Short Story Elements Quiz Review Answers
Part I: STORY ELEMENTS – Define the 5 story elements below.
1. Plot
2. Characters
3. Conflict
4. Theme
5. Setting
The sequence of events or actions in a short story, novel, or
narrative poem.
Characters are the actors in the story’s plot.
The struggle that a character/characters must overcome.
The message or lesson learned about life or people; usually a
universal lesson that can be applied to most circumstances.
The where/place, when/time, and environment of a story.
Part II: PLOT DIAGRAM – Label the 6 parts of the plot diagram.
Climax
9.
Rising Action 8.
10. Falling
Action
11. Denouement
7.
/ Resolution
Inciting Incident
Exposition 6.
Part III: PLOT ELEMENTS – Write the plot element term next to its definition. Use
your answers from above!
Climax
___12. Turning point in which you discover how the conflict
will be settled
Denouement/Resolution 13. Final stage of plot where the reader learns how the
problem is solved
Falling Action
14. The event(s) immediately following the climax
Exposition
15. Introduces the characters and setting
Rising Action__________ 16. Events that show how the complications in the plot
develop
Inciting Incident_______ 17. The first time the problem occurs in the story
Part III: CHARACTERIZATION
There are 5 ways that authors develop characters throughout a text. What are they? Write each term below
that makes up STEAL.
18. Speech
Be able to tell, from a short phrase or
sentence, what letter of STEAL is being
represented.
19. Thoughts
20. Effect on others
Example: I threw the ball very hard at the
bad man with the gun. A ( for action)
21. Actions
22. Looks
Part IV: CONFLICT
Choose the underlined response from the word bank below that best identifies the type of conflict described.
character vs. nature
character vs. self
character vs. society
self
character vs. fate
character vs. character
character vs. technology
23. Sara had to decide between babysitting her sister or going to the
football game.
nature
24. A group of girl scouts went camping, and after a long night of
roasting marshmallows, they hear the roar of a bear as it
approaches them.
society 25. Billy wants to be a dancer in the London Modern Ballet Company,
but the town expects him to be a miner like every other male
orphan in the orphanage.
self
26. Max feels torn between pleasing his dad and going to college, and
following his own dreams of going into the military.
character 27. The Griswold family find themselves at odds with the town after
their Christmas lights blow out electricity on the entire block.
fate
28. The gods cursed Narcissus’ vanity by him starving to death
because he could not leave his own reflection he was so in love
with it.
technology 29. Sarah is trying to get to a job interview on time, but the GPS
system in her car isn’t working and she doesn’t know how to get
there.
Part V: THEME
30. In what part of the plot do you discover the solving of the problem / inciting
incident? Denouement / Resolution
Part VI: SETTING
31. When in the plot diagram do you learn the setting of a story? Exposition
32. The three elements of setting are: when/time, where/place, and environment.