What is the author's style in Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange?

The plot of Betsey Brown is best described as episodic. Shange describes events not so much to gather them into the growing drama of a climax and resolution as to capture the quality and pace of everyday life. The plot does not center for too long on any one conflict - Betsey' s mixed feelings about her romance with Eugene Boyd, the strife in Jane and Greer's marriage, or the threats to family members associated with integration and racism. Sometimes material that seems to signal catastrophe - for example, Allard's propensity for setting fires or Charlie's interest in white girls - fails to precipitate a full-blown crisis. Instead, the narration moves from one small, carefully sketched conflict to the next before any crisis comes to loom too large, showing how the different events of Betsey's thirteenth year create a kaleidoscope of questions regarding her sense of herself. The intent of the novel's structure is subtle character development rather than drama and denouement. At the novel's close, there is some resolution as a more mature Betsey is described as someone who is "surely going to have her way," but that way - with its pitfalls of racism and challenges of femininity and sexuality - is still left quite undefined.