The Elements of Fiction
“The story always old and always new,” Robert Browning
Novels
Short Story
Novella
The novel developed from various kinds of nonfictional
writing, including:
 
Autobiographies
 
Biographies
 
Travel Sketches
 
Journals
 
Letters
 
The oldest fictions are the prose stories told in the oral
tradition, which include:
  Myths, Legends and Fables
 
The First Novel
  The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu
The term Fiction comes from the Latin
fictio, meaning “something invented.”
 
Protagonist – is the central figure in the story.
 
Antagonist – is a character who is pitted against a protagonist.
 
Major Character – has a significant role in the action of a story.
 
Minor Character – a non dominating, often supporting, role in the
development of the story.
 
One Dimensional Character (Flat Character) – exhibits a single
dominant quality.
 
Three Dimensional Character – exhibits the complexity of traits
associated with rational and or intentional actions.
 
Static Character – one who does not change during the course of the
story.
 
Dynamic Character – one who does change during the course of the
story.
 
Stock Character – one found again and again in different literary works.
Examples of stock characters include:
 
The mad scientist
 
Absent minded professor
 
Motivation – is a force that moves a character to think, feel, or behave in
a certain way.
 
 
A character may be motivated by
 
Greed
 
Love
 
Friendship
The particular reasons or causes behind a character's actions are his or
her motives.
 
Setting – is the time and place in which a story occurs, together with all
the details used to create a sense of a particular time and place.
 
Mood – is the emotion created in the reader by part or all of a literary
work.
 
Conflict – is a struggle between two forces in a literary work. Often the
conflict is discovered through identifying elements of the plot.
 
Plot – is a series of events related to a central conflict, or struggle.
 
Exposition or Introduction – sets the tone and mood, introduces the characters and
setting and provides necessary background information.
 
Inciting Incident – is the event that introduces the central conflict.
 
Rising Action or complication – develops the conflict to a high point of intensity.
 
Climax – is the high point of interest or suspense. It serves as the turning point,
where something decisive happens to determine the future course of events and the
eventual working out of the conflict.
 
Falling Action – all events that follow the climax.
 
Resolution – the point at which the central conflict is resolved.
 
Denouement – any material that follows the resolution and ties up any loose ends.
Climax
Rising Action
Falling Action
Exposition or Introduction
Inciting
Incident
Denouement
Resolution
 
Theme – is a central idea in a literary work. A long work such as a novel
may deal with several interrelated themes.
 
Common Themes in Fiction
 
Equality
 
The Great Journey
 
Loss of Innocence
 
Consequences of change
 
Fall from Grace
 
The Noble Sacrifice