpose of this kind of composition can be characterized by the words of A.A. Blok from the preface to the poem "Retribution": "I am used to comparing facts from all areas of life accessible to my vision at a given time, and I am sure that all of them together always create a single musical thrust" (Complete collection of works in the 8th Vol. 3 - M., 1960, p. 297).

In addition to the plot, in the composition of the work there are also the so-called off-plot elements, which are often no less, if not more important, than the plot itself. If the plot of the work is dynamic side his compositions, then off-plot elements - static.

Off-plot such elements are called that do not advance the action forward, during which nothing happens, and the heroes remain in the same positions. Distinguish three main varieties off-plot elements: description, author's deviations and plug-in episodes(otherwise they are also called plug-in novellas or plug-in plots).

Description Is an image of the outside world (landscape, portrait, world of things) or sustainable way of life, that is, those events and actions that take place regularly, from day to day and, therefore, also have no relation to the movement of the plot. Descriptions are the most common type of off-plot elements, they are present in almost every epic work.

Copyright deviations- these are more or less detailed author's statements of philosophical, lyrical, autobiographical, etc. character; at the same time, these statements do not characterize individual characters or the relationship between them. The author's deviations are an optional element in the composition of the work, but when they nevertheless appear there ("Eugene Onegin" by A.S. Pushkin, " Dead Souls"N.V. Gogol," The Master and Margarita "by M.A. Bulgakov and others), they play, as a rule, the most important role, serve as a direct expression of the writer's position.

Insert episodes- these are relatively complete fragments of the action, in which other characters appear, the action is transferred to another time and place, etc. Sometimes inserted episodes begin to play an even greater role in the work than the main plot, as, for example, in “ Dead souls ah "N.V. Gogol.

In some cases, a psychological image can also be attributed to extra-plot elements, if the state of mind or thoughts of the hero are not a consequence or cause of plot events, are excluded from the plot chain (for example, most of Pechorin's internal monologues in A Hero of Our Time). However, as a rule, internal monologues and other forms of psychological depiction are somehow included in the plot, since they determine the further actions of the hero and, consequently, the further course of the plot.

When analyzing the overall composition of a work, one should first of all determine the ratio of the plot and extra-plot elements, determining which of them is more important, and proceeding from this, continue the analysis in the appropriate direction. So, when analyzing "Dead Souls" N.V. Gogol's extra-plot elements should be given priority attention.

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that there are cases when both the plot and non-plot elements are equally important in a work - for example, in “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin. In this case, the interaction of plot and non-plot fragments of the text acquires special significance: as a rule, out-of-plot elements are placed between plot events not in an arbitrary, but in a strictly logical order. Thus, the retreat of A.S. Pushkin's "We all look at Napoleons ..." could appear only after the readers had sufficiently learned the character of Onegin from his actions and only in connection with his friendship with Lensky; digression about Moscow is not only formally timed to coincide with Tatiana's arrival in the old capital, but also in a complex way correlates with the events of the plot: the image of "native Moscow" with its historical roots opposed to Onegin's unrootedness in Russian life, etc. In general, off-plot elements often have a weak or purely formal connection with the plot and represent a separate compositional line.

Summing up everything that has been said, it is necessary to point out that in the most general form, two types of composition can be distinguished - conditionally they can be called simple and complicated. In the first case, the function of composition is reduced only to the unification of parts of the work into a single whole, and this unification is always carried out in the simplest and most natural way. In the area of ​​plot formation, this will be a direct chronological sequence of events, in the area of ​​narration - a single narrative type throughout the entire text, in the area of ​​subject details - a simple list of them without highlighting particularly important, supporting, symbolic details, etc.

With a complex composition in the very construction of the work, in the order of the combination of its parts and elements, a special artistic meaning is embodied. So, for example, the sequential change of narrators and the violation of the chronological sequence in "A Hero of Our Time" M.Yu. Lermontov, they focus on the moral and philosophical essence of Pechorin's character and allow them to "get close" to her, gradually unraveling the character. In Chekhov's story "Ionych" immediately after the description of the "salon" of the Turkins, where Vera Iosifovna reads her novel, and Kotik strikes the piano keys with all his might, it is no coincidence that there is a mention of the knock of knives and the smell of fried onions - this compositional juxtaposition of details contains special meaning, the author's irony is expressed. An example of a complex composition of speech elements can be found in the "History of one kind" by M.Ye. Saltykova-Shchedrin: “It seemed that the bowl of disasters was drunk to the bottom. But no: there is still a tub at the ready ”. Here the first and second sentences collide compositionally, creating a contrast between the solemn, high style (and the corresponding intonation) of the metaphorical phrase "the bowl of disasters is drunk to the bottom" and colloquial vocabulary and intonation ("no," "tub"). As a result, the comic effect necessary for the author arises.

The simple and complex types of composition are sometimes difficult to identify in a particular work of art, since the differences between them turn out to be to a certain extent purely quantitative: we can talk about the greater or lesser complexity of the composition of a particular work. There are, of course, pure types: for example, the composition of fables by I.A. Krylova is simple in all respects, and "Ladies with the Dog" by A.P. Chekhov or "The Master and Margarita" by M.A. Bulgakov is complex in all respects. But here, for example, a story by A.P. Chekhov as "House with a Mezzanine" is quite simple in terms of plot and narrative composition and complex in the field of speech composition and details. All this makes the question of the type of composition rather complicated, but at the same time very important, since simple and complex types of composition can become the style dominants of the work and, thus, determine its artistic originality.

In literary studies, they say different things about composition, but there are three main definitions:

1) Composition is the arrangement and correlation of parts, elements and images of a work (components art form), the sequence of introduction of units of the depicted and speech means text.

2) Composition is a construction artwork, the correlation of all parts of the work into a single whole, due to its content and genre.

3) Composition - the construction of a work of art, a certain system of means of disclosing, organizing images, their connections and relationships that characterize the life process shown in the work.

All these scary literary concepts, in essence, a fairly simple decoding: composition is the arrangement of the novels passages in a logical order, in which the text becomes whole and acquires an inner meaning.

How, following the instructions and rules, we collect from small parts constructor or puzzle, so we collect from text fragments, be it chapters, parts or sketches, and a whole novel.

Writing fantasy: a course for fans of the genre

A course for those who have fantastic ideas and have little or no writing experience.

If you do not know where to start - how to develop an idea, how to reveal images, how, in the end, it is simple to present coherently what was invented, to describe what was seen - we will provide both the necessary knowledge and exercises for practice.

The composition of the work is external and internal.

External composition of the book

External composition (aka architectonics) is a breakdown of the text into chapters and parts, highlighting additional structural parts and an epilogue, introduction and conclusion, epigraphs and lyrical digressions. The external composition is also the division of the text into volumes (separate books with a global idea, a branching plot and a large number of heroes and characters).

