The Five Elements of Fiction

1. The Five Elements of Fiction

2. What is Fiction? • Fiction is writing about imaginary people; none of it is real. • Fiction is made up, just like the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and unicorns! • Examples of fiction include: • Short stories • Novels • Plays

3. What are the Five Elements of Fiction? • Character: Who the Story is About • Plot: What Happens to the Characters • Point of View: Who is Telling the Story • Setting: When and Where the Story Takes Place • Theme: The Meaning of the Story • (The “Why” or Purpose)

4. Who is the Story About? • Characters: the actors, usually people, in a story • What is another name for the main character? • The Protagonist (e.g. Batman) • Who is the person that goes against (opposes) the protagonist? • The Antagonist (e.g. The Joker) • Helpful Hint: the prefix “anti” means against

5. How Does the Author Create a Character’s “Character?” • By giving each of them different characteristics (meaning qualities or personalities). • The author gives us a lot of information about each characters’ personalities (some more than others) so that we get a better understanding of each of them. • Some of the information that author’s give us about characters include…

6. Character Information: • Physical Appearance • Age • Size (height & weight) • Dress (clothes they wear) • Hairstyle • Personal Identity • Ethnicity (e.g. Caucasian, African-American) • Religion (e.g. Jewish, Muslim) • Language (e.g. Italian, Spanish, English) • Culture • Family • Friends • Special Skills (e.g. computer whiz) • Interests (e.g. sports, reading) • Hobbies (e.g. rock collecting) • Job (e.g. doctor, cashier)

7. Character Information: • Background Experiences: • Important events the character has lived through (e.g. segregation, the Great Depression) • Actions the character has taken or has not taken (e.g. killed someone in war) • Decisions the character made or did not make (e.g. got a divorce) • Challenges the character has faced (e.g. battled cancer; lost a loved one)

8. Character Information: • What he/she says: • e.g. Kenny says he wishes he had never told Byron about Larry Dunn picking on him. • What did that tell us about Kenny? • What he/she thinks, feels, or dreams: • e.g. Kenny thinks about his crossed eye all the time. • What did that tell us about Kenny?

9. Character Information: • What others say about him/her and how others react to him/her • e.g. Kenny’s teachers have him read to other classes. • What does that tell us about Kenny? • What actions he/she does or does not take: • e.g. Kenny gets help right away when Byron gets stuck to the car instead of picking on him. • What does that tell us about Kenny?

10. What Happens to the Characters? • Conflict is the dramatic struggle between two forces in a story. • Without conflict, there would be no plot. • There are TWO main kinds of conflict: • Internal Conflict: a struggle inside your own heart and/or mind • e.g. the character must make an important decision, overcome pain, quiet their temper, resist a temptation, etc. • Hint: Think of your conscience battling itself! • External Conflict: a struggle with something outside of yourself and, often, outside of your control • e.g. an enemy, the law, or an exploding bomb

11. Plot: What Happens in a Story • There are FIVE parts of the plot: Climax Rising Action Falling Action Exposition Resolution

12. First Part of the Plot: • The Exposition: • introduces the setting • introduces the characters • sets up the conflict Climax Rising Action Falling Action Exposition Resolution

13. Second Part of the Plot: • The Rising Action: • develops the story’s conflict or problem • builds suspense Climax Rising Action Falling Action Exposition Resolution

14. Third Part of the Plot: • The Climax: • The moment of GREATEST suspense, emotion and interest • Hint: Think of it as the pinnacle of the story! Climax Rising Action Falling Action Exposition Resolution

15. Fourth Part of the Plot: • The Falling Action: • reveals what happens to the characters after the climax • moves the story toward a conclusion Climax Rising Action Falling Action Exposition Resolution

16. Fifth Part of the Plot: • The Resolution: • Completes the falling action • Reveals the final outcome of the conflict Climax Rising Action Falling Action Exposition Resolution

17. Who is Telling the Story? • Every story has a voice whose view we share. The person telling the story is the narrator. -Note: The narrator is not always the author!

18. Who is Telling the Story? • Point of View: the perspective from which a story is told • There are three basic types of point of view: omniscient, first-person, and third-person limited.

19. Third-Person Omniscient POV • Omniscient means “all knowing.” • He or she can see into the minds of, and describe the thoughts of, ALL the characters. • The narrator knows EVERYTHING that is going on –- past, present and future.

