The townspeople, speaking as one body, have their own motivations, and manipulate the story to their advantage. In this kind of story the choral POV is both the witness and the judge. There’s something or someone “we” don’t know and “we” will get to the bottom of it. Gardner suggests that these kinds of stories often foreground a secret. ![]() John Gardner, author of The Art of Fiction, calls the first person plural point of view (the “we” voice) the “town POV.” Citing “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, in which the townspeople of Jefferson, Mississippi investigate the life and death of a reclusive woman. Overtime, the chorus has been adopted and adapted in contemporary fiction, sometimes being pushed right into the action of the short story. Their role was to connect what was happening to larger historical themes, or other plays, but they generally did not engage directly with the actors. The Greek chorus-originally a performance of 50 men singing and dancing a dithyramb for Dionysus in the 6th century CE-evolved into a mostly passive group of tellers, offering moral and social commentary on the action of a play from the sidelines. Each month, the editors of Recommended Reading -Halimah Marcus, Brandon Taylor, and Erin Bartnett-will select a few stories that illustrate a specific technique, style, or writing challenge such as how to write a story with only one character, use dramatic irony to create suspense, or write an ending that is surprising yet inevitable. Welcome to Read Like a Writer, a new series that examines a different element of the craft of fiction writing in each installment, using examples from the Recommended Reading archives. Recommended Reading Subscribe Short stories and novel excerpts by the most dynamic voices in contemporary literature delivered to your inbox every Wednesday.
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