Features of Prose - The Building Blocks for a novel or Story

Plot- Every novel tells a story and of course, so does every short story. The story is merely a
chronological series of happenings ( this happened and then that happened. The word plot
describes the way the writer tells the story- the way the information is given.

Characters- We refer to the people in the story as characters. The word characters' is
convenient because sometimes the story is not about people at all. In Orwell's Animal Farm, for
example, the characters are mostly farm animals.

Setting
Any action takes place somewhere- in a classroom, on an airliner, in the rainforest. In prose
fiction, it is supplied by description. Sometimes they may be more than one set in a novel. The
setting will tell us something about the characters and what is going on in their lives.

Themes
Every good writer wants to share some idea, opinion, or concern with the world. The novel or
the short story may just be the 'coat hanger' on which those ideas or opinions are hung. We call
those ideas or opinions that the writer is dealing with the themes. For example, the story may be
about a friendship between two boys, but the theme is racism.

Conflict
Wherever there are people there are conflicts. Every work of prose fiction presents a conflict.
The conflict may be between two characters, between one individual and society, or even within
the individual.

Style
Every story has its own style. To determine the style of the story you can ask yourself the
following questions:

What kind of imagery is being used?

What kind of words is being used?

The key point to note

In any short story or novel, you will find three principal types of writing: narration, description,
and dialogue. The narrative passages move the story along to tell you what happened. The
descriptive passages invite you to form a mental image of a person or place. And in the
passages of dialogue, the characters are given lines to speak.