1. Story Literary Elements
Some basics that every good story must have ….

2. Short Story elements Derived from the ancients Through oral tradition
Need to tell and hear stories
Egyptians
Old Testament stories
New Testament parables
Greeks (Odyssey)
Roman (Aeneid)
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

3. Development of Short Story
19th Century America: art form
Nathaniel Hawthorne “Young Goodman Brown”; “The Minister’s Black Veil”
The mystery of sin
Edgar Allan Poe “The Tell Tale Heart”; “The Fall of the House of Usher”
The power of blackness
Washington Irving “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”; “Rip Van Winkle”
Transition from European to American

4. By Definition A brief fictional narrative in prose
500 words to 12,000 words
Unity in plot (beginning, middle, end)
Reveals character through series of actions
Gives effects of intensity
Limited time periods (1 hour; 1 day)
Poe once said that a short story should be short enough to be read at one sitting

5. Plot Sets character in motion Gives story its direction
Focuses on exposition “What”
Focuses on conflict “Why”
Focuses on narrative structure “How”

6. Great stories have a conflict
Man vs. Man
Man vs. Nature
Man vs. Society
Man vs. Machine
Man vs. Himself

7. A hint about what will happen next is called foreshadowing
For example, if you hear this:
Then you know someone’s about to get eaten!

8. Linear Plot Structure Climax Rising Action or Conflict
Exposition
Rising Action or Conflict
Falling action and resolution

9. Characterization Definition: individualized personality
Behavior: actions, speech, dress
Qualities: status
Characteristics: physical, psychological
Traits: cultural

10. Every story needs characters
People
Animals
Or Creatures

11. The protagonist is the “good guy”

12. The antagonist is the “bad guy” or force

13. Methods of Characterization
Direct Exposition: the author gives details
Character in Speech: dialect; vocabulary
Character in Action: behavior; deeds
Character in Thought: soliloquies
Character to Character: third party

14. The time and place of the story is the setting

15. Setting Three types of setting historical: social, political, economic
geographical: place (e.g. United States, Europe, big city, small country farm, desert, mountains)
3. physical: time, weather, day/night

16. Four Functions of Setting
1. to provide conflict
to illuminate the
characters
3. to establish mood
to make fiction
credible

17. “Araby” Review the first 3 paragraphs.
Make a list of words that reflect setting.

18. The point of view is the perspective of the story
“I was framed! I just wanted to borrow a cup of sugar!”
“That rotten wolf tried to eat us!!!!”

19. Point of View
It can describe the way in which the reader is presented with the materials of the story or action
Simply put, it is the way a story is told
The perspective of the storyteller

20. Types of Points of View Omniscent or 3rd person: most common
First person: intensity of narrator
Objective: report; facts
Innocent eye: child-like ; satiric;
reliable
Stream of consciousness: unorganized
thoughts; flow of memory recalled by
association; thoughts become the basis
for analysis of plot

21. “The Cask of the Amontillado”

22. “The catacombs”

23. Catacomb in Italy
The 8,000 or so mummies in the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo, Sicily, are arranged in rooms according to their worldly status: man or woman; priest or professional; child or adult.

24. Catacombs underneath city of Paris

25. Symbol, Allegory, Myth 1. Something that represents something else
Red rose=love
2. A narrative in which the characters personify
ideas, concepts, qualities, or other
abstractions to communicate moral principles
Young Goodman Brown=an inexperienced good common man
3. A story that explains or gives meaning to the
values of a culture; partly true, partly false
by which people live and die
Creation myths=Adam and Eve

26. Whether you’re the reader, or the writer, a great story includes all these literary elements!!!
foreshadowing
protagonist
conflict
climax
characters
setting
antagonist
point of view