Picture yourself (if you dare!

) in the following scenario …

It is late at night and you are sitting up in bed, alone, riveted by a good book. So absorbed
have you become that you that are blissfully unaware of the isolation which completely
surrounds you and which clings to you like a second skin. Outside, in the mid-winter chill, a
heavy darkness devours whatever it can whilst nocturnal creatures hoot, bay or otherwise
make their plaintive cry to the moon.

Suddenly, something bizarre begins to happen. The words that you are reading become
blurry and the page itself seems to break apart as if opening up into a portal. Before your
stunned eyes, an arm reaches out of this whirling pulp fiction vortex and a hand slaps you
right across the face!

It is the writer’s!

Sound like a story from Stephen King? Well, regardless of who may have written it, you are
unlikely ever to forget the way in which you were affected by the author of this particular text!
But can a writer affect a reader just by words alone?

The examination boards certainly seem to think so and appear to be obsessed with
challenging our young people to consider how this might be achieved. Unfortunately, too
many candidates only have a very superficial understanding of the way in which an author’s
use of words and phrases can influence a reader. Consequently, they often trot out such
vague generalisations as: ‘it puts an image in the reader’s head’, ‘it makes the reader feel
emotional’ or, even worse, ‘it gives the reader an impression of what is going on’.

So what is this nebulous image that the student has disdained to divulge? Which elusive
emotion is it that the reader is supposedly experiencing? And, indeed, yes, just what on
earth is going on!?
Such bland and unfocused ‘explanations’ as these could refer to any one of millions of
evocative words or phrases whereas a well-targeted response will be specific to just one
particular word or phrase and will outline one or more very precise ways in which this
particular instance of the writer’s use of language may affect a reader.

It might help students to answer such a question more directly, and astutely, if they firstly
consider the various possible ways in which a writer’s use of language can affect a reader:

• Intellectually – by conveying ideas / impressions / suggestions to the reader

• Imaginatively – by conveying sensory impressions to the reader, especially visual and
auditory effects
• Emotionally – by creating feelings within the reader, e.g. excitement, fear, pity, anger,
suspense
 (Of course, the feelings experienced by the reader will often be very
different to those being portrayed within the character, e.g. a
character’s trauma may well lead to a reader’s excitement and
suspense, i.e. an adrenaline-fuelled thrill ride for the reader at the
character’s expense.)

• Aesthetically – by appealing to the reader’s sense of what is

beautiful
• Physically – much more difficult to achieve, but a terrifying roller-coaster of a read jam-
packed with horror and gore might create such physical manifestations as goose bumps or,
in extreme cases, even nausea, and particular words or phrases may help to generate the
moments of high intensity which make this possible.
• Transformationally – in the sense of life changing? It can happen! Examples include: ‘Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you’ (the Bible), ‘All men are created equal’ (the
United States Declaration of Independence, 1776), ‘I have a dream’, (Martin Luther King,
1963) and, for the more mathematically minded, E=MC2! (Albert Einstein, 1905)

So how should a student approach such a question?

• Use PEE
• Remember that when asked to analyse a writer’s use of language to create effects, all of
your points should refer to effects that have been created for the reader
• Keep quotations (evidence) as short as possible
• Be very specific and focused when explaining the possible effects of the word or phrase
you have just quoted
• Find as many valid effects as you can in your explanation
• Consider such aspects of a writer’s use of language as imagery, punctuation, sentence
structure, dynamic verbs, vibrant adjectives, sound qualities such as onomatopoeia or
alliteration, and the use of multi-sensory language for vivid effect, etc.

A good writer will draw you into the story through a variety of techniques, especially plot,
characterisation, dialogue and description. The quality of the writing itself will almost
certainly be so adept that the words will become invisible and the page will magically
transform into a window. You will quickly forget all the bugbears of your own life and, as the
fetters of ‘real’ place and time imperceptibly slip away, you will readily ‘lose’ yourself in the
world of the story.

But the illusory realm of the novel is, of course, built on a foundation of words and phrases
even though you may have become so engrossed in the plot that you cease to notice them.
Admittedly, they may not literally leap out of the page and slap you right across the face but
if they can make you lose all sense of ‘reality’, then they are certainly having a considerable
effect!

* The exemplar A* answer which follows is in response to an examination-style question

which requires the candidate to analyse a writer’s use of words and phrases in order to
create effects. The text being used is the dramatic (and somewhat surrealistic!) scenario
which opens this blog:

The author begins by making a direct address to the reader (“you”), thus instantly involving
the reader in what is about to be written. The phrase “if you dare” would certainly create
suspense by suggesting that this could well be an exciting and thrilling read. The ellipsis
 after this challenge has the effect of further drawing the reader in. The
author has also written the passage in the present tense, thus bringing
the reader even closer to the event by creating the illusion of
immediacy.

At the beginning of the next paragraph, the phrase “late at night”

definitely helps to set the scene and establish an eerie atmosphere
because it intimates danger, as does the heavily punctuated reference
to being “alone”. The frequent mention of the main character’s preoccupation with his / her
book also adds tautness to the writing as the reader has already been strongly encouraged
to believe that this character should really be much more vigilant. 
The author achieves the effect of the character’s abstraction through use of the semantic
field “riveted”, “absorbed” and “unaware”. Of course, the fact that the reader is encouraged
to imagine that he / she is this unnamed character only serves to intensify the reader’s
empathy and, consequently, sense of unease. The author then further ratchets up the
tension, and thus the reader’s emotional engagement with the writing, by use of the simile
“the isolation which completely surrounds you and which clings to you like a second skin”. It
encourages the reader to imagine how vulnerable the main character is by the fact the he /
she is all alone and far removed from any possible source of help. Furthermore, the
reference to “a second skin” may well conjure up in the reader’s imagination a fleeting
impression of nakedness, thus further increasing the sense of this character’s vulnerability.

Having suggested that the character is in danger, the author then resorts to classic gothic
elements in order to further enhance the reader’s perception of foreboding: “mid-winter chill”,
“darkness” and the notion of night creatures being excited at the sight of the moon. The
writing has been very visual so far but, at this point, the author begins to appeal to the
reader’s imagined sense of sound. References to the “hoot” of an owl and the “bay” of a wolf
or stray dog encourage the reader to put a mental soundtrack to the images that are already
being streamed within the mind.

The author uses actual, rather than imagined, sound qualities in the alliterated phrases
“second skin” and “darkness devours”. This gives a poetic flow to the writing, thus appealing
to the reader’s aesthetic sensibility. The metaphor “darkness devours” is further satisfying in
both an imaginative and intellectual sense because it suggests that the night itself is also a
nocturnal predator. Because the darkness is depicted as being so pervasive, it implies that
there is danger everywhere and thus adds yet more menace to the writing