How would you answer this question: Compare the ways in which the writers of your two chosen texts present the effects of social convention on characters

It is important to know your novels really well, so once we have read them and have the story understood completely, we can begin to look at how to answer these sorts of exam questions. This is a particularly tough one as you have to compare two different novels. But we can easily break it down into three stages Our basic point, also known as a topic sentence eg: "Both writers use the lack of voice women possessed during the specific eras of the novels."We then have to expand on this, providing evidence from the text, and using the writer's methods. eg: "Bronte uses the epistolary form as the only was Isabella can express her pain and isolation. She says, 'still, I must write to somebody, and the only choice left for me is you'. The use of imperatives such as 'must', place emphasis on how strict the social conventions were at the time, and how strict women had to be in keeping to them. The fact that Isabella's only possible form of communication was a letter, creates a sense of entrapment, but furthermore it highlights dramatically the lack of public voice women possessed." Here we have mentioned a method (the epistolary form), a theme (isolation), and context (the social conventions of the time). These three things are so important, and may seem tricky at first, but we can do sessions focused on each one, and come up with a whole bank of ideas ready for the exam!And finally, we compare this to the other novel: "Woolf uses the symbol of a feminine flower to show how women were so often put in their place in post war Britain. She says, ' she took Hugh's carnations with an angular smile', suggesting that the flowers were unwelcome , and that Hugh had undermined her by giving them. Woolf places particular importance on 'Hugh producing his fountain pen', to symbolise that he will be doing the writing, and although they will be Lady Bruton's ideas, they will be changed by the male voice first."Once we have practiced writing using these three basic steps, we can move on to adding in extras that will really impress the examiner! For example we could evaluate what the writer has done, 'eg Bronte's methods have a big impact on the reader because...'. We could even compare the effectiveness of what each writer does, 'Woolf uses method X which is more effective than that of Bronte's'. First though, let's practice writing using the structure above!