In Literary Studies, we often divide works by genre (meaning type). The four main genres in written prose are fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and drama. Our class is focusing on fiction, specifically fiction that is short and focused—short stories. You want to refer to our readings as short stories and put their titles in quotation marks when you are writing about them.
We use some specialized concepts in literary study that you may or may not be familiar with.
Story— a sequence of events in words based on some fictitious incidents. Stories consist of five major elements: characters, narrative point of view, setting, plot, and conflict,
Characters—these are the people in the story. We can think of characters as dynamic (changing) or static (unchanging), as round (meaning complex) or flat (meaning one-dimensional)
Narrative Point of View—stories can be told in first person (“The Choice,” “Submarines”), and the narrator is also a character in the story whose perspective shapes what we re told. Stories can also be told in third person (“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”). Sometimes the third person story is limited to one character’s experiences, while in other instances the narrator may go in and out of many people’s minds. We call this an omniscient narrator (meaning all-seeing, all knowing). It is important not to assume the author of the story is the narrator. While literally that is true, the narrator also may be someone very unlike the author, someone we are not supposed to trust.
Setting—this refers to where and when the story is, including physical location, point in time, geography, culture, etc. In science fiction, the setting can be Earth or some place far far away.
Plot–establishes the relationship between the events of a story by using an element of cause and effect Example:
The Queen died. The King died. (this is a story, a sequence of events)
The Queen died, then the King died of grief. (this is a plot, suggesting a cause/effect)
The Queen died, then the King accidentally poisoned himself with the same poison he had given to the Queen. (This is a very different plot, suggesting an ironic cause/effect)
In analyzing plot, we tend to think in terms of the following
- Exposition—background on what happened before the story began
- Inciting incident—what begins the conflict
- Rising action—how the tension increases
- Climax—the point of greatest conflict
- Falling action—what happens after the point of greatest tension
- Resolution—where the story leaves us
During a story, the plot may provide foreshadowing (hints or symbols suggesting what will happen) or flashbacks (we step out from a current moment to see a scene that happened earlier in time).
