Flash Fiction Narrative Analysis: Katharine Weber’s “Sleeping”

[Editor’s Note: We are grate­ful to Lee Martin’s arti­cle “Stu­art Dybek’s ‘Sun­day at the Zoo’: A Class in Nar­ra­tive Struc­ture,” an arti­cle that served as our own mod­el for the struc­ture of the nar­ra­tive analy­sis essay of short short fic­tion.]

Katharine Weber’s flash piece “Sleep­ing” jumped out at me for the expert way Weber brings the read­er to real­iza­tion at the end about the true nature of these char­ac­ters. The sto­ry can be found in Vestal Review and Sud­den Flash Youth, edit­ed by Chris­tine Perkins-Hazu­ka, Tom Hazu­ka, and Mark Bud­man. As writ­ers, we should strive to struc­ture our own sto­ries as mas­ter­ful­ly as Weber does here. She devel­ops the sto­ry with the use of back­sto­ry and small clues that fore­shad­ow what is tru­ly going on. The way that Weber qui­et­ly devel­ops the sto­ry to the end and has the read­er come to a sud­den real­iza­tion just at the moment young Har­ri­et does is a struc­ture that we should try to use in our own writ­ing.

The sto­ry opens, “She would not have to change a dia­per, they said.” With the open­ing line, we are imme­di­ate­ly brought to the atten­tion that some­thing is amiss in this seem­ing­ly nor­mal sto­ry about a young babysit­ter. The rest of the first para­graph explains fur­ther that Har­ri­et will not have to do any­thing for the baby while the par­ents are away at the movies. Weber’s word choic­es, such as “very sound sleep­er,” and “absolute­ly please don’t” allude to the fact that some­thing might be dif­fer­ent here. The first para­graph begins a ris­ing ten­sion that builds to the end. Thus the sto­ry is in motion with details that allude to the fact that this might not be a nor­mal night.

The next para­graph brings in back­sto­ry about our young pro­tag­o­nist, Har­ri­et. Weber writes, “Har­ri­et had nev­er held a baby, except for one brief moment, when she was about six.” This sen­tence is impor­tant because it builds on details from the first para­graph. Har­ri­et has bare­ly even held a baby, and she will not be required to hold the Win­ters’ baby tonight. This brief amount of back­sto­ry adds depth to Harriet’s char­ac­ter and con­nects her to the present moment.

The next para­graph brings us back into the present, with a bored babysit­ter with no baby to care for. Weber writes, “Har­ri­et turned the knob on the baby’s door very ten­ta­tive­ly, but it seemed locked.” This para­graph adds a new lay­er of ten­sion to the sto­ry. Har­ri­et is curi­ous but not enough to go against what the parent’s warned her before they left. We want her to go through the door though, because by now we as read­ers, and Har­ri­et her­self on some lev­el, are start­ing to ques­tion the Win­ters.

Weber con­tin­ues the nar­ra­tive for­ward with Har­ri­et think­ing about what the baby might look like. She thinks back in her head to the moment when Mr. Win­ter approached her and asked her to babysit. There is a great sen­tence that speaks to this sto­ry on two dif­fer­ent lev­els. Weber writes, “She had nev­er seen him before, and it was flat­ter­ing that he took her for being capa­ble, as if just being a girl her age auto­mat­i­cal­ly qual­i­fied her as a babysit­ter.” There is the lit­er­al tak­ing of that sen­tence which is that Har­ri­et, in her naiveté, is flat­tered that Mr. Win­ters saw some­thing in her­self that made him trust her. On anoth­er lev­el, as we dis­cov­er at the end, Mr. Win­ter did in fact only choose her because of her age. We dis­cov­er that he only need­ed some­one to play the part, and any real babysit­ting skills were not required. With this use of fore­shad­ow­ing, the nar­ra­tive con­tin­ues its momen­tum to the cli­mat­ic end­ing.

We are brought back to the present, where Har­ri­et is sit­ting on the Win­ters’ couch eat­ing all of their can­dy. The par­ents come home and pay her too much mon­ey. Mrs. Win­ters waits for her hus­band to dri­ve Har­ri­et home. When they reach Harriet’s house, Mr. Win­ters says, “My wife…You under­stand, don’t you?” Har­ri­et answers “Yes” with­out real­iz­ing what it is in fact she under­stands. Weber brings us quick­ly to the res­o­lu­tion of the sto­ry with a brief exchange of dia­logue. As Har­ri­et comes to her real­iza­tion, we too under­stand the truth about the Win­ters. The nar­ra­tive is com­plete and the details that lead up to the end­ing come flood­ing back to us to speak vol­umes about the char­ac­ters.

The nar­ra­tive struc­ture can be viewed as this:

1. The sto­ry begins with describ­ing an ordi­nary sit­u­a­tion in an unusu­al way.
2. Back­sto­ry pro­vides anoth­er lay­er to the sto­ry that hints at the ten­sion in the present. 
3. More details are brought into the sto­ry from the present moment that add anoth­er mean­ing to the back­sto­ry and move the sto­ry for­ward.
4. A sec­ond moment of back­sto­ry with­in the protagonist’s mind adds anoth­er lev­el of ten­sion. This sec­ond moment explains where we are in the present and how these char­ac­ters came togeth­er.
5. With a brief exchange of dia­logue, the read­er is made aware of the true nature of the char­ac­ters. The use of back­sto­ry, details, and fore­shad­ow­ing through­out the piece builds to a sud­den, but not unex­pect­ed end­ing.

This type of nar­ra­tive struc­ture can be achieved by start­ing with an every­day sit­u­a­tion and adding a twist or unusu­al ele­ment that sur­pris­es the read­er. Try to include small details that hint at the true nature of the sto­ry and the char­ac­ters but don’t give too much away. Be sub­tle with cer­tain clues in order to guide the read­er grad­u­al­ly to a sud­den real­iza­tion.

FF.Net Author’s Note
 

Olivia Dean Guise received her BA in Eng­lish from Wes­ley Col­lege and is work­ing toward a MFA in Cre­ative Writ­ing from Rose­mont Col­lege. She is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a nov­el and lives in the Philadel­phia area.