What are the general methods of expression in novels?

What are the general methods of expression in novels:characterization, environmental description, white and fine description, side description.

Characterization includes portrait, action, language and psychology.

Portrait description refers to the description of the character's external features, such as appearance, dress, posture, and demeanor. Vivid portrait depiction can be done "to shape the god". Because the character's appearance reflects the character's inner world, reflects the character's inner thought activities. Portrait description in the narrative and fiction used more.

For example, there is a paragraph in The Little Girl Who Sells Matches that reads: "The little girl had to walk barefoot, and her feet were frozen red and green. She had many matches pocketed in her old apron and a handful in her hand." This passage describes that the most prominent feature of the little girl is her "bare feet", followed by the many matches she was carrying. This portrait captures the main features of the character, and also reflects the tragic situation of the little girl.

Action description:

The description of the character's behavior, it is an important means of characterization. For example, "Tsubaki age painting rose obsessed and outside the bureau" in the paragraph: "Baoyu take the eye with the rise and fall of the hairpin, all the way to the end, a painting, a little, a hook look at the go, count, eighteen strokes, their own and in the heart of the hand to take the finger in accordance with the rules of the pen that he had just written, guess what is the word, written into a thought, the original is the rosebuds of the 'rose' word. The word 'rose'. ......" This text describes the treasure jade peeped Tsubaki age painting "rose" of the passage, the writing of the delicate, marvelous. With a series of Baoyu's imitation of the action of painting the word, showing Baoyu's concern and compassion for the girl, but also give the reader the feeling of being there.

Language Description:

This refers to the description of the character's language. As the saying goes, words are the voice of the heart. The language of a character is a direct reflection of his or her thoughts, so language description is also an important means of expressing the character. For example, Sun Li's "Lotus Dian" has a wonderful character dialog:

"I heard that they are still here and have not left. I'm not dragging my tail, but I forgot to put down a garment."

"I have an important word to say to him."

"I heard him say that the ghosts are going to set up a stronghold in Tongkou. ......" said Shuisheng's woman.

"Where does it happen to be so coincidental? Let's go and come back quickly."

"I didn't want to go, but my mother-in-law insisted that I go again to see what he ...... has to see!"

This is a very famous piece of dialog from the mouths of several women in Lotus Dian. Their husbands have left home, ready to go to the front, their hearts want to see their husbands, but, forced by the social environment and the limitations of the people's thinking at that time, do not dare to boldly reveal their hearts, each one does not directly say that it is they who want to see their husbands, but to find out all sorts of other reasons and excuses, to cover up for themselves. These five sentences truly reflect the thought activities and inner world of the five women, as well as their cleverness and loveliness from the side, and each sentence represents a different character. This language description plays an important role in showing the character traits of the characters in the text.

Psychological description:

This refers to the description of the character's thought activities, which can directly reveal the character's inner world. Just to remind you to pay attention to the psychological description should also pay attention to the description of the angle, in the first person and omniscient narrative can have psychological description, the second person and third person can not have psychological description.

For example, a psychological description in The Little Girl Who Sold Matches: "She rubbed another one. The match lit up and gave off a bright light. The light fell on the wall, where it suddenly became as transparent as muslin, and she could see all the way into the room. The table was covered with a snowy white cloth, and set with delicate plates and bowls, and the roast goose, with its belly filled with apples and prunes, was bubbling with flavor." It was a hallucination and a mental activity. This hallucination is exactly what the little girl wants. This is a novella, using an omniscient narrative. If you are writing in first person, but there is a second character in the text, you can't write about the second character's mental activity in "my" voice, only "my" mental activity.

Environmental scene description:

Environmental scene description is divided into natural scene description and social environment description. Environmental scene description mainly has the role of characterization, rendering the atmosphere, conveying feelings and so on. For example, Lao She wrote "Sea of Forests" has a paragraph: "As far as the eye can see, everywhere is green. It is indeed a sea of forests. The rolling hills are the waves of the sea of forests. How many kinds of green color ah: deep, light, bright, dark, green indescribable, I'm afraid only a painter can write down so many green colors!" This is a natural scene description, mainly showing the green of the forest sea. While rendering the atmosphere, this description also conveys the author's love for the magnificent mountains and rivers of the motherland. When using environmental scenery description, pay attention to its relationship with the characters or events in the text, don't describe for the sake of describing, have a clear purpose.

