The document outlines the agenda and topics for an EWRT 30 class. The class will cover terms related to characters and plot, including protagonist, antagonist, motivation, and chronological order. It will also discuss point of view and review short stories. The class will include a lecture on character and setting as basic elements of a story. Character types such as round, flat, dynamic and static will be defined. Methods of characterizing characters through description, reaction of others, words and actions will be covered.

1. EWRT 30 Class 8

2. AGENDA
Terms 1-8
Review: POV and Plot
Discussion: Fiction
Lecture: Character and
Setting

3. Terms
1. Character
2. Flat characters
3. Round characters
4. Protagonist
5. Antagonist
6. Motivation
7. Plot
8. Chronological Order
1. Character
2. Flat characters
3. Round characters
4. Protagonist
5. Antagonist
6. Motivation
7. Plot
8. Chronological Order

4. 1. Protagonist: The protagonist or hero
is the central character in the story
who engages our interest or
sympathy. Sometimes, the term
protagonist is preferable to hero,
because the central character can be
despicable as well as heroic.
2. Antagonist: the character or force
that opposes the antagonist.
1. Protagonist: The protagonist or hero
is the central character in the story
who engages our interest or
sympathy. Sometimes, the term
protagonist is preferable to hero,
because the central character can be
despicable as well as heroic.
2. Antagonist: the character or force
that opposes the antagonist.

5. 3. Character: an imagined person in a literary work.
4. Flat characters: are one-dimensional figures with
simple personalities. They show none of the
human depth, complexity, and contrariness of a
round character or of most real people.
5. Round characters are complex figures. A round
character is a full, complex, multidimensional
character whose personality reveals some of the
richness and contradictoriness we are
accustomed to observing in actual people, rather
than the transparent obviousness of a flat
character. We may see a significant change take
place in a round character during the story.
3. Character: an imagined person in a literary work.
4. Flat characters: are one-dimensional figures with
simple personalities. They show none of the
human depth, complexity, and contrariness of a
round character or of most real people.
5. Round characters are complex figures. A round
character is a full, complex, multidimensional
character whose personality reveals some of the
richness and contradictoriness we are
accustomed to observing in actual people, rather
than the transparent obviousness of a flat
character. We may see a significant change take
place in a round character during the story.

6. 7. Motivation is the external forces
(setting, circumstances) and internal
forces (personality, temperament,
morality, intelligence) that compel a
character to act as he or she does in a
story.
8. Plot: the artistic arrangement of events
in a story.
9. Chronological Order: the story is told in
the order in which things happen. It
begins with what happens first, then
second, and so on, until the last incident
is related.
7. Motivation is the external forces
(setting, circumstances) and internal
forces (personality, temperament,
morality, intelligence) that compel a
character to act as he or she does in a
story.
8. Plot: the artistic arrangement of events
in a story.
9. Chronological Order: the story is told in
the order in which things happen. It
begins with what happens first, then
second, and so on, until the last incident
is related.

7. The Review
Plot and POV
“The Tell Tale Heart”
“A Very Short Story”
“Dr. Chevalier’s Lie”
Review: In your groups,
discuss plot and POV. Consider
the three stories from your
reading
Review: In your groups,
discuss plot and POV. Consider
the three stories from your
reading

8. Plot Line
Exposition: The start of the
story. The way things are before
the action starts.
Rising Action: the
series of conflicts
and crisis in the
story that lead to
the climax.
Climax: The turning point. The most
intense moment (either mentally or in
action). The conflict is generally
addressed here.
Falling Action: all of the
action that follows the Climax.
Resolution: The conclusion; the
tying together of all of the
threads.
Conflict: Struggle between
opposing forces

9. The Tell Tale
Heart
Exposition: The narrator offers a
story as proof he is not insane. He
describes the situation with old man
and his eye.
Rising Action:
2. The narrator makes
a noise and wakes the
man up: he opens the
eye.
1. He goes to the room
every night for a week,
but the eye is closed
Climax: The narrator kills the old man,
cuts up the body, and hides it under the
floor
Falling Action:
1.The police show up and he shows
them the house. They settle in
the old man’s bedroom.
2.The noise gets louder and louder
until the narrator tells the cops to
look under the floorboards.
Resolution: The narrator
identifies the source of the
“sound” as “the beating of [the
man’s] hideous heart.”
Conflict: The narrator wants to
kill the old man

10. “A Very Short
Story”
“Dr. Chevalier’s
Lie”
Exposition: The start of the
story. The way things are before
the action starts.
Rising Action: the
series of conflicts
and crisis in the
story that lead to
the climax.
Climax: The turning point. The most
intense moment (either mentally or in
action). The conflict is generally
addressed here.
Falling Action: all of the
action that follows the Climax.
Resolution: The conclusion; the
tying together of all of the
threads.
Conflict: Struggle between
opposing forces

