Literary Elements

1. Literary Elements

2. Character • Who the story is about. • Effective development of the character is very important • Characters are developed from 3 sources: narrator’s description, other characters, the character him/herself. • Main characters are called protagonist • Dynamic characters change due to circumstances presented in bk. • When many traits of a character are shown they are refered to rounded characters

3. Point of view • Refers to who is telling the story- the author or the characters or both • Omniscient point of view- all knowing (past present, future, people’s thoughts,etc- usually a 3rd party. • In objective point of view reader learns about characters by their actions. • Points of view of different characters can change the story dramatically.

4. Setting • Refers to where and when the story took place. • May be important or not. Settings depicting history are important. • Settings should be revealed subtly as the story develops instead of tonnes of description.

5. Plot • Refers to sequence of events in a story. • Cumulative plots have some repetition with something new being added as the bk progresses. • Linear- introduces character-> problem-> solution. • Episodic- one bk, many chapters & stories, same characters. • Circular- are like linear, only that the character finds himself in the same situation as he started e.g. If you took a mouse to the movies

6. Theme • Refers to the central idea, underlying message in the bk. • Themes are very elusive and should be very clearly stated.

7. Style • Refers to how the book is written. E.g, Dr. Seuss has a distinctive style. • Hard to pinpoint

8. Tone • Is it humorous, serious, sympathetic, hopeful, longing, wondrous, nostalgic, etc