External composition is a way of dosing information.

A novel text written on 300 pages is unreadable without a structural breakdown. At a minimum, he needs parts, at a maximum - chapters or semantic segments, separated by spaces or asterisks (***).

By the way, short chapters are more convenient for perception - up to ten sheets - after all, as readers, having mastered one chapter, no, no, we will count how many pages there are in the next - and continue to read or sleep.

Internal composition of the book

Internal composition, as opposed to external, includes many more elements and techniques of text layout. All of them, however, boil down to a common goal - to arrange the text in a logical order and to reveal author's intention, but they go to it in different ways - plot, figurative, speech, thematic, etc. Let us examine them in more detail.

1. Subject elements of the internal composition:

• prologue - introduction, most often - prehistory. (But some authors take the event from the middle of the story in the prologue, or the original compositional move from the finale.) The prologue is an interesting but optional element of both external and external composition;
• exposition - the initial event in which the heroes are presented, the conflict is outlined;
• tie - events in which the conflict is tied;
• development of actions - the course of events;
• culmination - the highest point of tension, the clash of opposing forces, the peak of the emotional intensity of the conflict;
• denouement - the result of the climax;
• an epilogue is a summary of the story, conclusions on the plot and an assessment of events, outlines of the further life of the heroes. Optional element.

2. Figurative elements:

• images of heroes and characters - advance the plot, are the main conflicts, reveal the idea and the author's intention. The system of characters - each image separately and the connections between them - an important element of the internal composition;
• images of the setting in which the action develops are descriptions of countries and cities, images of the road and accompanying landscapes, if the characters are on the way, interiors - if all events take place, for example, within the walls of a medieval castle. The images of the environment are the so-called descriptive "meat" (the world of history), atmosphere (the sense of history).

The figurative elements work mainly on the plot.

So, for example, the image of a hero is assembled from the details - an orphan, without clan and tribe, but with magical power and purpose - to learn about his past, about his family, to find his place in the world. And this goal, in fact, becomes a plot - and compositional one: from the search for the hero, from the development of the action - from the progressive and logical advancement - the text is formed.

And the same goes for the images of the environment. They both create the space of history, and at the same time limit it to certain frames - a medieval castle, city, country, world.

Specific images complement and develop the story, make it understandable, visible and tangible, like correctly (and compositionally) arranged household items in your apartment.

3. Speech elements:

• dialogue (polylogue);
• monologue;
• lyrical digressions(the author's word, not related to the development of the plot or images of the heroes, abstract reflections on a specific topic).

Speech elements are the speed of perception of the text. Dialogues are dynamics, and monologues and lyrical digressions (including descriptions of action in the first person) are static. Visually, the text, in which there are no dialogues, seems cumbersome, inconvenient, unreadable, and this is reflected in the composition. Without dialogues, it is difficult to understand - the text seems to be drawn out.

A monologue text - like a bulky sideboard in a small room - relies on many details (and contains even more in itself), which are sometimes difficult to understand. Ideally, in order not to burden the composition of the chapter, a monologue (and any descriptive text) should take no more than two or three pages. And by no means ten or fifteen, just few people will read them - they will skip, look diagonally.

Conversely, dialogues are composed of emotions, easy to understand and dynamic. At the same time, they should not be empty - only for the sake of dynamics and "heroic" experiences, but informative, and the disclosure of the hero's image.

4. Inserts:

• retrospective - scenes from the past: a) long episodes, revealing the image of the heroes, showing the history of the world or the origins of the situation, can take several chapters; b) short skits(flashbacks) - from one paragraph, often extremely emotional and atmospheric episodes;
• short stories, parables, fairy tales, tales, poems are optional elements that interestingly diversify the text ( good example compositional tale - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by Rowling); chapters of another story in the composition "a novel in a novel" ("The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov);
• dreams (dreams-premonitions, dreams-predictions, dreams-riddles).

Inserts are extra-plot elements, and remove them from the text - the plot will not change. However, they can scare, amuse, disturb the reader, suggest the development of the plot, if there is a complex series of events ahead. The scene should logically follow from the previous one, each next chapter should be connected with the events of the previous one (if several plot lines- this means that the chapters are fastened according to the events of the lines);

— arrangement and design of the text in accordance with the plot (idea)- this is, for example, the form of a diary, a student's term paper, a novel in a novel;

— theme of the work- a hidden, cross-cutting compositional technique that answers the question - what is the story about, what is its essence, what main idea the author wants to convey to the readers; in practical terms, it is solved through the choice of significant details in key scenes;

— motive- these are stable and repetitive elements that create end-to-end images: for example, images of the road - the motive of travel, the adventurous or homeless life of the hero.

Composition is a complex and multi-layered phenomenon, and it is difficult to understand all its levels. However, you need to understand in order to know how to arrange the text so that it is easily perceived by the reader. In this article, we talked about the basics, about what lies on the surface. And in the following articles we will dig a little deeper.

Stay tuned!

Daria Gushchina
writer, science fiction author
(VKontakte page

The plot fits into overall composition works, occupying one or another, more or less important place in it, depending on the intentions of the author. There is also an internal plot composition. Depending on the relationship between the plot and the plot in a particular work, they talk about different types and methods of plot composition. The simplest case is when the events of the plot are linearly arranged in direct chronological sequence without any changes (Chekhov's Death of an Official). This composition is also called straight or fable sequence.

A more complicated technique is in which we learn about an event that happened before the others at the very end of the work - this technique is called by default... It allows you to keep the reader in the dark and stress, and at the end to amaze him with the unexpectedness of the plot twist (used in works of the detective genre).

Another technique for breaking chronology or plot sequence is the so-called retrospection, when, in the course of the development of the plot, the author makes retreats into the past, as a rule, at the time preceding the beginning and beginning of this work ("Fathers and Children" by Turgenev - 2 significant retrospections - the prehistories of the life of Pavel Petrovich and Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov).

Finally, the plot sequence can be broken in such a way that events of different times are mixed; the narrative all the time returns from the moment of the performed action to different previous time layers, then again turns to the present. This composition of the plot is often motivated by the memories of the heroes. It is called free composition(in Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gorky, Tvardovsky's poem "Beyond the Distance - Far", novels by Y. Bondarev, Ch. Aitmatov; in foreign literature W. Faulkner especially loved this form).

2. The function of the storyline in the implementation of the author's intention.

The functions of the plot are diverse: the embodiment of conflicts, the disclosure of characters, the motivation for their development, new faces are introduced ”), etc. The sequence of events cannot but beat temporal and concentric plot (in which causality prevails), and in chronicles, and with a combination of both of these principles of plot formation. The classic concentric plot scheme includes setting, development of action, climax, denouement; chronicle plot consists of a chain episodes(often including concentric microplots).

