Readers' Experiences of Narrative Gaps

To characterize readers’ narrative experiences, literary scholars have often made a distinction between story—what is being told—and discourse—the manner in which it is being told (for a review, see Herman 2002). Even simple stories permit unlimited variation in the manner of narration. Each completed narrative represents an author’s decisions about how best to tell his or her story. Consider a moment from Ron Rash’s novel Serena (2008). By this point in the novel, readers know that Pemberton’s wife, Serena, and her henchman, Galloway, have committed a series of coldblooded murders to further Serena’s ambitions for Pemberton’s business: