ELEMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY
Grade 9 English: Ceolin,
Hoekstra, Hrvatin, MacChesney
WHAT IS A SHORT STORY?
• it’s a piece of prose fiction, usually under 10,000 words, which can be read at one sitting
• in a short story every word counts, and is carefully selected by the author
• artistically, a short story is intended to create an impression
• a good story entertains, arouses questions about life, makes one question values
The effect a story has is created through theses elements
1.
Plot
2.
Atmosphere
3.
Character and characterization
4.
Conflict
5.
Theme
6.
Setting
7.
Style (which includes a number of devices)
THE PLOT GRAPH
• plot is the story’s plan of action; the series of events that make up the story
• a plot graph is an excellent way to map out the important plot details
• it allows the student to select the pertinent plot elements and trace how they build to
the end of the story
Climax
Highest point of
excitement
Falling Action
Rising Action
Complicating
incidents or
obstacles
Inciting/Trigger Incident
Identifies a basic
problem or conflict
Introduction/Exposition
How the problem is
resolved
Conclusion/ Resolution
PLOT POINTS IN DETAIL
 Introduction/Exposition
 Introduces setting, characters, and the conflict
 Serves to entice the reader to keep reading
 Inciting/ Trigger Incident
 The KEY event that causes or initiates the action in the story
 Rising Action
 The main part of the story, when the main character tries to solve his or her problem
 Suspense, conflicts, problems or obstacles all occur to create a series of crises
 A crisis refers to a problem which is produced by the conflicts
 At this point the action can go in many different directions, enticing the reader to keep reading
PLOT POINTS IN DETAIL - CONTINUED
 Climax
 The turning point of the story where conflicts are resolved
 The highest point of interest in the story when a character solves his/her struggles
 Outcome of a decision that had to be made, major decision that influences the rest of the story
 Falling Action
 The part of the story that leads to the ending or resolution
 Conclusion/ Resolution
 Final details of the story, conflicts are over, final statements made
 Not all stories have a formal conclusion
ATMOSPHERE
 Term relates to the feeling that is created in the story
 The author uses certain descriptive words, images, details about setting, and so on,
to create feelings in the reader of fear, anger, happiness, shock etc.
This term is often referred to as MOOD. It is emotional colouring in a story.
CHARACTERS
 Character refers to the individuals that are depicted in each story. Without
characters, there can be no story!
 Usually there is only one central figure around whom the events of the story revolve
 This character is called the PROTAGONIST: a regular character or a hero/heroine
 An ANTAGONIST is a character who opposes the protagonist; often working in
contrast to the protagonist such as a villain
Characters are identified by a dominant trait, motivation or characteristic, such as:
loyalty, ambition, greed, arrogance
Characters are often classified as STATIC (those who are barely revealed, or
change very little) or DYNAMIC (those who change or transform throughout a story
and are describe in great length)
CHARACTERIZATION
 refers to how characters are developed and depicted
 authors use a variety of methods to reveal their characters and to communicate information
about them:
1.
The physical description of the character: what he/she looks like (narrator’s input)
2.
What a character says (dialogue) gives insight to his/her personality. Authors use dialogue
skillfully in the short story to portray character, add suspense, and to dramatize conflict
3.
What a character does (actions) provides an impression for the reader
4.
What a character thinks (thoughts) offer a glimpse into what he/she is like
5.
What other characters say about the character (inference) lets us gain insight about the
character
TYPES OF CHARACTERIZATION
There are two ways character is established:
 Direct Characterization – the author comes right out and tells the reader what a certain
character is like
 Indirect Characterization – the author gives use certain information and lets readers draw
their own conclusions about the character
 Character’s Name (Mouse)
 Character’s Appearance
 What a character says
 What a character thinks
 What other people think/say about the character
 What the character does. Actions speak louder than words
CONFLICT
 Conflict:
 is central source of tension
 usually involves a struggle between opposing characters, emotions
 is sometimes referred to as the problem in the story
 is something that needs to be resolved
 is what the plot usually revolves around
 Two main types
 External conflict:







Person vs. Person
Person vs. Society
Person vs. Nature
Person vs. Fate
Person vs. Technology
Person vs. Animals
Person vs. Supernatural
 Internal
 Person vs. Self
THEME
 is the main message or idea the author is trying to communicate in the story about
life or human nature
 is generally an underlying idea or value about the very topic that they author
wrote about
 themes are often universal truths that are suggested by the specifics of the story
but it is not stated directly
 most simply it CAN BE the moral or lesson BUT these are different concepts
 some examples: tragic love in Romeo and Juliet or fitting in Comfortable being
Weird
SETTING
 plays important role in many stories
 often helps create MOOD
 the environment in which the story takes place
 refers to both time that the story is set and the place where the action occurs
STYLE CREATED THROUGH THE USE OF SERVERAL
DEVICES
 the “style” of a short story refers to the author’s particular way of writing.
 it is the way in which the writer uses language and writing techniques to create
his/her story
 Some things that make up a writer’s style include
 Diction – choice of words
 Types of sentences – simple, compound, fragments
 Use of stylistic devices and/or poetic language – metaphor, simile, etc.
 Tone – the language in a story that suggests the writer’s or narrator’s own attitude towards the
characters, objects and topics in the story
 theme – the message itself indicates the author’s attitudes/beliefs
 rhetorical devices
 point of view
AUTHOR’S STYLE
 style also includes point of view
 point of view refers to the perspective from which a short story is told
 There are THREE common points of view
1. First Person P.O.V. – the story is told by the protagonist, or a minor character or an
interested bystander, using the pronouns I or We
2. Third Person Omniscient– all-seeing, all-knowing perspective. It reveals the
thoughts and emotions of several characters using he, she, and they
3. Third Person Limited – uses the pronouns he, she or they, but tells the story from the
perspective of one of the characters