Lecturer: Mohammed Abdalahdi
Short Story, IUG
Date: 09/09/2008
Short Story Literary Terms
Short story A brief fictional work that usually contains one major conflict and at least one
main character.
Short Story- Narrative prose fiction that is shorter than a novel. Short stories vary in
length. Some are no longer than five hundred words; other run to forty or fifty
thousand words. An extended short story is sometimes referred to as a novelette, or
when slightly longer, as a novella. The major difference between a short story and
longer fictional forms, such as the novel, is that the main literary elements-plot,
setting, characterization- are used with greater compression in the short story than in
the longer forms.
Plot The action or sequence of events in a story. Plot is usually a series of related incidents
that builds and grows as the story develops. There are five basic elements in a plot line: (a)
exposition; (b) rising action; (c) climax; (d) falling action; and (e) resolution or denouement.
See Climax, Conflict, Exposition, Falling action, Resolution, Rising actionDescription
The process by which a writer uses words to create a picture of a scene, an event, or a
character. A description contains carefully chosen details that appeal to the reader’s senses of
sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste. See Narration, Exposition, Persuasion
Theme A central idea or abstract concept that is made concrete through representation in
person, action, and image. No proper theme is simply a subject or an activity. Like a thesis,
theme implies a subject and predicate of some kind—not just vice for instance, but some such
proposition as, “Vice seems more interesting than virtue but turns out to be destructive.”
Sometimes the theme is directly stated in the work, and sometimes it is given indirectly.
There may be more than one theme in a given work. See Main idea, Thesis, Moral
Fiction Imaginative works of prose, primarily the novel and the short story. Although fiction
draws on actual events and real people, it springs mainly from the imagination of the writer.
The purpose is to entertain as well as enlighten the reader by providing a deeper
understanding of the human condition. See Exposition/Expository text, Nonfiction,
Informational text, Novel, Short story
Setting The time and place of the action in a story, play, or poem.
Style The particular way a piece of literature is written. Not only what is said but how it is
said, style is the writer’s unique way of communicating ideas. Elements contributing to style
include word choice, sentence length, tone, figurative language, and use of dialogue. See
Diction, Imagery, Tone
Symbol A person, place, or object that represents something beyond itself. Symbols can
succinctly communicate complicated, emotionally rich ideas.
Catastrophe- The tragic denouement, or unknotting of a play or story.
Characterization- The personality a character displays; also, the means by which an author
reveals that personality
Characters- Persons-or animals, things, or natural forces presented as person- appearing in a
short story, novel, play, or narrative poem.
Climax- That point of greatest emotional intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative.
Comedy- In general, a literary work that is amusing and ends happily.
Complication- A series of difficulties forming the central action in a narrative.
Lecturer: Mohammed Abdalahdi
Short Story, IUG
Date: 09/09/2008
Conflict- A struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story, novel, play,
or narrative poem. Conflict can be internal or external, and it can take one of these forms:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Person against another person
Person against society
A person against nature
Two elements or ideas struggling for mastery within a person
Person against supernatural
Figure of speech Literary device used to create a special effect or feeling, often by making
some type of comparison. See Hyperbole, Metaphor, Simile, Understatement
Simile A comparison of two unlike things in which a word of comparison (often like or as)
is used. For example, ‘She stood in front of the alter, shaking like a freshly caught trout.’
(Maya Angelou) See Metaphor
Main idea In informational or expository writing, the most important thought or overall
position. The main idea or thesis of a piece, written in sentence form, is supported by details
and explanation. See Theme, Thesis
Metaphor A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things that are basically
different but have something in common. Unlike a simile, a metaphor does not contain the
words like or as. For example, in the evening of life. See Figurative language, Figure of
speech, Simile
Moral The lesson taught in a work such as a fable; a simple type of theme. For example,
‘Do not count your chickens before they are hatched’ teaches that one should not number
one’s fortunes or blessings until they appear. See Theme
Myth A traditional story passed down through generations that explains why the world is
the way it is. Myths are essentially religious, because they present supernatural events and
beings and articulate the values and beliefs of a cultural
group.
Image/Imagery Words and phrases that create vivid sensory experiences for the reader.
Most images are visual, but imagery may also appeal to the senses of smell, hearing, taste, or
touch. See Style, Sensory detail
Tall tale A distinctively American type of humorous story characterized by exaggeration.
Tall tales and practical jokes have similar kinds of humor. In both, someone gets fooled, to
the amusement of the person or persons who know the truth. See Traditional narrative,
Folktale
Jargon Language used in a certain profession or by a particular group of people. Jargon is
usually technical or abbreviated and difficult for people not in the profession to understand.
Narration Writing that relates an event or a series of events; a story. Narration can be
imaginary, as in a short story or novel, or factual, as in a newspaper account or a work of
history. See Description, Exposition, Persuasion
Narrator The person or voice telling the story. The narrator can be a character in the story
or a voice outside the action. See Point of view
Nonfiction Writing about real people, places, and events. Unlike fiction, nonfiction is
largely concerned with factual information, although the writer shapes the information
according to his or her purpose and viewpoint. Biography, autobiography, and news articles
are examples of nonfiction. See Fiction
Lecturer: Mohammed Abdalahdi
Short Story, IUG
Date: 09/09/2008
Non-narrative nonfiction Non-fiction written to inform, explain, or persuade that does not
use narrative structure to achieve its purpose.
Paradox A statement that seems to contradict itself, but, in fact, reveals some element of
truth. A special kind of paradox is the oxymoron, which brings together two contradictory
terms. For example, cruel kindness and brave fear.
Parallel structure The same grammatical structure of parts within a sentence or of
sentences within a paragraph. For example, the following sentence contains parallel infinitive
phrases: He wanted to join the swim team, to be a high diver, and to swim in relays.
Rising action The events in a story that move the plot forward. Rising action involves
conflicts and complications, and builds toward the climax of the story. See, Conflict, Climax,
Exposition, Falling action
Dialect A particular variety of language spoken in one place by a distinct group of people. A
dialect reflects the colloquialisms, grammatical constructions, distinctive vocabulary, and
pronunciations that are typical of a region. At times writers use dialect to establish or
emphasize settings as well as to develop characters.
Dialogue Conversation between two or more people that advances the action, is consistent
with the character of the speakers, and serves to give relief from passages essentially
descriptive or expository. See Description, Exposition, Drama
Soliloquy A speech in a dramatic work in which a character speaks his or her thoughts
aloud. Usually the character is on the stage alone, not speaking to other characters and
perhaps not even consciously addressing the audience. (If there are other characters on the
stage, they are ignored temporarily.) The purpose of a soliloquy is to reveal a character’s
inner thoughts, feelings, and plans to the audience.
’
Extended metaphor A comparison between unlike things that serves as a unifying element
throughout a series of sentences or a whole piece. An extended metaphor helps to describe a
scene, an event, a character, or a feeling. See Controlling image, Metaphor
Fable A short, simple story that teaches a lesson. A fable usually includes animals that talk
and act like people. See Folktale, Traditional narrative
Fairy tale A story written for, or told to, children that includes elements of magic and
magical folk such as fairies, elves, or goblins. See Folktale, Traditional narrative
Falling action In the plot of a story, the action that occurs after the climax. During the
falling action conflicts are resolved and mysteries are solved. See Narration, Exposition,
Rising action, Climax, Resolution
Figurative language Language that communicates ideas beyond the ordinary or literal
meaning of the words. See Simile, Metaphor, Personification, Hyperbole
Idiom A phrase or expression that means something different from what the words actually
say. An idiom is usually understandable to a particular group of people. For example, using
‘over his head’ for ‘doesn’t understand.’
Trickster tale Story relating the adventures of a mischievous supernatural being much given
to capricious acts of sly deception, who often functions as a cultural hero or symbolizes the
ideal of a people.
Lecturer: Mohammed Abdalahdi
Short Story, IUG
Date: 09/09/2008
Short Story
Introduction
Short Story, fictional work depicting one character’s inner conflict or conflict with others,
usually having one thematic focus. Short stories generally produce a single, focused
emotional and intellectual response in the reader. Novels, by contrast, usually depict conflicts
among many characters developed through a variety of episodes, stimulating a complexity of
responses in the reader. The short story form ranges from “short shorts,” which run in length
from a sentence to four pages, to novellas that can easily be 100 pages long and exhibit
characteristics of both the short story and the novel. Because some works straddle the
definitional lines of these three forms of fiction—short story, novella, and novel—the terms
should be regarded as approximate rather than absolute.
