Studying the Novel

Studying the novel

The novel question is closed book: you cannot take the text into the exam, so you carry the novel in your head instead. The marks are not for retelling the story. They are for explaining how the author uses narrative techniques, language, structure and form to present ideas, themes, characters and settings, and for backing each point with a short quotation you have learned. To do that well you read for more than plot. You notice who is telling the story, how characters are revealed, how the whole novel is shaped, and which ideas run through it. This module teaches those transferable skills so they work on whichever novel you have studied. It uses only clearly-invented examples, never a real set text.

The novel toolkit

Learn what each term lets you DO with a novel, not just what it is called.

First person against third person

The point of view a novel is told from changes what the reader can know.

How to build a novel point

Turn what you remember into marks the same way each time. Start from a short quotation you have learned by heart rather than a long passage. Name the technique in it precisely, whether that is first-person narration, a telling action or a shift in the setting. Then explain what the detail reveals about a character or a theme, and say what it makes the reader think or feel. Finish by linking it to the novel as a whole and to why the author might have done it. A point that only retells what happens never reaches the higher bands.

Match the method to what it shows

The effect of first person

A novel is told all the way through by its main character, speaking as I and me. What is one effect of this first-person narration?

• The reader is limited to what that one character knows and feels, which can build sympathy or mislead.
• The reader is told the private thoughts of every character at once.
• The reader always learns the ending before the beginning.
• The reader is addressed directly as you throughout the book.

Revealing a character

Select the TWO ways an author can reveal what a character is like.

• Through the dialogue the character speaks
• Through the actions the character takes
• Through the page numbers of the chapters
• Through the size of the font on the page

Quotation bank

A student learns a bank of 6 short quotations for the closed-book novel exam. 4 of them are about the main character and the rest are about the setting. Subtract to find how many are about the setting.

Order the shape of a novel

Put the usual stages in the shape of a novel in order, from the opening to the close.

• The opening establishes character and setting
• A complication develops the conflict
• A turning point changes the direction of the story
• The ending resolves or reflects on the theme

Complete the novel facts

The voice that tells the story is the _____, which is not the same as the author. When that voice is the main character speaking as I, the novel uses _____ narration. The methods an author uses to reveal what a character is like are called _____. An idea explored across the whole novel, such as guilt or freedom, is a _____.

Build the analysis point

Build one analytical sentence about studying a novel by choosing the best option for each gap.

Spot the action

Here is an invented example line, not from any set novel. Tap the part that reveals character through ACTION rather than through description.

• The narrator tells us she was
• known as the kindest woman in the village
• , and yet
• she quietly slipped her own bread into the basket by the door
• as she passed.

Sit the closed-book exam

Read each case and choose the best response, with a reason.

• The novel exam is closed book, so you cannot bring the text in. How should you prepare to quote from it?
• You want to write about a character. Rather than retelling everything they do, what earns the marks?
• You have quoted a line and named it as first-person narration. What must you add to reach the higher bands?

Explain how to study a novel

A friend has to answer a closed-book question on how the author presents a character in the novel they have studied, and does not know how to approach it. Explain how to analyse and write about a character in a novel.

• Explain what characterisation means and name two methods an author uses
• Explain why short quotations must be learned for a closed-book exam
• Explain how narrative point of view shapes what the reader is allowed to know
• Explain the difference between retelling the plot and analysing it
• Finish by explaining how a point should link to the theme and the purpose of the writer