1. Short Story Elements
Terminology

2. Plot: series of related events
Exposition: the beginning of the story where the characters and their conflicts are introduced
Complications: rising action/problems leading to the climax
Climax: highest emotional/exciting point of the story
Falling Action: events leading to the resolution
Resolution: (denouement) conclusion

3. Plot Diagram

4. Conflict: a struggle or clash between opposing forces
External Conflict: when the conflict takes place with an outside force.
Man vs. Man
Man vs. Nature
Man vs. Society
Man vs. Supernatural

5. Internal Conflict:
takes place in a character’s mind.
Man vs. Self

6. Setting: Where and when the story takes place.

7. Character: Individual in a story, poem, or a play.
Static Character – does not change much in the course of a story.
Dynamic Character – changes in some important way as a result of the action of the story.
Flat Character – has only one or two personality traits
Round Character – has complex and different traits.

8. Character continued. . .
Direct Characterization – the writer tells us directly what the character is like
Indirect Characterization – the author lets us figure out the character through clues (appearances, what they say, what they do, how others feel about them, and listening to their inner thoughts.)

9. Irony The difference between what we expect and what really happens.
Verbal – say one thing but mean something else
Situational – occurs when a situation that is expected to happen is the opposite of what actually happens.
Dramatic – when the audience knows something that the characters do not. (play or movie)

10. Theme
The central idea of a story. It makes some revelation about the subject of the story.

11. Point of View
First person – one of the characters is telling the story. Uses the pronoun – “I”
Third person limited – the narrator will focus in on the thoughts and feelings of just one character. (He, they, she, etc.)
Third person omniscient – the narrator knows everything; this narrator is able to tell us everything about every character.

12. Imagery Using words that call forth the use of one of our senses.
*sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste