Introduction to Fiction : The Short Story

COMPILE by SANTIANA, S.S., M.Pd.

Elements of fiction

I. Plot

• Dramatic structure 
• Exposition 
• Complication 

1. Rising action
2. Conflict
3. Moments of crisis

• Climax 
• Dénouement 

1. closed dénouement
2. open dénouement

II. Characterization

• Protagonist 
• Antagonist 
• Development 
• Motivation
• Description 

III. Point of view

• First-person narration

1. The narrator is a participant in the story
2. The narrator must be present at all times

• Third-person narration

1. employs a non-participant narrator
2. Narrator is capable of moving from place to place in the story and never reveals its source

• Omniscience

1. total omniscience is where the narrator knows everything
2. editorial point of view goes even further, allowing the godlike author to comment directly on the action
3. limited omniscience is where the storyteller limits himself to the thoughts of a single character
4. dramatic (or objective) point of view is where the narrator simply reports dialogue and action with minimal interpretation and does not delve into characters’ minds

IV. Theme 

• A story’s “theme” is the overall meaning the reader derives from it. There’s no one “correct” theme, but some are more likely than others.

V. Setting

• Put simply, it is the time and place of a story. 

1. Locale
2. historical fiction
3. Regionalism
4. magic realism

VI. Style, Tone, and Symbolism

• Style = a writer’s characteristics of language

1. diction
2. sentence structure
3. punctuation
4. use of figurative language

• Tone = The tone of the story is what we can indirectly determine about the author’s own feelings about its events from his choice of words
• Symbolism = When actions take on a larger meaning in the context outside the story