The Six Elements of Fiction



The Six Elements of Fiction

1. Point Of View

A. Third Person (Omniscient) - a story told by the author, using the third person; the author's knowledge, control, and prerogatives are unlimited; authorial subjectivity.

B. Limited Omniscient - a story in which the author associates with a major or minor character; this character serves as the author's spokesperson or mouthpiece.

C. First Person - the author identifies with or disappears in a major or minor character; the story is told using the first person "I". Interior Monologue -- 1st person, train of thought or stream of consciousness. Subjective Narration-- 1st person, narrator seems unreliable, tries to get us to share their side, or assume values or views we don't share. Detached Autobiography -- 1st person, narrator is reliable, guides reader.  Narrator is main character, often reflecting on a past "self." Memoir or Observer Narration -- 1st person, narrator is observer rather than main participant; narrator can be confident, eye-witness or "chorus" (provides offstage or background information);  Narrator can be reliable or unreliable.

D. Objective or Dramatic - the opposite of the omniscient; displays authorial objectivity; compared a roving sound camera. Very little of the past or the future is given; the story is set in the present. It has the most speed and the most action; it relies heavily on external action and dialogue, and it offers no opportunities for interpretation by the author.

2. Characterization: How the writer reveals the characters to the reader, including what the character might say, do, or think, and how other characters react to and perceive him/her. An author reveals character by showing or telling. Characters are interpreted by the reader as having moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities. E.M. Forster defines a flat character (also called a type) as one who is built around "a single idea or quality" and is presented without much individualizing detail, and therefore can be summed up in a single phrase or sentence. A round character is complex in temperament and motivation and represented with subtle particularity.

3. Style: The manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use. Some general styles might include scientific, ornate, plain, emotive. Most writers have their own particular styles.

4. Setting: The time, location, and social context in which the story occurs. Setting can serve an important function of generating the atmosphere of a novel, the aura or mood of the story.

5. Plot: Plot is the structure of a narrative’s actions, as they are rendered and ordered toward achieving particular emotional and artistic effects. Plot, as James asserts above, is linked to character development. There is an important difference between plot and story. Story refers to a simple sequence of events in time, whereas plot refers to how these events are rendered and organized so as to achieve their particular effects, how they are organized. In other words, plot is the arrangements of events to some end.

6: Theme: The general point(s) that the story attempts to make. Themes are not limited to the fictional reality of the characters’ lives, but often comments upon the reality of our own existence as well. Sometimes considered the "moral" or "message" of the story. Every narrative makes claims, often implicitly, about the nature of the world as the narrator and his/her cultural traditions understand it to be. A good reader will be aware of the shape of the world that the fiction projects, the structure of values that underlie the fiction (what is implicitly claimed and what is explicitly claimed); will be aware of the distances and similarities between the world of the fiction and the world that the reader inhabits; and will be aware of the significances of the selections and exclusions of the narrative in representing human experience.

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