Distinctions should be made between short tales and the modern short story as it is usually
regarded. Short tales go back to the origins of human speech, and some were written down by
the Egyptians as long ago as 2000 BC. They usually dramatize a simple subject and theme and
emphasize narrative over characterization; the opposite is true of the modern short story,
where characterization, mood, style, and language are often more important than the narrative
itself. Distinctions should also be made between commercial and literary fiction within the
short story genre. From O. Henry to Stephen King, commercial short fiction has traditionally
featured predictable plot formulas, stock characters and conflicts, and superficial treatment of
themes. Literary short fiction employs complex techniques to depict the often-unresolvable
dilemmas of the human predicament.
Elements Of The Short Story
The basic elements of the short story include setting (time and place), conflict, character, and
theme. Most stories are set in present day, but settings of place vary from rural to urban and
exotic to mundane. The reader follows the main character (or protagonist) in a conflict with
another character (or antagonist) or in an internal conflict with some antagonistic
psychological or spiritual force. Characters range from familiar stereotypes, such as the
aggressive businessman and the lonely housewife, to archetypal characters, such as the rebel,
the scapegoat, the alter ego, and those engaged in some sort of search.
The subject of a short story is often mistaken for its theme. Common subjects for modern
short fiction include race, ethnic status, gender, class, and social issues such as poverty, drugs,
violence, and divorce. These subjects allow the writer to comment upon the larger theme that
is the heart of the fictional work. Some of the major themes of 20th-century short stories, as
well as longer forms of fiction, are human isolation, alienation, and personal trauma, such as
anxiety; love and hate; male-female relationships; family and the conflict of generations;
initiation from innocence to experience; friendship and brotherhood; illusion and reality; selfdelusion and self-discovery; the individual in conflict with society’s institutions; mortality;
spiritual struggles; and even the relationship between life and art.
Arts Of The Short Story
The art of the short story employs the techniques of point of view, style, plot and structure,
and a wide range of devices that stimulate emotional, imaginative, and intellectual responses
in the reader. The writer’s choice and control of these techniques determines the reader’s
overall experience.
Point of view
The three basic point-of-view techniques are omniscient (the all-knowing author narrates),
first person (the author lets one of his characters narrate), and central intelligence (the author
Lecturer: Mohammed Abdalahdi
Short Story, IUG
Date: 09/09/2008
filters the narrative through the perceptions of a single character). A seldom-used point-ofview technique is the objective (the author poses as a purely objective observer, never giving
the reader access to a character’s thoughts), as in “The Secret Room” (1962) by French writer
Alain Robbe-Grillet, in which the author grimly describes a painting that depicts a murder.
American expatriate writer Henry James developed a number of theories about fiction that
influenced generations of short-story writers, including Irish writer James Joyce, British
short-story specialist Katherine Mansfield, and Americans John O’Hara, Katherine Anne
Porter, John Updike, and John Cheever. In “The Art of Fiction,” a magazine article published
in 1884, James described a new type of point of view, third-person central intelligence, in
which all the elements of a story are filtered through the perceptions, emotions, imagination,
and thoughts of the main character. This view conveys a sense of immediacy and
psychological realism, as in James’s own brilliant story, “The Beast in the Jungle” (1903).
Joyce’s innovations with point of view and style helped change the course of literature in the
20th century with a single book of short stories, Dubliners (1914). These stories offer
painfully truthful representations of life in Joyce’s native city using a technique from painting
called impressionism, which conveys a fleeting emotional or intellectual perception of the
world.
Among early forms of first-person point-of-view narration are epistolary (letters), diary, and
memoir (another first-person format—the journal entry—is relatively recent). In the 1879
story “A Bundle of Letters,” Henry James experimented with the epistolary point of view by
presenting the story through a series of letters written by six persons living in a French
boarding house. Interior monologue (author focuses on a character’s thoughts) and dramatic
monologue (author lets the character speak to one or more identified or unidentified listeners)
are other forms of first-person point of view, although these are not very common. The firstperson narrator is usually identified but can be anonymous, and even ambiguous as to gender,
as in the story “Termitary” (1974) by South African writer Nadine Gordimer. Usually a single
character narrates, but sometimes there are as many as ten (as in “Just Like a Tree” by Ernest
Gaines, 1962), or even nonhuman characters (as in Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s “Hook,”
1941). Readers often mistake the statements of a first-person narrator for those of the author,
who frequently creates an unreliable narrator with ironic results.
