The document discusses elements of plot structure in prose fiction. It defines plot as the arrangement of causally and thematically connected events in a story. Common plot structures include linear, episodic, parallel, and flashback structures. A good plot involves rising action, conflict or crisis points, and resolution. Key phases in conventional plots include equilibrium, inciting events, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion/resolution. The ideal short story structure has a beginning that introduces characters and conflict, a middle with rising complications leading to a crisis point, and an end that resolves the complication.

1. Elements of Prose
Fiction
CHAPTER THREE (A)

2.  Elements of prose fiction:
Plot
Characters
Point of view
Theme
Tone
style

3. Is plot the story itself?
 Actually plot is what happen in a story,
the arrangement of the actions
 A story is a chain linking cause and effect.
 Necessary to plot is not only a
chronological connection but also causal
connection between plot
 Even more demanding is the insistence by
others that a plot contain thematic
connection.
 So plot may be defined as the
arrangement of tied together
chronological events which have causal
and thematic connection

4.  Burroway says that story is a series of
event recorded in their chronological order
 Plot is a series of events deliberately
arranged so as to reveal their dramatic,
thematic, and emotional significance
 Humphry House says that story is
everything that reader needs to know to
make coherence sense of the plot
 Plot is the particular portion of the story
the author chooses to present

5. Common story shape
conflict
crisis
resolution

6. Cinderella plot structure
conflict
stepmother
Cinderella Invitation to ball
You can’t go
Fairy mother
Be home by midnight
Prince Cinderella
It’s 12
Everyone try the slipper
You may not!
Crisis (The slipper fits)
Wedding
(Falling action)
resolution

7. Conventional plot
structure
introduction
Points of attack
complication
complication
CLIMAX
resolution
conclusion

8.  The following are points which are frequently
recognized in a story:
 Protagonist the chief character
 Obstacle  the opposing force
 Point of attack  the introduction of problem
(conflict)
 Complications  temporary hindrances
 Climax the point of highest emotional intensity,
the point where the reader ask “will they make
it?”
 Resolution  the solving of the problem
 Theme  the main point of the story

9. Four types of plot structure:
 Linear or Dramatic or Progressive Plot:
This is a chronological structure which
first establishes the setting and conflict,
then follows the rising action through to a
climax (the peak of the action and
turning point), and concludes with a
denouement (a wrapping up of loose
ends).

11.  An Episodic Plot: This is also a
chronological structure, but it consists of
a series of loosely related incidents,
usually of chapter length, tied together
by a common theme and/or characters.
Episodic plots work best when the writer
wishes to explore the personalities of the
characters, the nature of their existence,
and the flavor of an era.

13.  A Parallel Plot: The writer weaves two
or more dramatic plots that are usually
linked by a common character and a
similar theme.

14.  A Flashback: This structure conveys
information about events that occurred
earlier. It permits authors to begin the
story in the midst of the action but later
fill in the background for full
understanding of the present events.
Flashbacks can occur more than once
and in different parts of a story.

15.  A good story involves action toward an end,
which the reader does not foresee, but also
toward an end , which, having been reached,
must be seen to have been from the start
inevitable, e.g., there's no other choice but that
particular end.
 A plot must have a beginning, middle and end.
 In a beginning the problem and the characters
are exposed, or introduced, followed by a rising
action and moves toward a climax, or a major
crisis, then moves down in a falling action, and
concludes in an end, which can be a
denouement

16. A novel may have a series of rising and
falling action which in the course of the
story move into a single major crisis and
fall into a concluding end.
Traditional plot is especially appropriate
when the writer sees life as a matter of
sharp conflict and a clear resolution.

17. CONFLICT
Conflict may be external or internal.
A conflict may variously be physical, moral,
psychological, intellectual or spiritual
contest between antagonistic forces –
internal conflict between aspect of the
personality or external conflict between a
person and external force (another
person, society, environment, nature, the
universe, god)

18. A conflict of man against man
A conflict of man against environment /nature (something
outside himself i.e. nature, society)
A conflict of man against himself (internal conflict)
An external conflict may be a projection of internal conflict.
Whatever, the major function of conflict is to clarify the
issue or the problem.
At moments of great conflict characters reveal themselves
more clearly, plot moves through its most significant
action, and theme arises most evidently from its context

19. ORDERING OF EVENTS
• The order of narration can be a key to the
writer’s purpose
• If a story is narrated in chronological
order, the writer may be relating events
exactly as they happen in time purely for
making the reader wonder what will
happen next. This is a common practice in
detective or mystery story writing
• If a story is narrated in inverted order, the
writer may be revealing the outcome at
the beginning, this to force the reader
from what happens to how and why

