The elements of fiction

1. PROSE & POETRY SUBJECT
7 December 2016

2.  1. plot
 2. character & characterization
 3. setting
 4. point of view
 5. style & tone
 6. theme & subject

3.  According to E.M. Forster:
 A story :
 something alleged to have happened
 A plot :
 happenings that are casually connected, it’s
also a narrative of events, the emphasis
falling on causality.
 William Kenney:
 Plot in fiction:
 not simply the events recounted in the story,
but the author’s arrangement of those events
according to their causal relationships.

4. 1. Exposition:
 the beginning section in which the author provides the
necessary background information, sets the scene,
establishes the situation, and dates the action. It may also
introduce the characters & the conflict, or the potential for
the conflict. (Pickering & Hoeper)
2. Rising action / complication:
 the movement from the initial statement of the conflict
to the climax. (Kenney)
3. Climax / turning point:
 an even greater crisis or the moment of greatest tension
at which the outcome is to be decided. (Kenney)
4. Falling action :
 once the crisis, or turning point has been reached, the
tension subsides and the plot moves toward its appointed
conclusion. (Pickering & Hoeper)
5. Denoument /resolution:
 it records the outcome of the conflict and establishes
some new equilibrium or stability. (Pickering & Hoeper)

5.  Based on how it is organized, plot can be divided into:
1. Chronological:
 begin at the beginning of the struggle and
proceed to order episodes chronologically.
2. Flashback:
 begin with a chronological arrangement and then
by means of a flashback reveal an episode or
episodes that took place at an earlier time.
3. In the middle (in medias res):
 begin in the middle and then go back to pick up
earlier events before moving to the end of the
narrative.
4. Stream of consciousness:
 the plot is centered on the flow of the character’s
mind.

6.  Character : applies to any individual in a
literary work. Characters act out in a
particular time and place (SETTING) some
kind of conflict in a pattern of events.
 Characterization: the process by which an
author creates a character.

7. 1. Discursive method:
 The author simply tells us about his characters. He enumerates
their qualities and may even express approval and disapproval of
them.
2. The dramatic method:
 the method of showing rather than telling. The author allows
his characters to reveal themselves to us through their own words
& actions.
3. Characters on other characters:
 included under the dramatic method; the device of having one
character in a story talk about another.
4. The contextual method:
 the device of suggesting character by the verbal context that
surrounds the character.
5. Mixing method.
6. Stream of consciousness method:
 the method which shows the character changing or developing,
so that while the initial portrait is valid with reference to the
situation presented at the beginning of the novel, it ceases to be
valid by the time the novel is concluded.

8.  Flat >< round
 flat characters :
 those who embody or represent a single characteristic, trait, or idea, at
most a very limited number of such qualities (also referred to as type
characters, one-dimensional characters, or caricatures).
 round characters :
 they embody a number of qualities and traits, and are complex multi-
dimensional characters of considerable intellectual and emotional depth
that have the capacity to grow and change.
 Hero >< anti-hero
 Hero :
 male leading character, has connotations of high virtue or someone who
is “longer than life,” almost godlike stature, the good guy >< villain / bad
guy.
 Anti-hero :
 ordinary leading character, more realistic character.
 Protagonist (leading character) >< antagonist (villain character)
 Main (leading character) >< minor character (supporting
character)

9.  Place & Time
 The functions of setting:
1. to provide background for the action
2. as an antagonist
3. as a means of creating appropriate
atmosphere
4. as a means of revealing character
5. as a means of reinforcing theme
 Setting may also include the weather
 Pickering & Hoeper:
 setting in its broadest sense, encompasses
both the physical locale that frames the action
& the time of day or year, the climatic
conditions, & the historical period during
which the action takes place.

10.  The author’s way of looking at his subject, the
method of narration that determines the
position, or angle or vision, from which the
story is told.
 Kinds of point of view:
1. Narrator outside the work (omniscient point
of view)
2. Narrator inside the work, telling the story
from a limited omniscient or first person
point of view.
3. No narrator (dramatic point of view).
4. Stream of consciousness, as a variation of
first person point of view.

11.  Style :
 an author’s words and the characteristic
way he/she uses the resources of language/s
to achieve certain effect.
 Style consists of:
 Diction (the individual words an author
chooses) and syntax (the arrangement of
those words), as well as such devices like
rhythm & sounds, allusion, ambiguity, irony,
paradox, and figurative language.
 Tone :
 a guide to the author’s attitude toward the
subject or audience & to the author’s intention
and meaning.

12.  Subject :
 what the work refers to
 Theme :
 some sort of comment on the subject,
whether the comment is stated explicitly or
remains implicit.
 Theme is:
 the meaning the story release; it may be the
meaning the story discovers.
 The necessary implications of the whole story,
not a separable part of the story.
 The total meaning discovered by the writer in
the process of writing and by the reader in the
process of reading.

13.  The categories of dramatic conflicts:
1. Physical / Elemental conflict
 man in conflict with nature
2. Social conflict
 man is struggling against another or
others
3. Internal or Psychological conflict
 man is against himself