Elements of Fiction

Plot
Customary outline:
introduction
rising action
climax
falling action
resolution/denouement
NOT ALL STORIES FOLLOW THE ABOVE ORDER--NOR ARE ALL NOVELS OR STORIES TOLD IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER Example: The Things They Carried
Conflict
5 most common:
Man vs. man - the simplest form of conflict; refer to the NFL, SEC or the like
Man vs. fate - one of the oldest conflict; consider the Iliad and the Oddessy
Man vs. nature/circumstance - Jack London's novels, stories or those in which the protagonist is set in a situation over which he has no control; example: "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane
Man vs. society - sometimes coincides with man vs. man - as in Ibsen's Enemy of the People
Man vs. himself- Faulkner referred to it as "the heart in conflict with itself;" O'Brien called it "the heart under pressure"

Protagonist
Antagonist

Characterization:
Round Character
Flat Character
Stereotype
Static Character
Dynamic Character
DIRECT
INDIRECT – involves INFERENCE –based on author’s indirect information—what the character says, does, what is said about him AND your own knowledge and observation

Setting – time and place – the location

Irony
3 types:
Dramatic irony
Verbal irony
Irony of situation

Symbolism – a symbol is often an object, color, name, number or other device an author uses to suggest or represent MORE than it actually presents

Point of View
3rd person omniscient - the author/narrator (sometimes the same; sometimes NOT in THE THINGS THEY CARRIED) - is able to relate to the reader what the characters (specifically Jimmy Cross) is feeling and thinking
1st person - in the 2nd story, "Love," the narrator is part of the story and tells it from his perspective, using the personal pronoun "I"

PERSONA - a persona is a character the author creates and uses as a often his voice in the novel, but . . . he is NOT the author; Tim O'Brien, the author, creates the character of Tim O'Brien the soldier in Vietnam

CATHARSIS - a release of emotions on the part of characters OR the reader

THEME – is greater than the story itself – Theme reveals a truth about life—not just life in the story, but life in the real world, life in the present -- for instance . . . O'Brien uses war as a vehicle to say something about people in general. By placing his characters in the middle of a Vietnamese jungle, during the Vietnam conflict, he guarantees stress and pressure on each man; on one level, the novel deals with a group of innocent young men, facing daily conflict with the enemy (man vs. man), but on a deeper level, each man must deal with the pressure of war (or life) in his own way, successfully or unsuccessfully; it is a novel of initiation, but of more than that. It is a novel that questions what truth is, whether sacrifice for society is worth the sacrifice of self, and why storytelling is important.