However, the narrative does not always obediently follow the chronology. The construction of the story is entirely in the power of the writer. And in works with several storylines he needs to decide how to alternate the episodes in which certain characters are involved. Another problem of textual composition is associated with the introduction of the past into the main action of the work, with acquainting the reader with the circumstances preceding the setting, as well as with the subsequent fate of the characters. In the history of literature, a whole series of techniques have been developed that solve these problems: in a work there can be prologue(preface), the tie is usually preceded by exposition, a concise and compact story about the hero's past is called prehistory, about his future fate - subsequent history, information about the life of the heroes after the main action can be reported in epilogue(afterword). Thanks to these techniques, the spatio-temporal framework of the narrative expands, without prejudice to the image " close-up»The main action of the work.

Plots may be introduced into the work that are not externally related to the main action, - plug-in novellas, as well as parables, fables, little plays, fairy tales. Traditional and welcome plot framing, in which the narrator (s) is introduced, the manuscript found is reported, etc., in a word, the motivation of the story is given. Framing can strengthen the meaning, the idea of ​​the story told, or, on the contrary, correct the story, argue with it. Framing can combine many stories to create an appropriate storytelling situation, a tradition dating back to arabic tales“A Thousand and One Nights”, collections of short stories “The Decameron” by G. Boccaccio, “Canterbury Tales” by J. Chaucer. And in the XX century. the narrative technique was enriched with editing composition.

As you can see, the organization of the narrative about the plot and, moreover, the multi-line plot, as well as the system of plots, provides the author with the widest choice of narrative techniques. If there can be only one natural course of events, then there are many ways to break it in the presentation, mix it with other plots, "stretch" some episodes and "squeeze" others.

LECTURE No. 10... (2 HOURS) Methodological approaches to detecting the components of the plot in the system of working with children of the younger school age.

Reading is one of the essential means of educating younger schoolchildren, their comprehensive development... The need for reading books depends on the learning environment, aimed at the formation of the personality and the foundations of the reading culture. The work must correspond to the language capabilities of children (so that they can read it on their own), must be understandable in their main idea, be distinguished by high poetry that delights the young reader, must feed the mind and cause surprise, that is, captivate children.

Penetration into the content of the text requires an understanding of the diverse pictorial and expressive means of the language, thanks to which an artistic image is created. So, for three years in reading lessons, schoolchildren are introduced to art, get acquainted with works of art and get a diversified idea of ​​the world in the process of reading works of fiction and scientific and educational articles.

Consideration of a work of art must begin not with analysis, but with synthesis. Highlighting style dominants also indicates what should be done in the work in the first place. During a conversation about a short prose work (or about ballads, songs, fables), the teacher teaches children to consistently answer a series of questions familiar in his mouth and therefore easily remembered by children, which order the child's individual reflections on what he read: - Who have I read about? - What did you learn about him (about them)? (About dreams, deeds, about the time when this! Happened?); - How is it told? (What in the text of the work makes me think about the characters and the incident this way and not otherwise?).

When reading large-volume stories about the travels and adventures (real or fictional) of a hero, the logic of thinking about what he read is regulated by slightly different questions: - Who, when and why embarked on this journey or got into a situation of adventure? - What happened to him first? after? eventually?; - How did he behave in moments of victories and defeats?

Reading large-scale stories and novels for children, where socially significant questions are posed and where the heroes are divided into opposing groups, the course of reasoning about what they read can be as follows: - Think and answer how the main events began in this work; - Select the main character, try to list all the characters and tell the most important thing about each in one or two sentences.

A series of similar questions will help in systemic work on a work of fiction, namely in further work to discover the components of the plot. After four or five constructions of the series of the above questions of the teacher, the children master them forever and remember the sequence.

When systematically working on the components of the plot with children of primary school age, it is necessary to take into account the concept accessibility plot. The content of the work will be available only when the language of the work, its artistic features are accessible, when it will correspond to and even slightly outstrip the level of mental and intellectual development of the child. One of the indicators of the availability of a book for a student will be interest in it and the desire to listen to its reading.

Amusing plot - one of the essential principles for selecting books for children's reading closely related to such a principle as dynamism. The younger schoolchild still needs a quick change of events that will attract him with their sharpness, unusualness, will occupy his attention with the secret, tension of the narrative. The plot is sluggish, drawn-out, with many side lines, the connection of which the child cannot grasp, is not interesting. The system of work to prepare for the detection of plot components should include storytelling principle epic works. To do this, you should choose dynamic texts that are small in volume. Narrative can be combined with expressive reading.

One of the approaches to detecting plot components should be called verbal drawing... It boils down to an oral representation of what is missing in the work and contributes to the development of the imagination and creativity of the younger student. This technique teaches you to read the text, memorize the details, organically supplement it with the idea of ​​what might be.

Another technique that has an effect among younger schoolchildren may be “ letter from the author" or literary hero... With the help of the "letter from the author" you can tell the biography of the writer or poet, and the "letter from the literary hero" will help to acquaint you with the history of the creation of the work, develop an interest in reading the text, and tune in to listening. In the process of long-term reading of the work with the help of "a letter from the hero", you can retell that part of the text that will not be read, and in the future it will help to determine the components of this plot.

This kind of hoax is permissible, firstly, because schoolchildren already understand its meaning and see it as a way to diversify the work of reading the text. Second, the hoax is literary reception, the purpose of which is to arouse interest in the work, captivate, intrigue the reader.

To identify the components of the plot, you can use this type of analysis - "Following the author", those. the kind where the logic of action development is observed. The analysis of the literary text is carried out by asking questions. Children should get used to listening to a question, understanding its essence and answering in accordance with the meaning of the question, without leaving it, without expanding or narrowing its meaning. Answering a question, he ponders the text, remembers its content, catches with the help of an adult the peculiarities of the form, uses the language of the writer in his speech practice.

Questions for analyzing fictional text should be accessible to children. All words must be clear, accurate, justified. The availability of the question presupposes clarity of meaning, concreteness of the answer. The more competently the question is asked, the more accurate the answer will be. The child should not be asked the so-called double questions: where and why? who and where? and so on, so as not to distract attention, aim at one, but correct and deep answer. There are also so-called leading questions, i.e. those that complement the main question help the child to reveal it more deeply and purposefully. But an adult must distinguish leading questions from prompting ones, which cannot be asked to children, since they actually contain the answer to the question. Vapid questions like "What else can you say?" or "Who else will say what?" should not sound during analysis. Otherwise, the work on detecting the components of the plot can become much more difficult.

