Elements of a Short Story

1. Elements of a Short Story Plot Irony P.O.V. Setting Character Conflict Subject Theme

2. Bare Bones of the Plot • Exposition • The basic situation • You meet the characters and are introduced to the conflict. • Example: The Three Little Pigs: At the beginning of the story you learn about the three pigs and you realize that the Big, Bad, Wolf keeps blowing their houses down.

3. Plot (cont.) • Complication • A complication occurs when a main character tries to solve the conflict but another thing happens to complicate it. • Example: The Three Little Pigs: • The two pigs build houses, but the Big Bad Wolf blows them down.

4. Plot (cont.) • Climax • The high point of the story, when all emotions of both the character and the reader are involved. • Example: The Three Little Pigs • When all three pigs are inside the brick house and the Big Bad Wolf tries to blow them down.

5. Plot (cont.) • Resolution • Generally Immediately follows the climax • The conflict is resolved and readers find out what the characters do next or how they have changed. • Example: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs • Snow White wakes up and she lives happily ever after with the prince.

6. Irony • Situational Irony: • When the reader expects one thing to happen and something else happens instead • Verbal Irony: • Sarcasm • Dramatic Irony: • When the reader knows something that the characters do not

7. Point of View • 1st Person: Narrator uses “I” • 2nd Person: “You” • Short stories or professional writing should NEVER be written in 2nd person!!

8. Limited The reader is limited to one person’s perspective Example: Cinderella is told only through her point of view Omniscient There are multiple people’s perspectives Example: At the beginning of Goldilocks and the Three Bears the story is told through Goldilocks point of view; Later, the reader gets to view the story through the point of view of the three bears. 3rd Person:The narrator is not in the story, uses he or she

9. When a story takes place A Year 1940, 1500’s, 1997 A Season Fall, Spring, Summer Time of Day Morning, Late Night An era or during a specific event WWII, French Revolution Where a story takes place A Country Germany, USA, England A City Los Angeles, Seattle A Place In a park, at a baseball game, in the kitchen Setting(think both little and big picture)

10. 5 Methods of Creating Character

11. Conflict • External Conflict: • Man vs. Man • Man vs. Society • Man vs. Nature • Internal Conflict: • Man vs. Self

12. Subject: A topic Usually one or two words Examples: Love Fear Family Perseverance Growing Up Theme: a main idea, what the author is trying to say, the moral Always is a sentence or longer From subject, build a theme Example: Love is more important than material possessions Subject vs. Theme