20.  Another device is flashback. Using
flashback the writer introduces past
events at precisely the moment they are
most relevant to the present
 Working in similar way, the device of
foreshadowing adds meaning to present
events or details by making them
indicators of the future

21. Phase in conventionally plotted
story
 Equilibrium is the initial stability in which the writers
introduce the character’s background and situation
 Then it goes to inciting events, this is the phase of
event which incites conflict
 Following inciting events the conflict is intensified
through a phase of rising action and complication
until crisis, a particularly stressful event, brings on
the climax, a point at which the fortune of the
protagonist change for better or for worse or the
protagonist undergoes a change of heart or mind

22.  After the climax there are often smaller
question need to be answered, or problem
need to be solved. Here the falling action
takes place, it is swifter than the rising
action. This moment may be called
denouement, conclusion, resolution or
epiphany (a sudden spiritual illumination).
 An ending can be called catastrophe when
the destruction of the main character takes
place
 For example: Hamlet tragedy of blood

23. PLOT STRUCTURE
 Classic plot structure proposed by Aristotle has a
beginning, middle and end.
1. Beginning
In theory a beginning is supposed to be a part of story
which let its reader know about the situation, the
character, the background or the basic line of conflict.
For example:
Diamond necklace tells the reader about the main
character
The flight tells the reader about the setting (see page 47-
48)
(see also Rust Hills book about not a very good beginning
page 48-49)

24. However, in modern literary story, the beginning is not
likely to do all the things that the books on writing
say a beginning ought to do
The practice in writing modern fiction, following those in
play- writing where it is felt that there is no need to
provide initial information about the situation to the
audience,
now regards that a beginning for a story is unnecessary
The writer will launch right in and tell the story
beginning as near the middle as possible.
When the reader needs immediately to know certain
facts about his characters, his locale, the situation,
the writer will incorporate these facts as
straightforwardly as possible without attempting to
hide them in the dialog

25. The reader will learn about the situation or
character along the way, incidentally and
from time to time
He can imagine about a situation when the
author has reason to describe it to him. A
reason of relating to the story as a whole
rather than just to the plot.

26.  Rust Hills believe that what a beginning should do is to
reveal the theme of the story by a bit of descriptive
writing design as well as to established the setting or the
mood.
 Example, from Saki’s The Story Teller:
It was hot afternoon and the railway carriage was
correspondingly sultry and the next stop was at
Templecombe, nearly an hour a head
 The reader is ready to expect what will happen in the
next hour on that carriage

27.  Robert C Meredith Proposes 7 requirements of writing beginning
story:
1. The beginning must be placed in time as close to the ending as
possible
2. A minor problem leading to the complication must be given , if the
complication itself is not immediately presented
3. The scene must be set
4. The principal characters must be introduced with an indication of the
approximate ages, and the point of view must be established
5. The tone of the prose must let the reader know what type of story he
is reading
6. The beginning must imply what ending is desired
7. The reader must be trapped into reading the story through the use of
a narrative hook

28. 2. Middle
Complication and development are two terms which
closely related with middle.
This term has a little relevance in short story because
short story is seldom complicated and it should not
be
According to Aristotle, complication is all from the
beginning until before the change of fortune of the
character

29.  On the line of rising action runs a number
of crisis to a final culminating climax
 Such plot structure is suitable for a full-
length play or a novel, a short story will
not accommodate that many crisis, most
likely, it can only take one, and a subtle
one at that point.
 For the short story this single crisis should
in fact appear ideally at the end of the
middle and the beginning of the end

30.  For the middle, Meredith again proposes four
requirements:
1. The middle must give the background of
circumstances that produced complication
2. The middle must present a series of efforts (usually
three) in which the protagonist attempt to solve the
complication only to meet failure
3. The middle must present, therefore, a situation of ante
climax in which it appears that the protagonist will
finally solve the complication, only to meet such
disastrous failure that it leaves the reader convinced
that there is no hope of a satisfactory solution
4. The middle must force the protagonist to make an
agonizing decision that will point to the solution of the
complication

31. 3. The end
The ending of modern short story does not
require a long summary of what happened after
the complication has been resolved
The novel, however, is different. After having
spent so long time with the characters, the
reader become so interested in them, almost
fond of them as acquaintance, that he is not
adverse to a long passage following the
resolution of the complication.
The reader feels he has a right to know the
outcome in full, the details of what happened to
them finally