One of the important methodological approaches in detecting plot components is the teacher's transformation of a work of art from a mandatory educational exercise into a serious, interesting and useful conversation for schoolchildren about literature, its features as an art form, its impact on a person, a conversation that will never get bored, since with its help, vital, essential questions for the child are solved: whether the secret will become obvious; is it possible to return youth and is it necessary to do it; what is nature and what is the place of man in it, etc. Analysis of the plot of the work helps to keep children interested in the world, curiosity, inquisitiveness, teaches to think, to compare.

Let's consider one of the approaches to work on the plot organization of a fairy tale (according to V.Ya. Propp's classification) “Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf”. The proposed method for studying the plot of a fairy tale is based on the works of A.N. Veselovsky, N.M. Vedernikova and V. Ya. Proppa.

The work on the study of the plot consists of several stages:

· Clarification of the main motives of the plot, the discovery of cause-and-effect relationships between them;

Definition of individual functions - actions of characters, characteristic of a whole series fairy tales;

· Highlighting the so-called "plot milestones", or plot elements (set, development of the action, tipping point, climax, denouement);

· Correlation of each element of the plot with the nature of the actions and deeds of the heroes.

The beginning of work on the plot of the fairy tale will be the allocation of its exposition as the initial link in the construction fabulous plot... Next, it is necessary to highlight the outset of the fairytale action, when an event occurs that predetermines the further course of the fairy tale. The children correlate the function of sending the heroes from home in search of the Firebird to the tie and concluded that it was this event that was the beginning of the protagonist's adventures. Analyzing the episodes that characterize the development of the action, children highlight the function of prohibition and its violation (episodes of the abduction of the Firebird and the golden-maned horse). When examining the episode when the brothers kill Ivan Tsarevich, the students note the special tension of this moment, thereby defining the culmination of the tale; here the functions of the brothers as “false heroes” carrying evil were noted, and the function of the wolf - “a wonderful helper” embodying the idea of ​​good. The victory of good over evil is named as the denouement of the plot. We pay special attention of children to the ending of the fairy tale, which plays the role of a fairytale epilogue.

In working on the beginning and ending of fairy tales, children must catch their repetition from fairy tale to fairy tale and at the same time their variation, diversity. Already in grades 1-2, the author introduces literary terms“Beginning” and “ending”, based on the etymology of these words. At the same time, it is important that children learn the function of the beginning and ending as stable methods of fairy tale storytelling and their informative function.

Younger schoolchildren are quite capable of understanding the pattern of such plot construction fairy tales based on the selected scheme, its plot organization, and even come up with your own fairy tales, which would reflect the main elements of the plot. Thus, the discovery of the components of the plot of a literary text is an important type of work with a literary work. Its goal is a deeper comprehension of the meaning of what is being read, artistic features text, the creative personality of the author. To teach a younger student to analyze the plot of a work of art means to educate in it a talented reader, a connoisseur of literature, interesting person receptive to art.

1. Category of the author. The author is the creator literary work... In literary studies, this word is used in several meanings. First of all, it is necessary to draw a line between the real-biographical author and the author as a category of literary analysis. In the second meaning, we mean by the author the carrier of the ideological concept of a work of art. It is associated with the real author, but not identical to him, since not all the fullness of the author's personality is embodied in a work of art, but only some of its facets (although often the most important ones).

The author as a real biographical person and the author as the bearer of the concept of the work should not be confused the image of the author, which is created in some works of verbal art. The image of the author is a special aesthetic category that arises when the image of the creator of the given work is created within the work. It can be the image of "oneself" ("Eugene Onegin" by Pushkin, "What is to be done?" By Chernyshevsky), or the image of a fictitious, fictitious author (Ivan Petrovich Belkin in Pushkin).

2. Reader and author. The reader seeks to ponder what he has read, to understand the reasons for the experienced emotions. The need to interpret works organically grows out of the living, ingenuous readers' responses to it. The immediate impulses and the mind of the reader are not easy to correlate with the creative will of the author of the work. Discussing the “reader - author” problem, scientists express differently directed, sometimes even polarized judgments. They either absolutize the reader's initiative, or, on the contrary, speak of the reader's obedience to the author as a certain indisputable norm of literary perception.

However, nevertheless, the reader is led by the author, and he demands obedience in following his creative ways... And a good reader is one who knows how to find a breadth of understanding in himself and give himself to the author. The most sensitive reader is always inclined to re-read an outstanding work of fiction several times. Such is norm(in other words, the best, optimal "option") of the reader's perception. It is carried out every time in its own way and not always to the full. In addition, the author's orientations to the tastes and interests of the reading public are very different. And literary criticism studies the reader from his various angles, the main thing - in his cultural and historical diversity.

3. Hero. The usual method of grouping and stringing motives is to bring out characters, living carriers of certain motives. The belonging of a particular motive to a particular character facilitates the reader's attention. There are techniques to help you understand the mass of characters and their relationships. The character must be able to recognize, on the other hand, he must attract attention to a greater or lesser extent.

Reception of recognition character is his " characteristic ". By characteristic, we mean a system of motives inextricably linked with a given character. In a narrow sense, the characteristic is understood as the motives that determine the psychology of the character, his "character".

The simplest element of the characteristic is already hero name own name. In more complex constructions, it is required that the hero's actions flow from some psychological unity, so that they are psychologically probable for a given character (psychological motivation for the actions). In this case, the hero is rewarded with certain psychological traits.

The characterization of the hero can be straightforward, i.e. his character is reported directly either from the author, or in the speeches of other characters, or in the self-characterization ("confessions") of the hero. Often meets indirect characteristic: character emerges from the actions and behavior of the hero. A special case of an indirect or suggestive characteristic is the reception masks, i.e. development of specific motives in harmony with the psychology of the character. So, the description of the hero's appearance, his clothes, the furnishings of his home (for example, Plyushkin at Gogol's) - all these are the techniques of masks.

In the methods of characterizing characters, two main cases should be distinguished: character unchanged, which remains the same throughout the story, and the character changing when, as the plot develops, we follow the change in the character of the character itself. Characters are usually subject to emotional overtones. In the most primitive forms, we meet the virtuous and the villainous. Positive and negative "types" are a necessary element of plot construction. Consequently, the character that receives the most acute and vivid emotional coloring is called a hero... The hero is the person who is followed with the greatest tension and attention by the reader. The hero evokes compassion, sympathy, joy and grief in the reader.

Literary hero Is an artistic image, one of the designations of the integral existence of a person in the art of words. This term has a double meaning. 1) He emphasizes the dominant position of the character in the work (as the main character in comparison with character). 2) Under the term "L. G." is understood holistic image a person - in the aggregate of his appearance, way of thinking, behavior and mental world. This term in its narrow meaning is close to the term "character", and denotes the internal psychological aspect of the personality, its natural properties, nature.