The so-called social environment description includes the style of the times, folk customs, urban and rural architecture, residence furnishings and so on. For example, there is a paragraph in "Young Leap-To" (an excerpt from Ruxun's novel "Hometown") that reads, "This sacrifice is said to be a turn for more than thirty years, so it's very solemn; in the first month of the year, there are a lot of offerings for the ancestor statues, a lot of sacrificial offerings, and a lot of worshippers, and the sacrificial offerings are very much protected from being stolen." This paragraph belongs to the description of the social environment of folk customs. The role of this description is great, because only in the preparation of such a grand ritual, the manpower is not enough, and only then will they call Leuntu to help. This description of the folklore becomes the reason for the appearance of the young Leap-frog. We can see that this description of the social environment has a very clear purpose.

The relationship between characterization and setting description. From the essay in general, characterization, environmental scenery description should be subordinate to the needs of the theme. On this premise, if the article is to write a person, of course, the environmental landscape description should be subordinate to the needs of the character description, the environmental landscape description should be for the character description to play a kind of supporting role, like the mentioned "boy leap earth" in the description of folklore; if the article itself is to write the environmental landscape is the main, of course, the environmental landscape is the main character, like the mentioned "sea of forests". When the two descriptions exist at the same time, the character description and environmental scenery description should be complementary to each other, reflecting each other.

Panoramic and specific scene descriptions are both scene descriptions. The so-called panoramic scene description is the scene of all aspects of a clear explanation, for the activities of the characters to take the method of sketching, do the general description. This panoramic scene description, generally used in the description of major events more frequently. For example, the Founding Ceremony in a description: "The venue in Tiananmen Square. The square is in the shape of a d-ring. D-shaped a horizontal north is a river, the river side by side with five white stone bridges; further north is the city wall, the center of the wall towers Tiananmen Square. The d-shaped vertical extends southward to the China Gate. In the middle of the field south of the point where the one vertical intersects the other, stands a 22-meter-high electric flagpole." This is a typical panoramic scene description, giving a macroscopic description of the venue of the Founding Ceremony, like a panoramic shot in a movie.

The so-called specific scene description is to focus on one character or one object in the overall scene description, and other people or objects are accompanied. For example, the penultimate paragraph of the Founding Ceremony:

The military parade was over, and it was already evening. Lanterns and torches were all lit up in Tiananmen Square, and 10,000 fireworks were shot into the sky one after another. The sky is colorful sparks into color, the ground is thousands of thousands of lights a red. The mass parade began at this time, and the procession set off in two directions, east and west. They carried lamps, danced with torches, and chanted, "Long live the Chinese People's ****ing Party!" "Long live the People's Republic of China!" "Long live the Central People's Government!" They walked in order, and when they passed the White Stone Bridge facing Tiananmen Square, they raised their lanterns and torches and shouted, "Long live Chairman Mao!" "Long live Chairman Mao!" Chairman Mao, in front of the podium on the Citadel, leaning forward, kept raising his hand to greet the crowd and kept shouting "Long live the people!" "Long live the comrades!"

The first three lines of this text is still a scene description, but it is only a padding, this paragraph is mainly to write the parade. This scene describes the main scene is the sky is the ceremonial flowers, on the ground is the lights; in such a big background, there is a specific focus on the performance of the scene, that is, the parade. This specific type of scene description should pay attention to the difference between detail, must be clear.

Detailed description of the narrative. Detailed description is some of the minutiae of the delineation and depiction. It can be used to remember people and events, but also can be used to write scenery and objects. So it is applied more frequently in narrative essays.

Detailed description should pay attention to the following three points:

One is to see the big with the small. Detailed description of the object of care is very small, although it seems insignificant, but it can show the big theme. It is to use the tiniest things to express the richest connotation. Detailed description of the purpose is very strong, if you can not achieve this purpose, can not be called detailed description, the so-called details are not necessary. For example, in the fifth chapter of Ru Lin Wai Shi, a Yan Supervisor is written about. He was already unable to speak three days before his death, but he always held out two fingers to people. Many people could not guess the meaning. Finally, it was his concubine who guessed what he was thinking. She said to him, "......You are worried about the two stems of grass in that lamp, for fear of using up the oil. I now pick off a stem is." As expected, the lamp grass was just picked off, he closed his eyes. This detail shows the miser's ugly behavior of the landlord to the fullest. Detailed description like this can strengthen the character traits of the characters, although a few strokes, but twice the result with half the effort, leaving a distinct impression on the reader. This is a successful detail description.

