part of a country not familiar to our readers.  If we are writing for those with whom we are acquainted, we can easily decide what will interest them.  If we write to different persons an account of the same event, we find that these accounts differ from one another.  We know what each person will enjoy, and we try to adapt our writing to each individual taste.  Our narrative will be improved by adapting it to an imaginary audience in case we do not know exactly who our readers will be.  In your high school work you know your readers and can select your facts accordingly.

To summarize:  a narration should possess unity, that is, it should say all that should be said about the subject and not more than needs to be said.  The length of the theme, the character of the audience to which it is addressed, and the purpose for which it is written, determine what facts are necessary and how many to choose in order to give unity. (See Section 81.)

+148.  Arrangement of Details—­Coherence.+—­We should use an arrangement of our facts that will give coherence to our theme.  In a coherent theme each sentence or paragraph is naturally suggested by the preceding one.  It has been pointed out in Sections 82-85 that in narration we gain coherence by relating our facts in the order of their occurrence.  When a single series of events is set forth, we can follow the real time-order, omitting such details as are not essential to the unity of the story.

If, however, more than one series of events are given, we cannot follow the exact time-order, for, though two events occur at the same time, one must be told before the other.  Here, the actual time relations must be carefully indicated by the use of expressions; as, at the same time, meanwhile, already, etc. (See Section 12.) Two or more series of events belong in the same story only if they finally come together at some time, usually at the point of the story.  They should be carried along together so that the reader shall have in mind all that is necessary for the understanding of the point when it is reached.  In short stories the changes from one series to another are close together.  In a long book one or more chapters may give one series of incidents, while the following chapters may be concerned with a parallel series of incidents.  Notice the introductory paragraph of each chapter in Scott’s Ivanhoe or Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans.  Many of these indicate that a new series of events is to be related.

It will be of advantage in writing a narrative to construct an outline as indicated in Section 84.  Such an outline will assist us in making our narrative clear by giving it unity, coherence, and emphasis.

EXERCISES

1.  Name events that have occurred in your school or city which could be related in their exact time-order.  Relate one of them orally.

2.  Name two accidents that could not be related in their exact time-order.  Relate one of them orally.