Abstract:Sidney Shelton is not only regarded as the most famous American contemporary popular novelist, but also a famous best-seller author with honorable title "story-telling genius". Sidney Shelton's novel is famous for his expert in plot arrangements of ups and downs, twists and turns, suspense in each link of the story, and all these arrangements in the novel are loved deeply by readers. Additionally, Sidney is good at women character portrait, his best work If Tomorrow Comes is regarded as the best one in which the image of the heroine Tracy Whitney is portrayed most successfully. In the present paper, the plot arrangement skills of the novel will be based on to analyze the arrangement and application of flashback, suspense, the narrator, multiple plot lines and extensive narrative insights in Sydney Shelton’ novel from the perspective of narrative structure, in order to seek the deeper artistic charms and narrative arts of If Tomorrow Comes.
Key words：Narrative arts; Flashback; Narrator; Suspense; Multiple plot lines
摘 要:西德尼.谢尔顿，美国当代最著名的通俗小说家，同时也是被誉为“讲故事天才”的著名畅销书作家。谢尔顿的小说以其跌宕起伏、一波三折、悬念丛生的故事情节深受读者喜爱。他极其擅长女性角色的刻画，尤以巅峰之作《假如明天来临》中女主人公特雷西.惠特尼的塑造最为成功。本文立足于小说的故事情节安排技巧，从叙事艺术的角度出发，分析小说中西德尼.谢尔顿对倒叙、悬念、叙述者和多条线索等叙事技巧的安排，从而挖掘《假如明天来临》的叙事技巧和艺术魅力。
关键词：叙事艺术；倒叙；叙述者；悬念；多条线索
