Sentence examples for contrived narrative from inspiring English sources

By declining to give these people names -- they are referred to only as the woman, the girl, the boy -- Ms. Otsuka seems to want to make them into representative figures, but she manages to redeem what sounds like a coy, highly contrived narrative strategy by grounding their stories in myriad tiny, specific memories.

In more painterly dramatic hands, such frozen, almost photographic fragments might have been imbued with reverberant psychological overtones, but Bavetta's awkward attempts at homespun realism simply draw attention to stilted technique and contrived narrative setup.

Unpicking tangled theological arguments through an Agatha Christie-style whodunnit structure, the film puts Gleeson's virtuous Father James on the trail of his own would-be murderer following a threatening confession – the rather contrived narrative a mere platform for a stinging, essayistic examination of faith, and how it survives in a society increasingly defaulting to secularism.

While in the early part of the book "the characters' marionette strings [are] carefully hidden", later Boyd tried to play God, resulting in "an increasingly contrived narrative that begins to strain our credulity".

Widespread acceptance of the Obama administration's contrived narrative of what is happening in the Middle East, of American actions, and of its dealings with supposedly allies who work at cross-purposes to America's declared aims speaks to an abdication of intellectual responsibility and a betrayal of their pledge to serve by telling truth to power.

Compared to her earlier work, many of the stories in "Dear Life" feature tightly plotted — even contrived — narratives and more closure than in the past.

Like Martin Amis's "Time's Arrow," this novel is based around a narrative gimmick that might sound clever initially, but that results in a hokey, contrived story line.

What makes Ilse's narrative-within-the-narrative "contrived" and Schlink's efforts generally too "earnest"?

The characters are underdeveloped, the narrative contrived, the tittering preoccupation with breasts is tedious.

Yet there is no sense of a contrived, added-on narrative.

This wouldn't be fatal if the film didn't festoon its literary posturing and its contrived "Columbo -style narrative with the trappings of politiColumbo -style