The integrity of a work of art is achieved by various means. Among these means, composition and plot play an important role.

Composition(from Latin componere - to compose, connect) - the construction of a work, the ratio of all its elements, creating the whole picture life and conducive to expression ideological content... In the composition, external elements are distinguished - division into parts, chapters, and internal - grouping and arrangement of images. When creating a work, the writer carefully thinks over the composition, place and interconnection of images and other elements, striving to give the material the greatest ideological and artistic expressiveness. Composition can be simple or complex. So, A. Chekhov's story "Ionych" has a simple composition. It consists of five small chapters(external elements) and a simple internal system of images. In the center of the image is Dmitry Startsev, who is opposed by a group of images of local inhabitants of the Turkins. The composition of L. Tolstoy's epic novel "War and Peace" looks quite different. It consists of four parts, each part is divided into many chapters, a significant place is occupied by the philosophical reflections of the author. These are the external elements of the composition. The grouping and arrangement of images-characters, of which there are more than 550, is very difficult. The outstanding skill of the writer was manifested in the fact that, with all the complexity of the material, he was arranged in the most expedient manner and subordinated to the disclosure of the main idea: the people are the decisive force of history.

V scientific literature sometimes the terms are used architectonics, structure as synonyms of the word composition.

Plot(from French sujet - subject) - a system of events of a work of art, revealing the characters of the heroes and contributing to the most complete expression of the ideological content. The system of events is a unity that develops in time, and driving force the plot is conflict. Conflicts are different: social, love, psychological, domestic, military and others. The hero usually comes into conflict with public environment, with other people, with yourself. There are usually several conflicts in a work. In L. Chekhov's story "Ionych", the hero's conflict with the environment is combined with love. A striking example psychological conflict- "Hamlet" by Shakespeare. The most common type of conflict is social. To designate a social conflict, literary scholars often use the term collision, and love - intrigue.

The plot consists of a number of elements: exposure, set, development of action, climax, denouement, epilogue.

Exposition - initial information about the characters that motivate their behavior in the context of the conflict. In the story "Ionych" it is Startsev's arrival, a description of the "most educated" in the city of the Turkin family.

Stitch - an event that initiates the development of action, conflict. In the story "Ionych" Startsev's acquaintance with the Turkins' family.

After the set begins the development of the action, the culmination of which is the culmination. In Chekhov's story - Startsev's explanation of love, Katya's refusal.

Interchange- an event that removes the conflict. In the story "Ionych" there is a break in relations between Startsev and the Turkins.

Epilogue - information about the events that followed the denouement. Sometimes. the author himself final part the narrative is called an epilogue. In the story of L. Chekhov there is information about the fate of the heroes, which can be attributed to the epilogue.

In a large artwork, as a rule, there are many storylines and each of them. developing, intertwined with others. Individual plot elements can be shared. Define classic scheme it can be difficult.

The movement of the plot in a work of art occurs simultaneously in time and space. To designate the relationship of temporal and spatial relations, M. Bakhtin proposed the term chronotope... Artistic time is not a direct reflection of real time, but arises through the montage of certain representations of real time. Real time moves irreversibly and only in one direction - from the past to the future, while artistic time can slow down, stop and move in the opposite direction. Returning to the image of the past is called flashback... Artistic time is a complex interweaving of the times of the narrator and heroes, and often a complex layering of times from different historical eras ("The Master and Margarita" by M. Bulgakov). It can be closed, closed in itself, and open, included in the flow of historical time. An example of the first "Ionych" L. Chekhov, the second - "Quiet Don" M. Sholokhov.

Parallel to the term plot there is a term plot, which are usually used synonymously. Meanwhile, some theorists consider them inadequate, insisting on their independent meaning. The plot, in their opinion, is a system of events in a causal-time sequence, and a plot is a system of events in the author's presentation. Thus, the plot of I. Goncharov's novel Oblomov begins with a description of the life of an adult hero who lives in St. Petersburg with his servant Zakhar in a house on Gorokhovaya Street. The plot assumes a presentation of the events of Oblomov's life. since childhood (chapter "Oblomov's Dream").

We define the plot as a system, a chain of events. In many cases, the writer, in addition to telling about events, introduces descriptions of nature, everyday pictures, lyrical digressions, reflections, geographical or historical references... They are usually called off-plot elements.

It should be noted that there are different principles of plot organization. Sometimes events develop sequentially, in chronological order, sometimes with retrospective digressions, the overlap of times occurs. Quite often there is a method of plot framing a plot within a plot. A striking example is Sholokhov's "The Fate of a Man". In it, the author tells about his meeting with the driver at the crossing of the overflowing river. While waiting for the ferry, Sokolov spoke about his difficult life, about stay in German captivity, loss of family. In the end, the author said goodbye to this man and thought about his fate. The main, main story by Andrey Sokolov is framed by the author's story. This technique is called framing.

The plot and composition of lyric works are very peculiar. The author depicts in them not events, but thoughts and experiences. The unity and integrity of the lyric work is ensured by the main lyrical motive, the carrier of which is the lyric hero. The composition of the poem is subordinated to the disclosure of thought-feeling. "The lyrical unfolding of the topic," writes the famous literary theorist B. Tomashevsky, "resembles the dialectic of theoretical reasoning, with the difference that in the reasoning we have a logically justified introduction of new motives ... and in the lyrics the introduction of motives is justified by the emotional unfolding of the topic." Typical is, but in his opinion, a three-part structure of lyric poems, when in the first part a theme is given, in the second it develops by means of lateral motives, and the third is an emotional conclusion. As an example, we can cite A. Pushkin's poem "To Chaadaev".

1st part of Love, hope, quiet glory

The deception did not live long for us.

2nd part We wait with languor of hope

Holy minutes of freedom ...

3rd part Comrade, believe! She will rise

The star of captivating happiness ...

The lyrical development of a theme is of two types: deductive - from the general to the particular and inductive - from the particular to the general. The first - in the above poem by A. Pushkin, the second in the poem by K. Simonov "Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of Smolensk ...".

Some lyric works have a plot: "Railway" by I. Nekrasov, ballads, songs. They are called plot lyrics.

The pictorial details serve to reproduce the concrete-sensual details of the characters' world, created by the artist's creative imagination and directly embodying the ideological content of the work. The term "figurative details" is not recognized by all theorists (the terms "thematic" or "subject" details are also used), but everyone agrees that the artist recreates the details of the appearance and speech of the heroes, their inner world, the environment in order to express his thought ... However, accepting this position, one cannot interpret it too straightforwardly and think that every detail (eye color, gestures, clothing, description of the area, etc.) is directly related to the author's goal setting and has a very definite unambiguous meaning. If this were so, the work would have lost its artistic specificity and would become tendentious and illustrative.

