My Reading of The Sky is Gray

Ernest J. Gaines' "The Sky is Gray" in Madison Smartt Bell, Narrative Design: Gaines is an established novelist, "The Sky is Gray" a story copyrighted in 1976. The first thing I notice about this story, every time, are those numbered parts. Bell's analysis of them on page 199 helps to explain why Gaines might number his sections. This is a device more common in poetry. I think the numbers enhance the developmental nature of the story. As …

…an agent once told me that he doesn't usually read first-person novels. 2) Formally the first-person may not work for the plots of some of these stories. Recently I got a comment from an editor I trust: the point of view was working against a situation in which my reader learns more about my character early on than she realizes about herself. A few more rejections and I might consider rewriting the story in third person.