The second is to be typical. The so-called typical is to choose those details that have a strong expressive force, rather than the generalized, trivial, banal content. Why emphasize the typical? Because if the detail description is not typical enough, such content can only play the opposite role, and will give people a feeling of redundancy. Like the above mentioned example of "The Confucian History" is a very typical detail description. There were two stems of lamps lit at the same time, and Supervisor Yan could not even close his eyes and suffered for three days. This portrays the miser's nature to a tee.

Third is to be true. Detailed description is in order to show the characters, writing scenery more vivid, more expressive. If the details of the writing is not true, not only can not achieve the desired purpose, but also will leave a bad impression on the reader. Instead of having such details, it would be better not to have them.

White Drawing and Fine Drawing

White drawing is a term borrowed from painting. It originally referred to one of the painting methods of Chinese painting, which is to sketch with ink lines, plain and light, without color, and also with a slight application of light ink. The theory of writing is borrowed as a means of expression. Refers to the use of concise ink and brush, without baking and rendering, the image of a distinctive, vivid outline of a writing method. White description is characterized by a simple style without rendering. Mr. Lu Xun has a special explanation for white description in "The Secret of Composition": "Have the true meaning, go to the whitewash, less pretense, do not show off."

For example, the first paragraph of The Little Girl Who Sells Matches: It was cold, it was snowing, and it was getting dark. It was the last day of the year - New Year's Eve. On this cold and dark night, a little girl with a bare head and bare feet was walking down the street. She had come out of her house with a pair of slippers on, but what was the use? They were a very large pair of slippers-so large that they had always been worn by her mother. As she crossed the street, two carriages came speeding by, frightening her so much that she ran off her shoes. One could not be found in any way, and the other told a boy to pick it up and run away with it. He said that in the future he could use it as a cradle when he had children.

This description is without any embellishment, describing the tragic situation of the little girl. Although the text is simple and unadorned, but the little girl's helplessness and hopelessness, the poor and cold status quo is truly and graphically outlined. This is a typical white description.

When white description is used well, the article will present a light and elegant style. On the contrary, if the use of bad, the article will give people a flat and tasteless feeling. In short, the use of white description should be very concise.

Fine drawing is also a concept introduced from the terminology of painting. Originally refers to the brushwork in painting. Fine drawing is also called work brush depiction. Fine drawing is characterized by a delicate and comprehensive depiction.

For example, a passage from Ba Jin's Sunrise: "Sure enough, after a while, there appeared the small half of the sun's face, red as red can be, but not bright. The sun, like a heavy burden, slowly, one by one, vigorously rising. At last, it broke through the clouds and jumped out of the sea completely, the color was really red and lovely. For a moment, this deep red round thing emitted eye-catching bright light, shooting people's eyes hurt. The clouds beside it also suddenly took on a luster." The author has depicted the whole process of sunrise with great delicacy, one stroke at a time. The effect of the fine description is that it often gives people the feeling of being there.

The use of fine description should pay attention to, all do fine description of the object must be the article of the most important, and is directly related to the core of the article. If the author makes a detailed description of the secondary material in the article, the article will be confused, and it will dilute the theme.

Lateral description:

Also known as baking or set off, refers to the object of description to take an indirect means of expression, from the description of other things, characters to describe, rendering, in order to highlight the object of description of the artistic technique. Simply put, it is not a straightforward description of the objective, but in the process of depicting other things to set off the objective, to secondary set off the main. As a painter in the Song Dynasty said: "The mountains want to be high, all out is not high; smoke and haze lock its waist is high. The water wants to be far away, all out of it is not far; cover the broken vein is far away." This passage expresses the concept of baking figuratively and accurately.

There are many ways to describe the side, you can quote the language of others (including dialog); you can reflect from the bystanders to describe the side; you can also use anthropomorphism to describe the side.

For example, at the end of My Uncle, Mr. Lu Xun, a paragraph is written about San, the maid of my uncle's family, and San is quoted as saying, "Mr. Zhou himself is so sick that he still writes in the middle of the night. Sometimes I heard him coughing one after another and felt sorry for him. He didn't care a bit about his own illness, but often advised me to rest more and didn't ask me to do heavy work." This paragraph does not directly write about uncle, but through the uncle's maid to describe uncle side by side. Although the side of the description is to set off the main secondary, but give a person the feeling is very real.

Lateral description on the one hand can make the content of the article rich in change, on the other hand, also leave space for the reader to imagine, is a common method of novel writing and narrative writing.