The characters are the people and/or animals in a story.  The protagonist is the main character. They aren’t always the “good guy.”  The antagonist is the character or force that tries to get in the way of the protagonist.

 A flat character is one you only know a little about.  A round character is one you know a lot about! to-teaching-character-types

 A dynamic character changes, learns, and grows over the course of the book.  A static character experiences very little change.

 Setting includes time and place  Sometimes you have to infer what the setting of your book is, based on clues in the book.

 The theme of a book is the main idea.  This should be a statement about life or behavior that develops over the course of the book.  A theme cannot be one word long!

 Conflict is the problem in the book.  There are two types of conflict: external – a struggle with a force outside one’s self internal – a struggle within one’s self; a person must make some decision, overcome pain, quiet the temper, resist an urge. Etc.

 There are four kinds of conflict: man vs. man where a character struggles against another character. This is classic “good guy vs. bad guy” Can you think of any examples in literature?

 Man vs. Nature is when the main character struggles against the circumstances of life. Usually the character is struggling to survive Can you think of any examples in literature?

 Man vs. society is when the main character struggles against the traditions, expectations and rules of other people. Can you think of any examples in literature?

 Man vs. self is when the main character struggles with himself/herself, choices, ideas or right or wrong, etc. Can you think of any examples in literature?