11. Review:
Three Common Points of View
Review:
Three Common Points of View
 Omniscient: The narrator knows everything,
including what each character is thinking,
feeling, and doing throughout the story.
 3rd
Person Limited: The narrator knows only
the thoughts and feelings of a single character,
while other characters are presented only
externally.
 1st
Person: The narrator participates in action
but sometimes has limited knowledge about
both events outside of those in which he or she
is directly involved and motivations that are not
his or her own.
 Omniscient: The narrator knows everything,
including what each character is thinking,
feeling, and doing throughout the story.
 3rd
Person Limited: The narrator knows only
the thoughts and feelings of a single character,
while other characters are presented only
externally.
 1st
Person: The narrator participates in action
but sometimes has limited knowledge about
both events outside of those in which he or she
is directly involved and motivations that are not
his or her own.

12. Point of View
 “The Tell Tale Heart”
by Edgar Allan Poe
What kind of narrator
tells this story?

13. Point of View
 “The Tell Tale Heart”
by Edgar Allan Poe
 1st
person narrator
 Unreliable: he is trying to prove he is
sane, which he obviously is not! The
narrator admits that "he can hear all
things in the heaven and in the earth
[and] many things in hell"
 He occasionally pretends to be an
omniscient narrator. When he says,
"Presently I heard a slight groan,
and I knew it was the groan of
mortal terror. […] I knew the sound
well. Many a night […] it has welled
up from my own bosom,” he is
telling us how the hold man feels
and what he thinks.

14. Point of View
 “A Very Short Story”
by Ernest Hemingway
 What kind of narrator tells
this story?

15. Point of View
 “A Very Short Story”
by Ernest
Hemingway
 Omniscient or 3rd
person limited narrator?
 The narrator seems to be external, yet he
generally speaks from the point of view of the
man. Note that he neither names him nor
identifies him. Furthermore, the last sentences
are like the description of the scene that this
man sees.
 But, the narrator doesn't obviously enter the
man’s mind, so he appears to be an
objective narrator in that he leaves the
interpretation of the actions of the characters to
the reader.
 Yet, there are signs of anger in the text, which
suggests that the narrator is manipulating the
reader into seeing the story from his point of
view. This would conflict with the objective
narrator POV.

16. Point of View
 “Dr. Chevalier’s Lie”
by Kate Chopin
 What kind of narrator
tells this story?

17. Point of View
 “Dr. Chevalier’s Lie”
by Kate Chopin
 The (objective) omniscient
narrator
 The story includes details about
both the doctor’s and the
townspeople’s behavior.
 The neutral tone in the conclusion
shows that the narrator does not
editorialize about society’s
thoughts about the girl or
Chevalier’s lie.

18. In Groups, discuss POV. Prepare to read a paragraph or two
demonstrating each of the following perspectives:
1st
person Wolf
1st
person little Pig
1st
person Mother Pig or another minor character
3rd
person Wolf
3rd
person little Pig
3rd
person Mother Pig or another minor character
Omniscient Objective: Just tells facts
Omniscient Subjective: Enters the minds and shares feelings of
multiple characters

19. Lecture Subject
Character and Setting

20. Basic Elements of a Story
1.PLOT - the story line; a unified, progressive pattern of action or events
in a story
2.POINT OF VIEW (POV) - the position from which the story is told
3.CHARACTER - person portraying himself or another
in a narrative or drama
4.SETTING - the time and place of the action in a story
5.TONE - the attitude of the author toward his subject or toward the reader
6.MOOD - the feeling or state of mind that predominates in a story creating a
certain atmosphere

21. Types of Characters:
 Round Character: convincing, true to life; fully
developed and described. Not all good or all bad.
 Dynamic Character: undergoes some type of
change in story, generally after a conflict.
 Flat Character: stereotyped, shallow, often
symbolic.
 Static Character: does not change in the course
of the story.

22. Methods of Characterization
By directly describing:
 Luz sat on the bed. She was cool and fresh in the
hot night.
Through the reaction of other characters.
 Luz stayed on night duty for three months. They
were glad to let her.

23. Through the character’s own words and
actions:
 “The following day he wrote a letter. One,
doubtless, to carry sorrow, but no shame to
the cabin down there in the forest.
It told that the girl had sickened and died. A
lock of hair was sent and other trifles with it.
Tender last words were even invented”

24. By detailing physical appearance, particularly
features that symbolize character.
 It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew
furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with
perfect distinctness --all a dull blue, with a
hideous veil over it that chilled the very
marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing
else of the old man's face or person: for I had
directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely
upon the damned spot.

25. By sharing the characters own thoughts.
 Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!
--no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they
knew! --they were making a mockery of my
horror!-this I thought, and this I think.

26. Setting: the time, place, and period in which the action
occurs.
The Bean Trees:
Arizona/Oklahoma
1980s.
The Catcher in the
Rye: New York,
1940s
Lord of the Flies:
deserted island, the
future.

27. Setting can help in the portrayal of character.
“it was so quiet and lonesome out, even though it
was Saturday night. I didn’t see hardly anybody on
the street. Now and then you just saw a man and a
girl crossing the street with their arms around
each other’s waists and all, or a bunch of
hoodlumy-looking guys and their dates, all of them
laughing like hyenas at something you could bet
wasn’t funny. New York’s terrible when somebody
laughs on the street very late at night. You can
hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome
and depressed” (Salinger 81).
The Catcher in the Rye

28. In some works of fiction, the action is so closely related to
setting that the plot is directed by it.
“The new man stands, looking a minute, to get the
set-up of the day room. One side of the room
younger patients, known as Acutes because the
doctors figure them still sick enough to be fixed,
practice arm wrestling and card tricks…Across the
room from the Acutes are the culls of the Combine’s
product, the Chronics. Not in the hospital, these to
get fixed, but just to keep them from walking
around the street giving the product a bad name”
(Kesey 19).
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

29. Setting can establish the atmosphere
“During the whole of a dull, dark,
and soundless day in the autumn of
the year, when the clouds hung
oppressively low in the heavens, I
had been passing alone, on
horseback, through a singularly
dreary tract of country” (Poe)
“The Fall of the House of Usher”

30. Guided Writing

31. Creative Writing Prompt
Write the following four words on your
paper:
 Character
 Place
 Time
 Situation
 Now chose four numbers between 1
and10. Write one number next to
each of the four words.
 You may chose any numbers that
you want. They can be the same
or different for each category.

32. Character
1. a new mother
2. a photographer
3. a recent high school graduate
4. a restaurant owner or manager
5. an alien from outer space
6. a homeless child
7. a 93-year-old woman
8. an environmentalist
9. a college student
10.a jazz musician

33. Setting: Place
1. near a National Forest
2. a wedding reception
3. a celebration party
4. an expensive restaurant
5. a shopping mall
6. a city park
7. the porch of an old farmhouse
8. a polluted stream
9. a college library
10.a concert hall

34. Setting: Time
1. during a forest fire
2. after a fight
3. the night of high school graduation
4. after a big meal
5. sometime in December
6. late at night
7. after a big thunderstorm has passed
8. in early spring
9. first week of the school year
10.during a concert

35. Situation/Challenge
1. an important decision needs to be made
2. a secret needs to be confessed to someone else
3. someone's pride has been injured
4. a death has occurred
5. someone has found or lost something
6. someone has accused someone else of doing
something wrong
7. reminiscing on how things have changed
8. someone feels like giving up
9. something embarrassing has just happened
10.someone has just reached an important goal

36. Establish the basicsEstablish the basics
Choose a POV
 Omniscient: The narrator knows
everything, including what each
character is thinking, feeling, and
doing throughout the story.
 3rd
Person Limited: The narrator
knows only the thoughts and feelings
of a single character, while other
characters are presented only
externally.
 1st
Person: The narrator participates
in action but sometimes has limited
knowledge about both events
outside of those in which he or she is
directly involved and motivations that
are not his or her own.
 Omniscient: The narrator knows
everything, including what each
character is thinking, feeling, and
doing throughout the story.
 3rd
Person Limited: The narrator
knows only the thoughts and feelings
of a single character, while other
characters are presented only
externally.
 1st
Person: The narrator participates
in action but sometimes has limited
knowledge about both events
outside of those in which he or she is
directly involved and motivations that
are not his or her own.
Outline a basic Plot
 Exposition: This will include
your setting: time and place
 Conflict: This will depend on
your situation or challenge
 Rising action: Events that
happen on the way to the
climax
 Climax: the most intense
moment in your story
 Falling action: What
happened after the climax
 Resolution: The information
with which you leave your
reader
 Exposition: This will include
your setting: time and place
 Conflict: This will depend on
your situation or challenge
 Rising action: Events that
happen on the way to the
climax
 Climax: the most intense
moment in your story
 Falling action: What
happened after the climax
 Resolution: The information
with which you leave your
reader

37. Homework
Post #8: Guided
Writing
Reading: “The
Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calaveras
County”
Study Terms: 1-8
Post #8: Guided
Writing
Reading: “The
Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calaveras
County”
Study Terms: 1-8