A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

Skaz is a Russian style of spoken narration, typically an improvised anecdote or casual monologue. Saunders calls the narrator of Gogol’s “The Nose” a skaz narrator, which he defines as a clumsy outsider who does not speak in a polished or conventional way. This failing is also his strength, as it gives him access to an original poetic language, one that is in tune with the strangeness of the world.

This phrase refers to fiction writing’s obligation to keep the reader engaged. It does so, as Saunders writes, “a line at a time” (17). This is something a fiction writer should keep in mind when writing, making sure that each line is both integral to the story and pulls the story forward.

This term refers to the organization of a story’s plot. Many plots follow patterns, conditioning the reader to have certain narrative expectations. In the Chekhov story “The Darling,” for example, the heroine Olenka is ruled by her need to be devoted to a partner, so she keeps replacing one love object with another. The reader is therefore set up to expect these repetitions in the story, and also to be surprised by small variations in each iteration.