Elements & Structure of Short Story

Mrs.
ABEER ALI
 Type of literary Writing that is A story that
A play written work written in real and factual didn’t happen
for theater and specific or that actually in real life
way(usually using happened
stage
lines & stanza
performance.

Drama Poetry Non-fiction Fiction

Sonnet biography fantasy

Comedy
Free verse autobiography folklore
Tragedy historical
limerick Speech
mystery
Epic poetry
romance

elegy Science fiction

 What is meant by short story?

Short story as a Genre:-

The short story is the most recent genre appeared in western literature. Its basic forms came from writers in the
19th century.
Short story : a work of prose fiction shorter than short novel, more restricted in characters and situations.
 The Elements of a Short story

Point of
plot characters conflict
Setting view
 The plot

What is plot?

: the plot answers the question of what's the story about?

Plot is what happens in the beginning , middle and end of the story.

In other words it’s the events in the story.

What is the happy princes’ plot?

Plot Line ‫ﺗرﺗﯾب اﻟﻘﺻﺔ‬

Exposition

Rising action

Conflict

Falling action

Resolution
 Exposition Rising action climax

-Occurs near the end of the

Exposition: is the -Consists of the main story.
beginning of the story. events. -it gives end or solution to
the conflict in the story.
-Introduces : -it focuses on events
1-Characters. that increasing -problem is solved
2-Setting tension. -character learn to live with
3-Conflict the problem.
-character dies.

Falling action
-Deals with the result of the climax.
-How do the protagonist’s actions from
the climax affect him – or herself and
other characters.
 What are the characters? The characters

Characters answer the question (who).

The characters are , the people, the animals, or objects the
story follows.
We have different types of characters just like:
The protagonist
The antagonist
As well as in every story we have two different roles played
characters like main characters and minor characters.

Who are the main and minor characters in the happy

princes’ story?
 Setting

Setting:-
includes the time and place of the story. 2-Time ‫) )زﻣﺎن‬
The word setting answer the question
regarding:-
A -Historical period : which century or age
-where the story takes place and when? the story reflects. Or in which year the story
takes place.
The setting implies : ‫ زﻣﺎن‬+ ‫ﻣﻜﺎن‬ B -Time of the day : when exactly every
important event or conflict occurs. For example
:
1-Place (‫)ﻣﻜﺎن‬ - In the morning.
-Geographical location : which country. - Afternoon.
-Environment: where the events of story - In the evening.
happen exactly : (city , forest , sea , Ocean) - In the midnight.

C- weather Condition:
-is it sunny
-Rainy or
-windy
-Summer or winter
 Conflict ‫ﻧﻘﻄﺔ اﻟﺼﺮاع ﻓﻲ اﻟﻘﺼﺔ‬

Conflict: is the main problem of the story.

-the conflict focuses on the problem of the story and how to fix it.

Why does conflict

Types of Conflict:- matter?
1- External Conflict: ‫ﺻﺮاع ﺧﺎرﺟﻲ‬ No conflict ,no story
-Person vs. person
-Person vs. nature
-person vs. Society

2-Internal Conflict: ‫ﺻﺮاع داﺧﻠﻲ‬

-Person vs. self
-Person vs. fear
-Person vs. feelings
 Point of view
What is point of view?

Point of view answers the question of :who is speaking?

It’s the perspective of which the story is being told often times.

There are three points of view:

-1st person-when the person telling the story uses :( I , me . My ,we and Us)
-
-2nd person-when the person telling the story uses: (You)

-3rd person ( narrator) ‫ اﻟﺮواي‬-when the person telling the story uses : (she , he , it ,they).
(The narrator) is the person who tells us the story events.
(The author) is the writer who wrote the story.
(Characters) are persons ( figures)who act in the story.
 What is theme?

Theme answers the question of “why”

.
The theme is the subject of the writing or the underlying message of the
story .it can be moral, emotional message . sometimes stories have
multiple themes. Just like we have different themes in the story of the
happy prince.

What are themes of the happy princes’ story?

Differences between Novel & short
story
1.LENGTH

•A modern short story is usually no shorter than 1000 words but no longer than 20,000 words. There have been short
stories written in just a few paragraphs. In many instances, however, the longer short stories, or the ones that range
from 10,000 to 20,000 words, are referred to as novellas.

2.PLOTS AND SUBPLOTS

•You do not need an awful lot more going on when writing a novel. You need a lot more development of the strands
you have – reaction from characters, how they feel, how they grow, how they deal with problems.

•Subplots can be used in both short stories and novels, but are mostly used in novels. They are parallel stories that run
alongside the main narrative that enriches the plot or the theme in some way.

3.COMPLEXITY OF CONFLICT

•Short stories contain problems that are resolvable quickly. They usually focus on one aspect of a character’s life, or
one aspect of a problem/relationship in a character’s life.

•In a novel, the issues and conflict tend to be deeper, and ideas can expand in more than one direction. The difference
lies in the size of the problem and how easily resolvable it is.
4.TIME SPAN

•The difference between a short story and a

novel is not necessarily to do with time
span. Some novels are set in a day; Some
short stories can be set over several days, or
even several years or different time periods.
Usually, how ever, flash fiction (a very
short story) is contained to one moment or
one scene.

5.DEPTH

•The biggest difference between a short

story and a novel, though, is how deep the
writing goes. Novels have the room to
contain a deeper exploration of a larger
number of characters, details, thoughts, and
so on, and can more easily hold multiple
points of view.
 y o u
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