What the exam asks
On unseen prose fiction, examiners are looking for your ability to track the writer’s craft in real time:
| Question type | What it really tests | Narrative-craft focus |
|---|---|---|
| Retrieval | Can you find precise details? | Character facts, actions, setting details |
| Language analysis | Can you zoom in on words and phrases? | Description, connotations, imagery, dialogue, sentence forms |
| Structure analysis | Can you explain the movement of the extract? | Shifts in focus, viewpoint, pace, withholding, reveal, ending |
| Evaluation | Can you form a judgement and support it? | How successfully character, tension, mood or viewpoint are created |
For AQA Paper 1:
- Q1: identify details from a given section.
- Q2: analyse language in a specified part of the extract.
- Q3: analyse structure across the whole extract.
- Q4: evaluate a statement about part of the extract using references and methods.
Core ideas
Character is built in four main ways
Writers rarely tell us everything directly. Instead, they construct character through a mixture of methods.
| Method | What to look for | What it can suggest |
|---|---|---|
| Description | Appearance, posture, gestures, facial expression |