Swindle — Chapter 1

About This Passage

This passage is worth copying for its handling of point of view. Notice how the author moves from physical action ('peered around at the shadowed walls') to a hypothetical state ('as if expecting to see something supernatural and hideous coming through'), and then snaps back into Griffin's voice ('Oh, come on') without any 'he said' tag at all. This is called free indirect style — the narrator slipping in and out of a character's consciousness without quotation marks. The technique lets the author do two things at once: describe what Ben is doing, and let the reader feel Griffin's impatience with it. Notice also the small but precise verb 'peered,' which carries the weight of fear without any adjective — Ben is not just looking, he is looking the way only a scared person looks. Copying this passage trains the eye to see how a writer can switch between two characters' consciousnesses inside a single paragraph.

Narration Prompt

Retell the chapter, then identify the single sentence that does the most work in establishing the tone of the entire book. Defend your choice with reference to specific craft details.

Discussion Questions

1. Korman opens the chapter with two boys arguing about a haunted house and ends it with the same two boys settling in for the night, no actual supernatural event having occurred. Yet the chapter still creates suspense. What is the author actually doing to build that suspense if not staging a ghost? What machinery is doing the work?
2. Griffin is introduced as 'the man with the plan' — a phrase the author tells us is 'the best thing about Griffin and also the worst.' What does it mean for the same trait to be both a person's best and worst quality? Use specific moments from the chapter to show what is best about Griffin's planning impulse and what is worst about it.

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide