The pace cannot be slow or the reader will get bored. If it is to fast, the reader could get confused and not understand the story. In both short stories the pace is just right. Sometimes the descriptive writing is heavy, other times it is light. Thus is, needed to pace the story. In “A Trial”, Mark Twain used heavy description to describe Captain Ned Blakely by using two big paragraphs about his background and who he is as a person. Captain Ned Blakely was a “…rough honest creature, full of pluck and just as full of hardheaded simplicity, too.” (Twain pg.84). Focusing on setting and atmosphere in the description is also used to move the story along. Using the same writing style in both of his stories shows that his writing techniques are consistent. In “Luck”, he used heavy description to describe the atmosphere of the banquet the narrator was at, “It was food and drink to me to look, and look and look at that demi-god; scanning noting: the quietness, the reserve the noble gravity of his countenance…”(Twain 249 – 250). Mark Twain used an appropriate pace, which is important when writing a successful story; it can either engage or loose a reader.
Reading is the most important way to learn new vocabulary especially if the story has many of complicated words. Mark Twain, in his short stories, used a lot of big complex words. “He hated trifling conventionalities – “business” was the words, with him.” (Twain …show more content…
Sometimes the paragraphs are short and other times they can run across more than one page. In Mark Twain’s short stories he uses longer paragraphs that run across more than one page. In “Luck” the longest paragraph revolves around the idea of how the clergyman became an instructor at the military school and meets Mr. Scoresby an describes how he is a fool (250 and 251). Long paragraphs can loose readers because there are too many ideas. Mark Twain used another long paragraph in “A Trial”. In that paragraph, the idea is how Bill Noakes “… followed him up; the nergo began to run; Noakes fired on him with a revolver and killed him.” (Page 85). Mark Twain used long paragraphs to help the story progress and shows important ideas of the story that helped move it