Short Stories: Characteristics
•Short - Can usually be read in one sitting.
•Concise: Information offered in the story is relevant to the tale being told. This is unlike a
novel, where the story can diverge from the main plot
•Usually tries to leave behind a single impression or effect. Usually, though not always built
around one character, place, idea, or act.
•Because they are concise, writers depend on the reader bringing personal experiences and
prior knowledge to the story.
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arresting opening
interesting plot
well developed and appropriate structure
action
tension
clearly recognisable climax
satisfying ending
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one or two well developed characters
effective use of narrative voice
revealing use of interior dialogue
dialogue that makes a contribution to narrative development and/or to characterization
strong themes
Lecturer: Mohammed Abdalahdi
Short Story, IUG
Date: 09/09/2008
Four Major components of the Short Story
•PLOT
•SETTING
•CHARACTERS
•THEME
#1 Plot
•The action that takes place in the story. It is a series of connected happenings and their
result. In order to have a result, we must have an initial event, or conflict.
Stages of a Plot
•Introduction of characters
• The situation: Initial conflict
•The generating circumstances, which create a
•Rising action – heightened anticipation for the reader
•Climax - highest point of anticipation - “make or break” for the main character.
•Falling action and Conclusion. These two are also known as a denouement.
Short stories usually have properties like the following:
•Dramatic conflict. Usually the basis of the story. Source of the problems which may or may
not be overcome in the climax.
•Foreshadowing. May be used to leave clues in the story to lure readers to try to predict the
ending.
•Repetition. At the least, it helps drive home a point. It can also be used to create other
literary devices.
•Suspense. Draws readers to the work.
#2 Setting
The background against which the incidents of the story take place. Not merely a place, it
includes the place where, the time when, and social conditions under which the story moves
along.
This can include atmosphere , the tone and feeling of a story, i.e. gloomy, cheery, etc.
In one form or another, setting is essential to the story. Often, the relevance of the story is
lost in another setting.
#3 Characters
There must be living beings in the story that think or act in order to keep the story going.
They must seem like living and feeling individuals in order for us to feel strongly about them
The worst thing that could happen for is writer is that you feel indifferent toward the
characters.If we don’t care for the characters, we are not inclined to keep reading.
Four methods of presenting a character:
•Actions or thoughts of the character.
•Conversations the character engages in.
•conversations of other characters about a third character.
•Author’s own opinion. This might be overt, or may be implied.
Points of View: Presentation of a Story
•Author Omniscient (all knowing, all seeing). This is a third person point of view. The
omniscient author, writing in third person, sees whatever he wants to see, inside or outside his
character, in privacy or public, and interprets as he chooses.
•Author participant (first person). The author may be the main character, or could be a
secondary character.
Lecturer: Mohammed Abdalahdi
Short Story, IUG
Date: 09/09/2008
•Author as an observer (3rd, person). Involves objective treatment, as though the story teller
had no inner sight into the character’s thinking or behaviour.
•Multiple story tellers (3rd. Person).
#4 Theme
The total meaning of the story. IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE TIED UP IN A SIMPLE
MORAL. In many cases, stories are packages that allow readers to see the outcomes of
certain behaviours. Without a theme, the story lacks meaning or purpose.
Sometimes the theme is stated, sometimes it is only implied. In other stories, the theme may
be a direct refutation of a traditional theme.
Lecturer: Mohammed Abdalahdi
Short Story, IUG
Date: 09/09/2008
A brief fictional work that usually contains one major conflict and at least one main character.
A fictional prose narrative shorter and more focused than a novella. The short story usually
deals with a single episode and often a single character.
Setting- The time and place of action in a narrative. In short stories, novels, poetry, and
nonfiction, setting is generally created by description. In drama, setting is usually established
by stage directions and dialogue. Setting can be of great importance in establishing not only
physical background but also mood or emotional intensity. In turn, the mood contributes to the
plot and theme of the narrative.