Fiction Paper

  

5 full pages minimum (word-processed); 1 inch margins

  all around; double-spaced; use a “Works Cited” page

 where necessary.    

The guidelines for fiction papers are really much the same 

as for poetry papers; the difference is that you will be looking for 

and analyzing short stories for stylistic techniques of fiction  and thematic 

 issues of content rather than elements of poetry.    

You’re still writing papers of explication 

 (analysis, interpretation) in writing about fiction; be careful not to 

simply retell the story through plot summary.  More specifically, things 

like plot, point of view, characterization, setting, use of dialogue, 

theme, symbolism, imagery, style, mood, tone, irony, etc., 

are fictional techniques you can use to analyze the story you are 

writing your essay about.  

Your goal should be to think of your paper as a kind of argument in

 which you offer an interpretation or response to the text (or texts) 

and discuss—through careful, detailed analysis of the story’s language

 and form—how the writer has created the meaning and/or effects 

that have led you to your interpretation. The simple structure of 

an argument is to make claims, provide evidence for them from the 

text’s detail and/or stylistic techniques, and discuss/explain/reason

 why this evidence substantiates your interpretation of the story. 

  In other words, back up your interpretation, or support it, with details, 

direct quotation and examples of relevant passages from the fictional 

text, and then go on to explain or discuss how that evidence leads 

you to the conclusions you’re drawing.   

Here’s another way to explain what I mean: show and tell. 

 Your paper should deal directly, as much as possible, with the literary 

story in advancing your interpretation  of its meaning. Simply put, how 

does the text make its meaning for you? What evidence from the story

 —in lines, phrases, structure, forms, aspects of fiction, imagery, etc.

—can you provide for your reader to demonstrate you know what you 

are talking about? This is what I mean by explication, analysis