How Plot Orders Events: Short Fiction Practice Test

Read the excerpt:

“The first time I hear my recorded voice, I cringe, certain it belongs to a stranger.

In the voicemail I will leave tomorrow, I will slow my speech and soften my consonants, trying to sound like someone worth calling back.

Now the audio plays again, and I study each syllable like evidence.

When I was a child, I spoke loudly, fearless, until a teacher told me I was ‘too much’ for the classroom.

I pause the recording and sit in the quiet, wondering how many versions of my voice I have invented.”

How does the excerpt’s movement from present discomfort to future self-editing to past silencing develop the narrator’s conflict?

Read the following excerpt:

“I am writing this from the hospital vending area, where the coffee tastes like pennies. My brother is asleep behind the curtain, and the monitor keeps time better than any metronome.

Earlier that day, I had promised him I’d come to his recital. I even ironed my shirt.

But the night keeps interrupting me: the squeal of tires, the glass’s brief glitter, the way his trumpet case flew open like a mouth.

Much later, when he learns to walk again, he will ask why I didn’t show up. I will tell him the truth, but not the whole truth.

For now, the machine’s green line rises and falls, and I practice saying ‘I’m here’ in a voice that sounds believable.”

What is the most significant effect of the excerpt’s shifts between present narration, flashback, and foreshadowing?