Write about something hilarious that happened to you this past week/summer. Be prepared to share.

1. Write about something hilarious that happened to you this past week/summer. Be prepared to share.

2. Short Stories

3. Make-up of a Short Story • Characters • Setting • Plot • Conflict

4. Characters—people in the story • Protagonist/hero—the main character • Antagonist—the character who confronts/opposes the main character • Characterization—development of character • Direct—in which the author makes statements about the character • Indirect—in which the character is revealed through thoughts, actions, words, the perception of other characters

5. Setting—when and where a story takes place • When— • past, present, future, time of day, season, time of year • Where— • society/economic/cultural circumstances, geographic location

6. Plot Structure Plots are usually built in five major parts. Climax Falling Action Rising Action: complications Resolution Basic Situation/Exposition

7. Plot—the sequence of events in a story • Exposition—introduces characters, setting, conflict • Conflict—the action that drives the plot, moves it along • Rising Action—presents complications that intensify the conflict/build suspense • Climax—highest point/turning point in a story • Falling Action—eases suspense, leads to resolution • Resolution—how the conflict in the story is resolved

8. Plot Structure 1 Basic situation, or exposition • opening of the story • Setting, characters and their conflicts are introduced Paul wants to go to an out-of-state university, but his family can only afford to pay the tuition at a local college.

9. Conflict—the action that drives the plot, moves it along • External conflict—struggle outside of man’s self • Man vs. Man - The leading character struggles with his physical strength against other men • Man vs. Nature - The leading character struggles against forces of nature, or animals. • Man vs. Society - The leading character struggles against ideas, practices, or customs of other people. • Internal conflict—struggle inside man’s self • Man vs. Himself/Herself -  The leading character struggles with himself/herself; with his/her own soul, ideas of right or wrong, physical limitations, choices, etc.

10. Plot Structure 2 Rising Action: complications • The main character takes action but encounters more problems or complications. Paul goes to work on a nearby farm to earn extra money. There, he meets Miranda, and the two start dating.

11. Plot Structure 3 Climax • key scene (highest point) in the story—the most tense,exciting, or terrifying moment • Turning point: reveals the outcome of the conflict Paul and Miranda argue about his leaving for university. Paul must choose to stay or go.

12. Plot Structure 4 Falling Action • Connects the climax to the resolution • Eases suspense Paul thinks about it and makes his decision. He goes to talk to Miranda. [End of Section]

13. Plot Structure 5 Resolution, or denouement • final part of the story • the conflict is resolved Paul decides to leave for university. Miranda makes plans to visit him and wishes him well.

14. Identify the setting, characters (protagonist and antagonist), conflict (what it is and type), and the stages of plot in the following story. • Young William didn’t mind his hard work as the king’s stable boy because he loved horses. The king, however, was miserable because his kingdom had been invaded by a large fire-breathing dragon who smelled to high heaven. • William set out to kill the dragon in order to help the king. While he was riding into the woods, several robbers tried to hijack his horse. Poor William felt himself losing courage. • When he had just about decided to give up the chase and return home, William found himself staring down the dragon’s throat. Closing his eyes, he hurled his sword into the dragon’s windpipe. The monster gagged and began to die. • When he returned to the palace with the dragon’s head, William became a hero, although he had to spend the next two weeks soaking himself to get rid of the smell of a very dead dragon.

16. Theme—generalization about what events mean • Stated theme • author tells the reader what the overlying message of the story is; more limited • Implied theme • the reader must figure out what the theme is by looking carefully at what the story reveals about people or about life

17. The Open Boat by Stephen Crane None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks. Many a man ought to have a bathtub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea. These waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each froth-top was a problem in small-boat navigation. The cook squatted in the bottom and looked with both eyes at the six inches of gunwale which separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were rolled over his fat forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest dangled as he bent to bail out the boat. Often he said: "Gawd! That was a narrow clip." As he remarked it he invariably gazed eastward over the broken sea. The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes raised himself suddenly to keep clear of water that swirled in over the stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed often ready to snap. The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and wondered why he was there. The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to even the bravest and most enduring when, willynilly, the firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down. The mind of the master of a vessel is rooted deep in the timbers of her, though he commanded for a day or a decade, and this captain had on him the stern impression of a scene in the greys of dawn of seven turned faces, and later a stump of a top-mast with a white ball on it that slashed to and fro at the waves, went low and lower, and down. Thereafter there was something strange in his voice. Although steady, it was, deep with mourning, and of a quality beyond oration or tears. "Keep 'er a little more south, Billie," said he. "'A little more south,' sir," said the oiler in the stern. A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking broncho, and by the same token, a broncho is not much smaller. The craft pranced and reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high. The manner of her scramble over these walls of water is a mystic thing, and, moreover, at the top of them were ordinarily these problems in white water, the foam racing down from the summit of each wave, requiring a new leap, and a leap from the air. Then, after scornfully bumping a crest, she would slide, and race, and splash down a long incline, and arrive bobbing and nodding in front of the next menace.