THE SIX ELEMENTS OF A SHORT STORY

 Time (Historical period, time of the day, year, etc)

 Place (Geographical location)
SETTING  Weather conditions
 Social conditions (Character´s daily life – speech, dress, mannerisms, customs of a particular place)
 Mood or atmosphere (Type of feeling created at the beginning of the story)

How the author arranges events to develop his basic idea (sequence of events in a story or event.)
Author´s events are a planned, logical series of events having a beginning, middle and end

 Introduction – Characters and setting are revealed.

Elements of the  Rising action – Events in the story become complicate; conflict in the story is revealed (between introduction and climax)
short story  Climax –Highest point of interest; the turning point of the story revealing conflicts in the story.

PLOT A) Main character receives new information

B) Accepts this information to which he/she does not agree
Three-fold phenomenon
C) Acts on this information, making a choice that will determine if he/she gains his/her objective.

 Falling action – Events and complications begin to resolve themselves; the reader knows what has happened and if the complicit was resolved or not (Between
climax and denouement)
 Denouement (Desenlace) - Final outcome or untangling of events in the story.

External – Struggle with a force outside one´s self

The two types of conflict Internal – A person must make some decisions to overcome pain, quiet tempered.

The four kind of conflicts :

CONFLICT a) Man vs. Man (Physical)
b) Man vs. circumstances (Circumstances in his/her life the character must face)
c) Man vs. Society (Character struggles against ideas, practices, or customs of other people)
d) Man Vs. Himself /Herself (Physiological) – Character deal with his/her ideas of right or wrong and struggles with his/her soul

1) The person in a work of fiction

The character must seem real to the spectator:
Characterization is the info the author gives about the character. The character may be revealed by the author in several ways

a) Physical appearance
CHARACTER b) Character´s thoughts, feelings and dreams
c) What the character does not do
d) What others say about him/her and how others react to him/her

2) The characteristics of a person

a. One character is the central to the story with all major events having some importance to this character PROTAGONIST.
b. The opposer of the main character is called the ANTAGONIST.

CHARACTERS ARE CONVINCING IF THEY ARE CONSISTENT, MOTIVATED AND LIFE-LIKE

 Types of characters:
a. Individual – Round, many sided and complicated personality
b. Developing – Dynamic, many sided personalities that change, for better or worse by the end of the story
c. Static – Stereotype, have one or two characteristics

Defined as the angle from which the story is told

Point of view a. Innocent eye – The story is told through a child´s eyes, and his judgments differ from those of adults
(p.o.v) b. Stream of consciousness – The story is told in order the reader feels as if he/she were inside the character’s head, knowing all thoughts and reactions.
c. First person – The story is told by the protagonist or a character who interacts with him/her. We use pronouns such as I, me, we, etc. With this point of
view, the reader can only see he story through the character´s experiences, the reader only knows what the character knows or feels.
d. Omniscient – The author can move from one character to another, or from one event to another event, having free access to the characters´ thoughts,
feelings and motivations; he can also introduce information when and where he chooses. Type point of view is divided into two parts:

1) Omniscient limited: 2) Omniscient objective

*story told in 3rd person *Also in 3rd person, but there is no comments about character´s though
*We can see thoughts / feelings of characters if the * Reader is put in the position of spectator without the author there to
Author chooses to reveal them to us. explain – the reader has to interpretate events on its own

 Control ideas or the insights of the short story

 Maybe author´s thoughts about a topic or view of human nature
Themes  Titles of short stories usually point to what the writer is saying
 Figures of speech are used to emphasize his theme: Symbol, allusion, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or irony