Most are common to short stories and novels!
- where the story takes place
- includes the following:
 geographical location
 time period
 socio-economic characteristics of the location
 specific building, room etc.
- Can be used to tell readers about the characters
- Can be used to set the atmosphere for the story
 Round Characters: convincing, true to life;
different, sometimes contradictory
personality traits
 Dynamic Characters: change and develop
 Flat Characters: stereotyped, shallow, and
often symbolic
 Static Characters: do not change
- sequence of events in a story or
- planned, logical series of events having a beginning,
middle and end
Introduction: start of the story
Rising Action: series of conflicts and
Climax / Turning Point: The most intense moment,
either mentally or in action
Falling Action: events and complications begin to
resolve themselves
Resolution: the untangling of events in the story
Conflict is the dramatic
struggle between two
forces in a story.
Without conflict there
is no plot.
External Conflict
 Human vs. Human
 Human vs. Nature
 Human vs. Society
 Human vs. Fate or the
Supernatural
Internal Conflict
 Human vs. Self
The angle or perspective from which the story
is told
 Who is telling the story?
 For instance, is it a player on the home team or
someone watching the game?
 How do we know what is happening?
 For instance, does a character tell us?
Told from the viewpoint of one of the
characters, using the first person pronoun
“I”.
Innocent Eye: The story is told through the eyes
of a child (his/her judgment being different
from that of an adult).
Stream of Consciousness: The story is told so
that the reader feels as if they are inside the head
of one character and knows all their thoughts and
reactions.
The main character in the story is referred to
using the second person pronoun “you”.
Third Person
The story is told using a narrator who is located
outside of the action of the story and uses third
person pronouns such as “he”, “she”, “his”, “her”,
“they” etc.
• Omniscient
• Limited Omniscient
• Objective
rd
3
Person Omniscient
The narrator has the power to show the
reader what is happening though a number
of characters’ eyes.
Third person, told from the viewpoint of a
character in the story.
rd
3
Person Objective
Third person, told as if from a camera
that follows the characters. Only what is
said and done is recorded.
 Verbal Irony: This is the contrast between
what is said and what is meant.
 Dramatic Irony: This is the contrast between
what the character thinks to be true and what
we (the reader) know to be true.
 Situational Irony: This is the most common
in literature. It is the contrast between what
happens and what was expected (or what
would seem appropriate).
 A lion can be
 A journey can
symbolize life
 Water may
represent
cleanliness
and renewal
a symbol of
courage.
 A red rose
can
represent
love.
- goes back in time
- giving the reader a memory
- often used to provide additional information to the
reader
 Reference to a statement, person, a place, or
events from:






Literature
History
Religion
Mythology
Politics
Sports
This is a writers’
technique in which the
author provides clues or
hints as to what is going
to happen later in the
story. It’s like the music
in a scary movie when we
know that something bad
is about to happen.
 Diction: choice of words
 Types of sentences
 Simple, compound,
fragments
 Use of stylistic devices and/or
poetic language
 (metaphor, simile, etc.
and/or assonance,
alliteration)
 Tone
 Theme
 Rhetorical Devices
 Point of View