In this by-place of nature,there abode,in a remote period of American history,that is to say,some thirty years since,a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane;who sojourned,or as he expressed it,"tarried,"in Sleepy Hollow,for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity.He was a native of Connecticut,a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as wells as for the forest,and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country schoolmasters.The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person.He was tall,but exceedingly lank,with narrow shoulders,long arms and legs,hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves,feet that might have served for shovels,and his whole frame most loosely hung together.His head was small,and flat at top,with huge ears,large green glassy eyes,and a long snipe nose,so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck,to tell which way the wind blew.To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day,with his clothes gagging and fluttering about him one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth,or some scarecrow eloped from a corn-field.
His school-house was a low building of one large room,rudely constructed of logs;the windows partly glazed,and partly patched with leaves of old copy-books.It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the handle of the door,and staked set against the window-shutters;so that,though a thief might get in with perfect ease,he would find some embarrassment in getting out:an idea most probably borrowed by the architect,Yost Van Houten,from the mystery of an eel-pot.The school-house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation,just at the foot of a woody hill,with a brook running close by,and a formidable birch-tree growing at one end of it.From hence the low murmur of his pupils'voices,conning over their lessons,might be heard on a drowsy summer's day,like the hum of a bee-hive;interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master,in the tone of menace or command;or,peradventure,by the appalling sound of the birch,as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge.Truth to say,he was a conscientious man,and ever bore in mind the golden maxim,"Spare the rod and spoil the child."—Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled.
Crane's personality traits are fixed once and for all by Washington Irving,who then proceeds to construct events that illustrate Crane in action.
Authors characterize by showing through dialogue（what characters say）and action（what characters do）.When a female character says"My husband isn't a wildly exciting lover,"she reveals things about her husband and herself,a woman who is slightly disappointed and frustrated at her husband's insensitivity to her romantic temperament.Here is another example which illustrates how an author uses dialogue to characterize.
In fact,he hardly ever stopped talking,and we kids watched the spit foam at the corners of his mouth...It was more like a lecture than a conversation...
"Actually these aren't dreams or plans,"Uncle Bun said."I'm making predictions about ineluctabilities.This Beautiful Nation,this Gold Mountain,this America will end as we know it.There will be one nation,and it will be a world nation.A united planet.Not just Russian Communism.Not just Chinese Communism.World Communism."
He said,"When we don't need to break our bodies earning our daily living any more,and we gave time to think,we'll write poems,sing songs,develop religions,invent customs,build statures,plant gardens and make a perfect world."He paused to contemplate the wonders.
"Isn't that great?"I said after he left.
"Don't get brainwashed,"said my mother."He's going to get in trouble for talking like that."（Maxine Hong Kingston,China Man）
Here three members of a Chinese-American family are engaged in a conversation talking about politics,but what one says and how the others respond reveal much more than their attitudes toward politics.Uncle Bun is idealistic and paranoid（"predictions about ineluctabilities"）;the narrator's admiration,uncertainty and politeness expressed in her response（"Isn't that great?"）to Uncle Bun's eloquence makes her innocent and uncertain;the mother is hot-tempered and practical.This passage of dialogue also reveals the conflict between the mother on the one side and Uncle Bun and the daughter on the other side when the mother warns the daughter against Uncle Bun.
Characterization through action is probably the most important aspect of storytelling.To quote the American novelist Henry James,"What is character but the determination of incident?What is incident but the illustration of character?"For James,what a person does,either consciously or unconsciously,reveals what he or she is,for behavior is the best indication of personality.
The incident meant by James is generally referred to as events in a story.A story may have one event as in many short stories,or several events as in novels.Events are narrated at different paces,fast or slow.Fast-paced narration,called summary,as defined by Janet Burrowway in Writing fiction,"covers a relatively long period of time in relatively short compass;"and slow-paced narration,called scene,as Burrowway defines,"deals with a relatively short period of time at length."
There are two kinds of summary:sequential and circumstantial.The following two passages illustrate,respectively,how sequential and circumstantial summaries usually operate.