Exploring Elements of Fiction: Characters, Plot, Conflict, and Setting

1. Elements of Fiction: Weeks 1 & 2 • Fiction • Setting • Characters • Plot • conflict • Theme • Types of stories

2. What is Fiction? • Writing that tells about imaginary characters and events in the form of short stories or novels.

3. Characters are: The people (or animals, things, etc. presented as people) appearing in a literary work.

4. Types of Characters: • Protagonist-A main character who encounters conflict and is seen as a good guy or hero. • Antagonist- A character and/or force that causes conflict for the Protagonist. • Villain-The bad human or animal • Hero/Heroine- The good human or animal • Static Character:does not change in the course of the story. • Dynamic Character:undergoes some type of change in story.

5. The protagonist is the “good guy”

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

7. What is Characterization? The act of creating and developing a character. There are two ways to do this… DIRECTLY & INDIRECTLY

8. Direct vs. Indirect Characterization • Direct: “he was an old man..” (TheOld Man and the Sea) • Indirect: “I wish my thighs weren’t so fat.” • Own Words and Actions • Reaction of other Characters • Physical appearance • Own thoughts

9. What is Plot? The series or sequence of events and actions that takes place in a story.

10. Plot Line: contains 5 essential parts Climax: The turning point. The highest point if interest or most intense moment (either mentally or in action). Rising Action: the series of conflicts and crisis in the story that lead to the climax. Falling Action: all of the action which follows the Climax. Resolution: The conclusion, the tying together of all of the threads and the solving of the conflict. Exposition: The start of the story. The way things are before the action starts.

11. the time, place and period in which the action takes place. Setting: The Bean Trees: Arizona/Oklahoma 1980s. Lord of the Flies: deserted island, the future. The Catcher in the Rye:New York, 1940s

12. What is Conflict? • The problem in a story that the protagonist faces either externally (with the outside world) or internally (inside of him or herself).

13. Internal conflict is a problem a character has with himself/herself. External conflict is a problem a character has with the outside world. • Conflict • Man VS Man • Man VS Nature • Man VS Society • Man VS Himself

14. Great stories always have a great conflict Man vs. Man Man vs. Nature Man vs. Society Man vs. Machine Man vs. Himself

15. Setting:can help in the portrayal of character. “…it was so quiet and lonesome out, even though it was Saturday night. I didn’t see hardly anybody on the street. Now and then you just saw a man and a girl crossing the street with their arms around each other’s waists and all, or a bunch of hoodlumy-looking guys and their dates, all of them laughing like hyenas at something you could bet wasn’t funny. New York’s terrible when somebody laughs on the street very late at night. You can hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed.” The Catcher in the Rye (81)

16. Setting:in some works of fiction action is so closely related to setting that the plot is directed by it. “The new manstands, looking a minute, to get the set-up of the day room. One side of the room younger patients, known as Acutes because the doctors figure them still sick enough to be fixed, practice arm wrestling and card tricks…Across the room from the Acutes are the culls of the Combine’s product, the Chronics. Not in the hospital, these to get fixed, but just to keep them from walking around the street giving the product a bad name. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (19)

17. Setting:can establish the atmosphere of a work. “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country.” “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe

18. Folktale: A story composed orally and then passed down from person to person by word of mouth. “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country.” “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe

19. Types of Folktales: Folktales/fairytales-Make believe stories that contain ordinary people, magic, and begin with “once upon a time” and end with “happily ever-after.” Fables-short stories that contain animals and a moral or lesson to be learned Myths-Stories centered around the creation of things and the gods. The Greeks & the Romans were know for their myths. Legends-Stories centered on real people that have been exaggerated.