1. What parts make up a story?
Literary Elements
What parts make up a story?

2. Story Grammar Setting Characters Plot Climax Theme Resolution
Denouement

3. Definition of Setting
A setting “sets” or determines rules, constraints and possibilities, as well as consequences for conflict and characters. In essence, the discussed levels and dimensions of setting work together to define and confine all of the possibilities within the text or fiction.

4. Setting Time and place are where the action occurs
Details that describe:
Furniture
Scenery
Customs
Transportation
Clothing
Dialects
Weather
Time of day
Time of year

5. Elements of a Setting

6. The Functions of a Setting
We left the home place behind, mile by slow mile, heading for the mountains, across the prairie where the wind blew forever.
At first there were four of us with one horse wagon and its skimpy load. Pa and I walked, because I was a big boy of eleven. My two little sisters romped and trotted until they got tired and had to be boosted up to the wagon bed.
That was no covered Conestoga, like Pa’s folks came West in, but just an old farm wagon, drawn by one weary horse, creaking and rumbling westward to the mountains, toward the little woods town where Pa thought he had an old uncle who owned a little two-bit sawmill.
To create a mood or atmosphere
To show a reader a different way of life
To make action seem more real
To be the source of conflict or struggle
To symbolize an idea
Taken from “The Day the Sun Came Out” by D. Johnson

7. Setting from another angle
Levels of setting
Microculture: your classroom
Mesoculture: your school and community
Macroculture: the political and cultural situation of U.S.A. in 2009
Microculture: East Egg
Mesoculture: East Coast of U.S.
Macroculture: The Power Structure of Wealth and Status during the 1920s
Macro Meso Micro

8. Finally…setting as Social and Psychological; the human dimension
This includes the mood/feeling of the setting, the culture and cultural constraints of the setting, and the resulting effect on characters

9. Types of Characters People or animals Major characters
Minor characters
Round characters
Flat characters

10. Characterization
A writer reveals what a character is like and how the character changes throughout the story.
Two primary methods of characterization:
Direct- writer tells what the character is like
Indirect- writer shows what a character is like by describing what the character looks like, by telling what the character says and does, and by what other characters say about and do in response to the character.

11. Direct Characterization
…And I don’t play the dozens or believe in standing around with somebody in my face doing a lot of talking. I much rather just knock you down and take my chances even if I’m a little girl with skinny arms and a squeaky voice, which is how I got the name Squeaky.
From “Raymond’s Run” by T. Bambara

12. Indirect Characterization
The old man bowed to all of us in the room. Then he removed his hat and gloves, slowly and carefully. Chaplin once did that in a picture, in a bank--he was the janitor.
From “Gentleman of Rio en Medio” by J. Sedillo

13. Elements of Character

14. Factors in Analyzing Characters
Physical appearance of character
Personality
Background/personal history
Motivation
Relationships
Conflict
Does character change?

15. Plot
Plot is what happens and how it happens in a narrative. A narrative is any work that tells a story, such as a short story, a novel, a drama, or a narrative poem.

16. Parts of a Plot
Inciting incident – event that gives rise to conflict (opening situation)
Development- events that occur as result of central conflict (rising action)
Climax- highest point of interest or suspense of story
Resolution- when conflict ends
Denouement- when characters go back to their life before the conflict

17. Diagram of Plot Climax Resolution Development/ Rising Action
Introduction
Denouement
Inciting incident/ Opening situation

18. Special Techniques of Plot
Suspense- excitement or tension
Foreshadowing- hint or clue about what will happen in story
Flashback- interrupts the normal sequence of events to tell about something that happened in the past
Surprise Ending- conclusion that reader does not expect

19. Conflict Conflict is a struggle between opposing forces
Every plot must contain some kind of conflict
Stories can have more than one conflict
Conflicts can be external or internal
External conflict- outside force may be person, group, animal, nature, or a nonhuman obstacle
Internal conflict- takes place in a character’s mind

20. Theme
A central message, concern, or insight into life expressed through a literary work
Can be expressed by one or two sentence statement about human beings or about life
May be stated directly or implied
Interpretation uncovers the theme

21. Example of Theme
“Every man needs to feel allegiance to his native country, whether he always appreciates that country or not.”
From “A Man Without a Country” by Edward Hale pg. 185 in Prentice Hall Literature book