Pillars of Narration

Narrate a story through a concrete structure, with an architectural backdrop of some sort. The structure might obscure the storyline for the narrator, or the story might take place within that structure. Here’s an example from one of David Foster Wallace’s stories. The narrator is easily distracted and what some might call “A.D.D.,” and he isn’t normally allowed to sit next to the window in the classroom for this reason (except on days like this one when there is a substitute teacher). Here you will notice how he describes a scene between neighborhood dogs within the window panel of his classroom:

“A series of panels in the very top row of mesh squares, which is often reserved for flashbacks and back story elements that help fill in gaps in the window’s unfolding action, reveals that Cuffie’s collar and vaccination tags have gotten torn off as he wriggles under the Simmons family’s yard fence, in excitement over seeing the two strange dogs, one black and dun, and the other predominantly piebald, that have locked up to the cheap wire fence and urged Cuffie to come join them in some freely roaming dog adventures, the dark one, when the panel has angled eyebrows and a sinister pencil mustache, crossing his heart over the promise that they won’t go far at all and will be sure and show the trusting Cuffie the way back home again.”

“The Soul Is Not a Smithy” from Oblivion, By David Foster Wallace