The pictorial details contribute to the fact that the world of characters appears before the reader's inner gaze in all its fullness of life, in sounds, colors, volumes, smells, in spatial and temporal extent. Unable to convey all the details of the picture being drawn, the writer reproduces only a few of them, trying to give impetus to the reader's imagination and force him to complete the missing features with the help of his own imagination. Without "seeing", without imagining "living" characters, the reader will not be able to empathize with them, and his aesthetic perception of the work will be defective.

Figurative details allow the artist to plastically, visually recreate the life of the characters, to reveal their characters through individual details. At the same time, they convey the author's evaluative attitude to the depicted reality, create an emotional atmosphere for the story. So, rereading the mass scenes in the story "Taras Bulba", one can be convinced that seemingly scattered remarks and statements of the Cossacks help us to "hear" polyphonic crowd Cossacks, and a variety of portrait and everyday details - to visually represent it. At the same time, the heroic makeup of the folk characters, which developed in the conditions of the wild freemen and poeticized by Gogol, is gradually becoming clear. At the same time, many details are comical, cause a smile, and create a humorous tone for the narration (especially in scenes peaceful life). The pictorial details here, as in most works, perform pictorial, characterizing and expressive functions.

In the drama, pictorial details are conveyed not by verbal, but by other means (there is no description of the external appearance of the characters, their actions, setting, because there are actors on the stage and there are scenery). The speech characteristics of the characters acquire special significance.

In the lyrics, pictorial details are subordinated to the task of recreating the experience in its development, movement, and contradiction. Here they serve as signs of the event that caused the experience, but they mainly play the role of a psychological characteristic of the lyric hero. At the same time, their expressive role is also preserved; the experience is conveyed as sublimely romantic, heroic, tragic, or in lowered, for example, ironic tones.

The plot also belongs to the area of ​​fine detail, but stands out for its dynamic character. In epic and dramatic works, these are the actions of the characters and the events depicted. The actions of the characters that make up the plot are varied - these are all sorts of actions, statements, experiences and thoughts of the heroes. The plot most directly and effectively reveals the character of the character, the protagonist. However, it is important to understand that the actions of the characters also reveal the author's understanding of the typical character and the author's assessment. By forcing the hero to act in one way or another, the artist evokes in the reader a certain evaluative attitude not only to the hero, but to the whole type of people he represents. So, forcing his fictional hero to kill a friend in a duel in the name of secular prejudices, Pushkin evokes a feeling of condemnation in the reader and makes him reflect on Onegin's inconsistency, on the inconsistency of his character. This is the expressive role of the plot.

The plot moves due to the emergence, development, resolution of various conflicts between the characters of the work. Conflicts can be of a private nature (Onegin's quarrel with Lensky), or they can be a moment, part of socio-historical conflicts that have arisen in historical reality itself (war, revolution, social movement). By depicting plot conflicts, the writer pays most attention to the problematics of the work. But it would be wrong to identify these concepts on the basis of this (there is a tendency towards such an identification in Abramovich's textbook, section 2, ch. 2). The problematic is the leading side of the ideological content, and the plot conflict is an element of the form. It is just as wrong to equate plot with content (as is common in spoken language). Therefore, the terminology of Timofeev, who proposed to call the plot, together with all the other details of the depicted life, “immediate content” (“Foundations of the Theory of Literature”, part 2, chap. 1, 2, 3), did not receive recognition.

The question of the plot in the lyrics is solved in different ways. However, there is no doubt that this term can be applied to the lyrics only with great reservations, denoting the outline of those events that "shine through" through the lyrical experience of the hero and motivate him. Sometimes, however, this term designates the very movement of lyrical experience.

The composition of pictorial, including plot details, is their arrangement in the text. Using antitheses, repetitions, parallelisms, changing the tempo and chronological sequence of events in the narrative, establishing chronic and causal relationships between events, the artist achieves their relationship that expands and deepens their meaning. In all textbooks, compositional methods of storytelling, the introduction of the narrator, framing, introductory episodes, the main points in the development of the action, various motivations of plot episodes are quite fully defined. The discrepancy between the order of plot events and the order of narration about them in the work forces us to talk about such an expressive means as the plot. It should be borne in mind that a different terminology is also common, when the compositional method of rearranging events is called a plot (Abramovich, Kozhinov, etc.).

To master the material in this section, we recommend that you independently analyze the figurative details, plot and their composition in any epic or dramatic work. It is necessary to pay attention to how the development of the action serves the development of artistic thought - the introduction of new topics, the deepening of problem motives, the gradual disclosure of the characters of the characters and copyright relationship to them. Each new plot scene or description is prepared, motivated by the entire previous image, but does not repeat it, but develops, complements and deepens. These components of the form are most directly related to the artistic content and depend on it. Therefore, they are as unique as the content of each work.

In view of this, the student needs to get acquainted with those theories that ignore the close connection between the plot-figurative sphere of the form and the content. This is primarily the so-called comparative theory, which was based on the comparative historical study of the literatures of the world, but misinterpreted the results of such a study. Comparativists focused primarily on the influence of literatures on one another. But they did not consider that the influence is due to similarity or difference. public relations in the respective countries, but proceeded from the immanent, that is, internal, supposedly completely autonomous laws of the development of literature. Therefore, comparativists wrote about "stable motives", about "ancient bequeathed images" of literature, as well as about "wandering plots", without distinguishing between the plot and its scheme. The characteristic of this theory is also in the textbook, ed. G.N. Pospelov and G.L. Abramovich.

QUESTIONS FOR SELF-TRAINING (m. 2)

1. Literary work as an integral unity.

2. The theme of the work of art and its features.

3. The idea of ​​a work of art and its features.

4. Composition of a work of art. External and internal elements.

5. The plot of a literary work. Conflict concept. Elements of the plot. Off-plot elements. Plot and plot.

6. What is the role of the plot in revealing the ideological content of the work?

7. What is plot composition? What is the difference between narration and description? What are off-plot episodes and lyrical digressions?

8. What is the function of landscape, household furnishings, portrait and speech characteristics character in the work?

9. Features of the plot of lyric works.

10. Spatio-temporal organization of the work. The concept of a chronotope.

LITERATURE

Korman B.O. Study of the text of a work of art. - M., 1972.

Abramovich G.L. Introduction to Literary Studies. Ed. 6. - M., 1975.

Introduction to Literary Studies / Ed. L.V. Chernets /. M., 2000 .-- S. 11 -20,

209-219, 228-239, 245-251.

Galich O. that in. Theopia of Literature. K., 2001. -S. 83-115.

Getmanets M.F. Suchasiny vocabulary of lgeraturological terms1n_v. - Kharkiv, 2003.

MODULE THIRD

THE LANGUAGE OF ARTISTIC LITERATURE

So, we armed ourselves with the knowledge of some of the techniques that are used in fiction... We now have an idea of ​​how to write. We have an idea, a plan, we came up with heroes, we know what they will do and what to fight, but ... But here's how to "build" our work? In what sequence are we going to tell our story? After all, it depends on this whether we can intrigue the reader, seize his interest, with maximum accuracy and power to convey to him what we wanted to say. It is very important to be able to build... In order to understand this issue, let's introduce concepts such as plot, plot and composition of a literary work. Exists different interpretations concepts "plot" and "plot". We will accept those based on the following concepts. Suppose we have an idea for a piece. That is, we know in general terms what we are going to talk about. This means that we know the storyline. A plot is events that take place in a literary work, but arranged in their natural, chronological order, as they would or could happen in reality. That is, this is our story, novella or novel, set out "simply", "directly", in one or more phrases. For example, we could formulate a simplified plot of Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet" as follows: "The brother of the Danish king secretly kills his brother, seizes the crown and marries the royal widow. The ghost of his father appears to the son of the murdered, Prince Hamlet, and tells about the committed villainy. Hamlet is trying to take revenge. king-assassin, but dies in a duel. " Simple and straightforward. But in "Hamlet" the action unfolds in a completely different sequence! For example, the first scene of the tragedy is the appearance of the ghost of Hamlet's father in front of the castle guard and Hamlet's friend, Horatio. And the murder of the king takes place long before the action presented to us by Shakespeare begins, and even then "behind the scenes", it is not in the play. We can observe it only in the interpretation of the actors visiting the royal castle, whom Hamlet asked (in the third act of the tragedy) to play the play according to the scenario suggested by him. If in the retelling we strictly follow the author's sequence of presentation, then we will tell the plot. The plot is an artistically expedient system of the described events, which the author sets out in such a sequence and using such literary forms and techniques that most fully meet his creative task. It is clear that it is sometimes difficult to tell a plot - as much as it is not easy for the author to "build" a work. After all, the direction of the event plan in the plot may coincide with the plot (and then the plot is "equal" to the plot), but more often than not it differs from it (as in Hamlet). Therefore, the plot is also called a "straightened" plot, and in the case when it is "not equal" to the plot, they speak of a reverse plot composition. So we come to the concept of "composition". From the work of T.T. Davydova, V.A. Pronina "Theory of Literature": "Composition - construction, arrangement of all elements of the art form. The composition can be external and internal. To the sphere external compositions include the division of an epic work into books, parts and chapters, a lyric work into parts and stanzas, a lyric-epic work into songs, a dramatic work into acts and pictures. Region internal compositions includes all static elements of the piece: - different types descriptions- portrait, landscape, description of the interior and everyday life of the characters, summarizing characteristics; - off-plot elements - exposition(prologue, introduction, "prehistory" of the hero's life), epilogue(the "subsequent" story of the hero's life), plug-in episodes, short stories; -- all kinds of deviations(lyrical, philosophical, journalistic); - storytelling and description motivations; forms of speech of heroes: monologue, dialogue, letter (correspondence), diary, notes; - narrative forms, called points of view (the position from which the story is told or from which the story's event is perceived by the hero of the narration. The concept of point of view in literature is similar to the concept of foreshortening in painting and cinema) ". But this is only what composition includes. How is it." works"? From M. Weller's work "The Technology of Storytelling": "Composition (construction, structure, architectonics) of the story is the arrangement of the selected material in such an order that the effect of a greater impact on the reader is achieved than would be possible with a simple communication of facts ... Changes in the sequence and proximity of episodes cause different associative, emotional semantic perception of the material as a whole. A successful composition allows you to achieve a maximum of semantic and emotional load with a minimum of volume. 1. Direct-flow composition. The most ancient, simple and traditional way transfer of material: some simple story with a minimum number of significant actors is told in a sequence of events connected by a single chain of cause and effect. Such a composition is characterized by slowness and detail of presentation: such and such did such and such, and then it was so. This allows you to go deeply into the psychology of the hero, gives the reader the opportunity to identify himself with the hero, get into his shoes, sympathize and empathize. The outward simplicity, as it were, the ingenuousness and artlessness of such a construction evoke additional confidence of the reader, a single thread of the narrative allows not to scatter attention and concentrate entirely on the depicted. So, for example, Yu. Kazakov's story "Blue and Green" is built - a nostalgic story of the first youthful love: an eternal theme, banal material, simple urban language, but living with the hero day after day, the reader is happy, sad, yearning. 2. Ringing. Usually differs from the composition of the previous type in only one thing: the author's frame at the beginning and at the end. It is, as it were, a story within a story, where the author introduces the hero to the reader, who later acts as a storyteller. Thus, a double author's view of the story is created: since the storyteller is first characterized, then in the story itself, "an amendment to the storyteller" can be taken - the images of the author and the storyteller are deliberately matched. The author, as a rule, is wiser and more informed than the storyteller; he acts as a judge and commentator of his own story. The advantages of such a technique are that a) the narrator can speak in any language - not only in rough vernacular, which is forgivable, but also in literary cliches, which is sometimes beneficial to the author, since it is simple and intelligible: the author's hands are untied, possible accusations of the primitiveness of the language, bad taste, cynicism, anti-humanism, etc. he puts on the shoulders of his innocent storyteller, and he himself, framed, can dissociate himself from him and even condemn; b) additional reliability is achieved: the framing is deliberately simple, everyday, from the first person, - the reader is, as it were, prepared for the further story; c) "double glance" can play a provocative role: the reader does not agree with the opinion of both the narrator and the author, he seems to be involved in a discussion, pushed to his own reflections and assessments, if he does not receive a single assessment in the finished form. As examples, such famous stories as "The Happiness of Maupassant", "Under the Deck Awning" of London, "The Fate of a Man" by Sholokhov; this is a common technique. Banding is used with more complex types compositions, but less often. 3. Point (novelistic) composition. It differs in that a certain number of small details and circumstances are fanned out to one event of an insignificant scale. The trinity of time, place and action is observed. Typical for everyday prose. The author, as it were, aims a magnifying glass at one point and closely scrutinizes it and the nearest surrounding space. In the "point" novella there is no development of characters, no change in the situation: it is a picture from life. This is most clearly expressed in the short stories of Shukshin and Zoshchenko. Here is Shukshin's story "Cut". They talk about the village, about the Zhuravlev family, about Gleb Kapustin: background, characters, circumstances. Then - the essence; a table conversation when Gleb "proves" the candidate of sciences that he is "uneducated". Details, vocabulary, emotional tension turn a genre sketch into a fundamental clash of triumphant and envious rudeness with naive intelligence. We can say that a point story is one small stroke from life, which, under the watchful eye of the author, takes on the scale and depth of a work of art. Such are the famous short stories Hemingway. Through a gesture, a glance, a remark, a single and outwardly insignificant incident turns into a display of the hero's entire inner world, the entire atmosphere surrounding him. The difference between direct flow and point composition is that "nothing happens" in the latter. 