FICTION vs PROSE Both can have imagery, symbols, motifs, setting, and even characters (ie a travel blog) BUT … Fiction has plot  conflict and is imaginary (not fully real) The problem of “realism” Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1

FICTION What is a short story? Novella: longer fiction: 50-100 pages Very compressed, minimal characterization, setting, etc.. Sometimes has an intense moment/climax point. Typically 500 – 10,000 words (more or less—depends who you talk to) Focused usually on a single idea, topic, theme, etc.. Novella: longer fiction: 50-100 pages Novel: full-length narrative usually with multiple chapters, (and sometimes) focusing on characterization and the psychological interiority of characters Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1

ORIGINS of FICTION Precursors … Thomas Nashe. The Unfortunate Traveller (1594). Some say it’s Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1615) The first novels in English extended Shakespeare’s Humanism (individualism) from individual kings & royalty to individual commoners Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe (1719) Moll Flanders (1722) Horace Walpole The Castle of Otranto (1764) Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1

SOME SUBGENRES of FICTION Picaresque: episodic in structure; thin on characterization and plot; usually about the adventures of a rogue or commoner Epistolary novel (written as letters; can show multiple points of view) Detective novel (the triumph of science and reason—ie Sherlock Holmes) Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1

MORE SUBGENRES of FICTION Gothic: must have elements of supernaturalism Bildungsroman: a story of coming of age (James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) Penny Dreadfuls: during the 1830s and 1840 based on real criminals on death row Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1

(Some) ELEMENTS of FICTION Theme (main ideas and argument) Topic (general subject) Narrative (narratology) Imagery Plot Setting Characterization Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1

KINDS OF NARRATORS 1ST 2ND 3RD person (singular plural) Limited – Unlimited Reliable – Unreliable Dramatic – Omniscient Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1

KINDS OF NARRATIVES Linear, iterative, circular, teleological, retrospective Analepsis (flashback) and Prolepsis (flash forward) Showing vs telling (implying through action rather than telling through words) Framing or nested narratives (one inside the other) Diegetic (heard/experienced by the characters) Non-diegetic (not heard by characters but heard by us) Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1

KINDS OF NARRATIVE STRUCTURES Freytag’s Pyramid exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, conclusion (in the Norton) Erotetic Narration Noel Carroll. “… scenes, situations and events that appear earlier in the order of the exposition of a story are related to later scenes, situations, and events in the story as questions are related to answers.” Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1

KINDS OF NARRATIVE STRUCTURES Jung and the Quest motif Hero is part of a community (sometimes marginalized, but still a part of it) the community is threatened and the hero steps up to champion the community hero must journey into a wilderness (often alone but sometimes) with a companion hero is tested without knowing it and more or less passes the test, thereby saving the community hero returns home a changed person Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1

Jung and some archetypes: The mother or nurturer The trickster The child The Hero The wise woman The devil Paolucci Fall 2018 ver 1.1