20. The Different Points of View: • First Person: the narrator is a character in the story • Uses the following words: • I • Me • We • Us • My • Our • Positives: We get to know that character really well. • Negatives: We only hear things from that character’s perspective. We don’t know what the others are thinking! • Possibility of bias

21. First Person POV: Example • “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” -- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

22. Third-Person Limited POV • The narrator can see into ONE character’s mind and describe his or her inner thoughts and feelings. • We see and feel the events of a story jut as this one character does. • What we know about other characters is limited

23. Third-Person Limited: Example • “The girl he loved was shy and quick and the smallest in the class, and usually she said nothing, but one day she opened her mouth and roared, and when the teacher—it was French class– asked her what she was doing, she said, in French, I am a lion, and he wanted to smell her breath and put his hand against the rumblings in her throat” --Elizabeth Graver, “The Boy Who Fell Forty Feet” (1993)

24. Point of View: Guided Practice "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. "It's so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. "I don't think it's fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured sniff. "We've got father and mother, and each other, anyhow,” said Beth, contentedly, from her corner. The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly: "We haven't got father, and shall not have him for a long time.” She didn't say "perhaps never,“ but each silently added it, thinking of father far away, where the fighting was. --From Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

25. Point of View: Guided Practice • ‘The memory is this: a blue blanket in a basket that pricks her bare legs, and the world turning over as she tumbles out. A flash of trees, sky, clouds, and the hard driveway of dirt and gravel. Then she is lifted up and held tight. Kind faces, she remembers, but that might be the later memory of her imagination. Still, when the memory comes, sometimes many times a night and in the day, the arms that hold her are always safe.” --From Baby by Patricia McLachlan Questions: • What point of view is used in this passage? • How do you know?

26. Point of View: Guided Practice • “As soon as the snow melts, I will go to Rass and fetch my mother. At Crisfield I’ll board the ferry, climbing down into the cabin where the women always ride, but after forty minutes of sitting on the hard cabin bench, I’ll stand up to peer out of the high forward windows, straining for the first sight of my island.”

27. Point of View: Independent Practice • As I walked up the hill, I realized that the atmosphere was just too quiet. There was no sound from the cardinal who was nearly always singing from the top of the maple tree. I thought I saw a shadow move high up on the slope, but when I looked again it was gone. Still, I shuddered as I felt a silent threat pass over me like a cloud over the sun. What POV does this passage use?

28. Point of View: Independent Practice • As the girl walked up the hill, she realized that the atmosphere was just too quiet. The cardinal tipped his head back and drew breath to sing, but just as the first note passed his beak he heard the crack of a dead branch far below his perch high in the maple tree. Startled, he looked down, cocking his head to one side and watching with great interest while the man rattled the blades of grass as he tried to hide himself behind the tree. As the man saw her start up the hill, he moved quickly into the shelter of the huge old maple tree. If she saw him now, everything would be ruined. She thought she saw a shadow move high up on the slope, but when she looked again it was gone. The man thought if he could stay hidden until she came within range, she'd have to talk to him. Wouldn't she? What POV does this passage use?

29. Point of View: Independent Practice • As she walked up the hill, she realized that the atmosphere was just too quiet. There was no sound from the cardinal who she so often heard singing from the top of the maple tree. She thought she saw a shadow move high up on the slope, but when she looked again it was gone. Nevertheless, she shuddered as she felt a silent threat pass over her. It felt like a cloud creeping over the sun. What POV does this passage use?

30. What is the Meaning of the Story? • Theme: The central idea of a work of literature • Not the same as a subject, which is a word or two (like love, childhood, death). • The theme is the idea the writer wishes to reveal about that subject, expressed in a complete sentence. • Reveals a truth about human behavior • Example: Subject: Love Theme: Love is more powerful than family loyalty. (from Romeo and Juliet)

31. Finding the Theme • Theme is not usually stated directly in a work of literature. • Usually, reader must think about all the elements of the work and use them to make an inference about what the theme is.

32. Remember the “Three Little Pigs?” • When you were young, you may have read stories that ended with “and the moral of this story is…” • That moral was a lesson—or theme—that you could learn from reading the story. • Example: The Three Little Pigs • Theme: Planning ahead and working hard will save you from future disasters.

33. Guided Practice: Find the Theme • Once when a lion was asleep a little mouse began running up and down upon him; this soon woke up the Lion, who placed his huge paw on the mouse, and opened his big jaws to swallow him. "Pardon, O King," cried the little mouse: "forgive me this time, I shall never forget it. Who knows how I could repay you for this some day?" The lion was so tickled at the idea of the mouse being able to help him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go. Some time after the lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters who desired to carry him alive to the king tied him to a tree while they went in search of a wagon to carry him on. Just then the little mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the trouble in which the Lion was, went up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. "Was I not right?" said the little mouse.

34. Guided Practice: Find the Theme • Two Frogs lived together in a marsh. But one hot summer the marsh dried up, and they left it to look for another place to live since frogs like damp places if they can get them. Eventually they came to a deep well, and one of them looked down into it and said to the other, "This looks like a nice cool place. Let us jump in and settle here." The other agreed, and without looking they leapt into the deep well, only to find that it was dried up and very shallow so that they could not get back out. It was there that they died.

35. Guided Practice: Find the Theme • The animals of the forest gave a wonderful party at which the monkey stood up and danced. Having delighted the crowd, he sat down while everyone clapped for him. The camel, jealous of the compliments everyone gave the monkey and wanting everyone to instead pay attention to him, decided to try dancing, too. However, the camel moved about in so ridiculous a manner that the animals, upset at him, threw him out of the party.