4. Wicker composition. There is action in it, there is also a sequence of events, but the channel of the narrative is blurred into a network of rivulets, the author's thought now and then returns to the past time and runs into the future, moves in space from one hero to another. This achieves spatial and temporal scale, reveals the relationship of various phenomena and their mutual influence. It is not easy to do this in the limited space of the story, this technique is more typical for such novelists as Thomas Wolfe. However, the late novelistics of Vladimir Lidin is an example of the successful use of the compositional "braid", where, behind simple actions ordinary people there is their entire past, the whole range of interests and sympathies, memory and imagination, the influence of acquaintances and traces of past events. If each type of composition is imagined in the form of an illustration graphic, then a long string of "braids" will write out a lot of lace until it reaches the final goal. 5. An action-packed composition. Its essence is that the most significant event is placed at the very end of the narrative, and the life or death of the hero depends on whether it happens or not. As an option - a confrontation between two heroes, which is resolved at the very end. In short, the climax is the denouement. In general, this is a commercial, speculative move - the author plays on natural human curiosity: "How will it end?" Chase's thrillers are built according to this scheme, the most famous of Haley's novels, The Airport, is built on this technique: will the attacker blow up the plane or not? Interest in this makes the reader eagerly swallow the novel, packed with a host of side details. In short stories, this technique is clearly manifested in Stephen King. 6. Detective composition. It is not at all adequate to the previous one. Here, the central event - a major crime, an extraordinary incident, a murder - is taken out of the brackets, and the whole further narration is, as it were, a way back to what has already happened before. The author of a detective story is always faced with two tasks: firstly, to invent a crime, and secondly, to figure out how to solve it - in that order, not in reverse! All steps and events are initially predetermined by crime, as if strings are drawn from each segment of the path to a single organizing point. The construction of a detective story is, as it were, a mirror image: its action consists in the fact that the heroes model and recreate the already former action. For commercial reasons, the authors of detective stories deliver them to the volume of novels, but originally, created by Edgar Poe and canonized by Conan Doyle, the detective was a story. 7. Two-tailed composition. The most effective, perhaps, method in the construction of prose. In the literature of the first half of the 19th century, it was encountered in this form: some described event turns out to be a dream, and then the work ends in a completely different way than the reader believed it was (Pushkin's Undertaker). The most famous example is the story of Ambros Bierce "The Case on the Bridge over the Owl Creek": the scout is hanged, the rope breaks, he falls into the water, escapes from shooting and pursuit, after hard trials reaches his home, but all this only seemed to him in the last moments life, "the body swayed under the railing of the bridge." This construction is akin to the inquisitorial "torture of hope": the condemned is given the opportunity to escape, but at the last moment he falls into the arms of the jailers who are waiting for him at the very release. The reader tunes in to a successful outcome, empathizes with the hero, and the strong contrast between the happy ending, to which the narrative has already reached, and the tragic, which turns out to be in reality, gives rise to a huge emotional impact. Here, at the key moment, the narration bifurcates, and the reader is offered two options for continuation and ending: first, successful and happy, then they cross it out, declaring it an unfulfilled dream, and give a second, real one. 8. Inversion composition. Its effect, just like the previous one, is based on contrast. An event is removed from the natural chronological chain and placed next to the opposite in tonality; as a rule, an episode from the future of the heroes is transferred to the present, and the neighborhood full of hope and fun of youth - and tired, not having achieved much of old age gives rise to an aching feeling of the transience of life, the futility of hopes, the frailty of being. In Priestley's play "Time and the Conway Family" in the first act, young people make plans, in the second - ten years later - they vegetate, in the third, which is the immediate continuation of the first tomorrow, they continue to hope and fight (and the viewer already knows that their hopes are not destined come true). Usually, two-tailed and inverted compositions are used to create a tragic tonality, "bad ends", although, in principle, it is possible on the contrary - to affirm the bright end, ending dark events with a life-affirming episode from another time layer. 9. Hinge composition. The classic example is the novel by O. Henry. An interesting hybrid using elements of a detective, false move and inversion. At the nodal point of the development of action, the most important thing is an important event withdrawn by the author and reported at the very end. A completely unexpected ending gives the whole story a different meaning than the reader has seen before: the actions of the characters acquire a different motivation, their goal and result are different. The author, down to the last lines, seems to fool the reader, who is convinced that he did not know the main thing in the story. Such a composition could be called the reverse: the ending of the story is the opposite of what the reader expects. The bottom line is that any story by O. Henry could well exist without the "crown" ending. At the end, as on a hinge, the story turns its other side, turning in fact into a second story: it could have been like this, but in reality this is how it is. The detective turns out to be a rogue, the tame lion turns out to be wild, etc. 10. Counterpoint. Similar to the musical term, the parallel development of two or more lines. The classic example is the "42nd parallel" of Dos Passos. People who are unfamiliar with each other live their own lives, touching only occasionally. In general, such a construction is more characteristic of long prose, a novel. In short stories, there are two versions of counterpoint: a) two or three unconnected plot lines are combined according to the spatio-temporal principle - both are happening here and now: as a result of such montage, a completely new associative, emotional, semantic coloring (for example, in the famous scene of the explanation of Rodolphe and Emma in "Madame Bovary" by Flaubert, the interleaving of the seducer's phrases with excerpts from the agricultural report creates a feeling of vulgarity - and at the same time, Emma's desire to escape from this vulgarity); b) a line from the past, a story from a previous life interspersed with the facial plan, explaining the behavior of the hero in currently revealing it inner world, - the past, as it were, lives in the present (as, say, in Sergei Voronin's story "A Novel Without Love"). 11. Revolving composition. Here the event is shown from different points of view through the eyes of several heroes, just like a detail brought to the desired shape, is alternately processed by several cutters supplied by a rotating holder. This allows you to both dialectically examine what is happening, and show the heroes both from the outside and from the inside, with their own eyes. In one case a) each of the heroes repeats his own version of the same event ("In the thicket" by Akutagawa); in the other b) the storytellers change as the actions develop, as in the relay ("Senorita Cora" Cortazara) ".

"THE ABC OF LITERARY CREATIVITY, or FROM THE SAMPLE PEN TO THE MASTER OF WORD" Igor Getmansky