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Short Story Terms

What is a Short Story?

  • A short story is : a brief work of fiction where, usually, the main character faces a conflict that is worked out in the plot of the story

Character

  • Character – a person in a story, poem or play.
  • Types of Characters:
  • Round- fully developed, has many different character traits
  • Flat- stereotyped, one-dimensional, few traits
  • Static – Does not change
  • Dynamic – Changes as a result of the story's events

Characterization

  • How the author develops the characters, especially the main character.
  • This is done through:
  • what the character does or says
  • what others say of and to the character
  • author’s word choice in descriptive passages

Characterization

  • Direct characterization
  • The author directly states what the character’s personality is like. Example: cruel, kind

  • Indirect characterization
  • Showing a character’s personality through his/her actions, thoughts, feelings, words, appearance or other character’s observations or reactions

Protagonist

  • Main character of the story that changes
  • (death is not a change)
  • the most important character
  • changes and grows because of experiences in the story

Antagonist

  • A major character who opposes the protagonist
  • the antagonist does not change
  • Types of antagonists:
  • people
  • nature
  • society

Conflict

  • A struggle between two opposing forces
  • Types
  • Internal – takes place in a character’s own mind
  • Man vs. Him(Her)self
  • External – a character struggles against an outside force
  • Man vs. Man
  • Man vs. Nature
  • Man vs. technology, progress
  • Man vs. Society
  • Man vs. Supernatural

What is the Plot?

  • Plot: Series of related events that make up a story.

Exposition

  • Section that introduces characters, the setting, and conflicts.

Setting

  • The time and place of the story’s action

Rising Action

  • Consists of a series of complications.
  • These occur when the main characters take action to resolve their problems and are met with further problems:
  • Fear
  • Hostility
  • Threatening situation

Climax

  • The turning point in the story: the high point of interest and suspense

Rising Action or Complications

Falling Action

Climax

Falling Action

  • All events following the climax or turning point in the story. These events are a result of the action taken at the climax.

Resolution

  • (Denoument)
  • The end of the central conflict: it shows how the situation turns out and ties up loose ends

Point of View

  • Vantage point from which the writer tells the story.
  • First person- One of the characters is actually telling the story using the pronoun “I”
  • Third person- Centers on one character’s thoughts and actions.
  • Omniscient- All knowing narrator. Can center on the thoughts any actions of any and all characters.

Theme

  • The central message or insight into life revealed through a literary work.
  • The “main idea” of the story

Flashback

  • The present scene in the story is interrupted to flash backward and tell what happened in an earlier time.

Foreshadowing

  • Clues the writer puts in the story to give the reader a hint of what is to come.

Symbol

  • An object, person, or event that functions as itself, but also stands for something more than itself.
  • Example: Scales function is to weigh things,

but they are also a symbol

of our justice system.

Figurative Language

  • Involves some imaginative comparison between two unlike things.
  • Simile – comparing two unlike things using like or as.
  • “I wandered lonely as a cloud”
  • Metaphor – comparing two unlike things (not using like or as)
  • Life is a roller coaster, it has lots of ups and downs.

Figurative Language

  • Personification – Giving human qualities to non-human things.
  • “The wind howled”

Irony

  • A contrast between expectation and reality

Irony

  • Verbal Irony – saying one thing but meaning something completely different.
  • Calling a clumsy basketball player “Michael Jordan”
  • Situational Irony – A contradiction between what we expect to happen and what really does happen
  • Dramatic Irony – occurs when the reader knows something important that the characters in the story do not know.

Allusion

  • Reference to a statement, person, a place, or events from:
  • Literature
  • History
  • Religion
  • Mythology
  • Politics
  • Sports

Suspense

  • Uncertainty or anxiety the reader feels about what is going to happen next in a story.

Imagery

  • Language that appeals to the senses.
  • Touch
  • Taste
  • Sight
  • Sound
  • Smell

Example:

Creating a picture in the readers mind through description