The Art of Fiction

1. The Art of Fiction • The narrator – point of view • Modes of presentation • Characters and characterisation • Composition and structure • The short story

2. The narrator – point of view A B C D

3. Point of view B D C A

4. Point of views - pros and cons • Disadvantages • First-person narrator • limited knowledge and language • narrator may be unreliable, not objective • Third-person narrator • Omniscient • reader may has no guide, what is • important, risk of losing a focus • observer • reader cannot identify with any character • too cool, impersonal, no access to • characters’ thoughts and feelings • 3rd person limited • like in first person narration may be too limited, too restricted to one character Advantages First-person narrator • very convincing and vivid as we know everything of one character • identification with character • very personal and credible Third-person narrator Omniscient • great freedom for writer • narrator can comment • readers know everything, too, so they can choose a character they favour and draw own conclusions. observer • objective style – dialogues and descriptions 3rd person limited • perspective of one character but still free to move to other characters • more personal than other 3rd person narrator

5. Modes of presentation The way the narrator narrates events is known as mode of presentation. There are two different kinds:

6. Characters and characterisation Characters can be flat or round: flat: A character has only limited number of traits or represents only a single quality. He/she does not change in the story round: A character is similar to real individuals and has several traits, good and bad. He/she is very complex and often develops or changes in the course of the story.

7. Composition and structure The plot is the interplay between characters, what the do, say and think and what happens. There can be more than one plot in a story such as main plot and subplot. In a story you have always main characters (hero/heroine) or a central character protagonist and an antagonist (opponent) between whom there is a conflict. Other elements of a story you can describe are:, setting (time and place) and atmosphere (mood) The plot (dramatic) structure is normally given as follows: climax (turning point or crisis) rising action (complication) conflict develops falling action exposition solution = dénoument open ending, happy ending, catastrophe (tragic ending)

8. The short story • According to Edgar Allan Poe: • Should be short to be read at one sitting (one general idea) • Long enough to produce the desired effect on the reader (normally one single effect) • You can say that the short story … • is a brief fictional prose narrative with a simple, single motive (or theme) • deals with only a few characters who are revealed but do not develop • aims at a unity of effect (single situation, single character, single emotion or a series of emotions that are uniquely interwoven so unity is achieved • no subplot • an abrupt opening, a turning point, an open (surprising) ending • plot structure in a very condensed form