Voice of the Seven Sparrows

Introduction

For both Keeler and Hawkins, plot was understood as a social network, structured by the interactions between characters as well as the downstream effects of those interpersonal events. The weaving among characters and events, allows “a pattern to take shape,” wrote Williard Hawkins, who pointed out that significant nodes, or as he termed them “knots,” might be encounters between important characters such as “a conversation, a love scene, a quarrel, or an exchange of glances.” From the spatial perspective of the Web-Work diagram, it was the structural interactions, not necessarily the narrative content that mattered. On display here is the cover-art for Voice of the Seven Sparrows, the book which inspires his most intricate web-work (see previous image).

“The solution to a mystery, as represented on the graph, is accompanied by bringing the characters together one after another. The graph tapers off, pyramid-like, toward the conclusion.”— Hawkins (Web-Work Plot Structure).

Additional Information

Label

Voice of the Seven Sparrows

Author

Harry Stephen Keeler

Original Publication Date

1924

New Publication Date

1928

Publisher

E.P. Dutton & Co.

Location

RBML

Case

5