The document defines and describes key literary elements used in stories, including setting, characters, plot, conflict, theme, and point of view. It notes that setting establishes the time and place of a story, and characters can be flat or round, main or minor. The plot involves an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Conflict can be internal or external. Theme conveys a lesson or moral, while point of view determines if the story is told in first, third limited, or third omniscient perspective.

2. Setting
Time and place of the story
When and where the story happens
Examples:
1912, Venus, the future
Can a story have multiple settings?

3. Character
Person, animal, natural force, or object in the
story
Different types of characters:
Flat—one personality trait
Round—has many different personality traits
Static—never change
Dynamic—develops and grows during the story
Main—more important characters
Minor—less important characters

4. Protagonist—the main character of the story;
the good guy
Antagonist—the force or person in conflict with
the main character; the bad guy

5. Characterization
How the author makes the character come alive
Does this by providing physical descriptions,
character traits, thoughts, and feelings

6. Plot
the series of events in a story
Climax
Falling action
Rising action
Resolution
Exposition

7. Exposition (introduction)—beginning of a story
that gives background information, introduces
characters, and sometimes introduces conflict
Rising action—more complex actions occur,
problems are more complicated, and a desire to
find out what happens next is created

8. Climax—when the intensity of the story reaches
a peak and a turning point in action occurs that
affects the outcome of the story
Falling action—intensity of the story subsides
and the results of the major events wind down
and are described
Resolution—the ending of the story when the
problem or conflict is solved

9. Conflict
The problem of the story
Two types of conflict:
Internal
 Man vs. self
External
 Man vs. man
 Man vs. nature
 Man vs. society

10. Theme
The lesson you learn or the moral of the story
The main idea the author wishes to share with the
reader
The subject of the story is not the same as the
theme of the story
 Theme cannot be love—what about love?
 Theme is not usually stated directly in the story

11. Point of View
Who is telling the story
First Person –a character in the story is telling
the story.
 I, me
Third Person – someone else is telling the story
 Third person limited—narrator only knows one
character’s thoughts and feelings
 Third person omniscient—all knowing; told by someone
who knows the thoughts and feelings of every character
in the story