• Reading, Responding, Writing

FICTION • Key Concepts, ELEMETNS.

 Reading, Responding, Writing
FICTION

• Stories are part of our daily life.

Are all stories real?
• Pay attention to details, speaker, motives, point of view …etc.
 Reading, Responding, Writing
FICTION

“If in the first act you have a pistol on the wall, then in the following
one it should be fired. Otherwise, don’t put it there.”
Anton Chekhov
Check the example
Check the example

How much we know depends

on what a narrator tells us.
 Telling and Interpreting Stories

Listening to other interpretation of stories can enhance one’s understanding

Questions pages: 15,16
 Reading, Responding, Writing
FICTION
• FICTION:
Stories or narratives about imaginary people and events in prose.
• STORY:
A short account of an incident or series of incidents. They can be actual or invented.
So, Fiction tells you invented stories only, while a Story can be real or made up.
• Real like when you say, “let me tell you a story that happened to me today” .
• Made up like “The Bet”.
 Oral Narratives and Tales

• Oral narratives are the stories that were sung or recited (told, spoken) for many
years by storytellers before they were written down.

• It is difficult to determine the author of these stories.

• Sometimes storytellers add, omit, or change some aspects of an oral narrative. So,
consider that the author of an oral narrative is the whole community that
passed it from a generation to the other.
 Oral Narratives and Tales

• Storytellers use certain signals to 1. distinguish between a story and everyday

speech, and 2. to draw listener’s attention.
• Examples of these signals are:
i. “Once upon a time”: shows listeners that a storyteller is about to tell a story.
ii. “The End” or “and they lived happily ever after”: show the listeners that the
storyteller finished his story.
 Genres of Fiction by Length

Literature can be classified into different genres by either contextual factors

(like historical or cultural contexts), or by textual features (the features and
characteristics of the text like setting, characters, style and plot).
• One of the textual features is length.
• This is one of the ways that the main genres of fiction (novel, novella, short
story, and short short story) are classified; according to their length.
 Genres of Prose Fiction by Length

• Novel: extended fictional prose narrative, 40,000 words. (the longest of all genres).
E.g., Crime and Punishment, Great Expectations …etc.
• Novella: Shorter than a novel but still long enough to explore characters deeply
and create complicated plot, 17,000-40,000 words. E.g., Animal Farm.
• Short story: Shorter than the previous two genres, 1000-20,000 words, and it can
be read in one sitting.
• Short short story: “flash fiction, micro-fiction” It is a recent invention.
 FICTION vs. NONFICTION

• Fiction: stories or narratives about imaginary people and imaginary

events.
• Nonfiction: stories or narratives about actual people and actual
events.

Nonfiction is real and factual writing, unlike fiction which is imaginative

and creative.
 Writing about Fiction

• It helps if you try to answer questions in page 15.

Elements of
Fiction
 Plot

Narrator

Elements of Character

Fiction Setting

Symbols and Language

Theme
 Plot

• What happened?... What will happen next?

• Definition: The way the author arranges and paces the events so as to shape our
response and interpretation.
• E. M. Foster insists that a plot should be tampered with (causality).
The king died and then the queen died vs. the queen died after the king died.
• Subplot: a plot that receives less attention and time than another. (minor plot)
 Pace
• Duration of particular episodes, relative to each other and to the time they
would have taken in real life.
In other words, how long events last compared to each other and to how long they
take in real life.
• Pacing is an important factor to consider in analyzing plots.
• The author has control over sequence and pace to determine focus and emphasis,
effect and meaning.
• Discriminated occasion: when an author slows down to focus on a particular
incident.
 Run into someone
But, one Sunday, having gone to
take a walk in the Champs
Elysée to refresh herself from
the labors of the week, she
suddenly perceived a woman
who was leading a child. It was
Pace Mme. Forestier, still young, still
beautiful, still charming.
……
"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why,
my necklace was paste. It was
worth at most five hundred
francs!"
10 years
Mme. Loisel now knew the
horrible existence of the needy.
She took her part, moreover, all
on a sudden, with heroism. That
dreadful debt must be paid. She
would pay it. They dismissed
their servant; they changed their
lodgings; they rented a garret
under the roof.
……
And this life lasted ten years.
 Conflict
• Definition: a struggle and its resolution.
• It could be:
a. External (persons, nature, events and forces), e.g., action movies, Friends, .
Note that the conflict could be subtle, e.g., fighting a disease, social forces etc.
b. Internal confusion; two competing forces withing the character (greed vs. patience).
c. Both types.
Activity
What are the type/types of conflict in “Cinderella”?
Parts of Plot
 • Does every plot follow a
chronological order (start from
Conflict the beginning and move to the
end)?
 Flashback: presenting Flashforward:
events that happened jumping forward in
before the opening time to present a later
event or episode

Conflict

Foreshadow: hinting
.at a later event
 Common Plot Types

• Quest: a character’s journey to find something or someone of huge value.

• Tragedy: follows the downfall of a central character. Unhappy ending.
• Comedy: humorous incidents, dialogue and characters. Ends happily after a recognition or a
change of heart.

For more info. check The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories by Christopher Booker.
• Plot summary:
Difference between plot and action or story.
Not allowed to add explanation or interpretation. Preferably stick to the text order.
• Activity
Write a one paragraph plot summary of a fiction you read.
Narration and
Point of View
• Narrator:
The person who is telling the story.
• Point of view:
1. Voice:
The verbal quality of the narration.
2. Focus:
The visual angle of the narration.
 Discussion

• Is it possible for a story to have more than

one point of view (narrator)? If so, how can
you distinguish between them? Explain.

• Can you trust the narrator? Do narrators

tell the truth always? Do some of them lie?
Can some of them be unaware of the
certain events? Can they be biased?
 Types of Narration

Third-Person First-Person
Second-Person
Narration Narration
Narration
(external) (internal)

• Pronoun You • Pronouns I, We • Pronouns

• Turns the reader • Could be unreliable; a He/She/They
to a character. fool, villain, insane, i. Omniscient
• Unusual. hypocrite etc. ii. Limited
 Tense

• Because stories live in memory, they usually use past tense.

• Present tense could give a sense of immediacy, dreamlike, magical state.

Not common.

• Future tense for prophetic outlook. Rarely used.

• Does the narrator represent the author? Is there
a gap between the two?

IMPLIED AUTHOR:
“The reader’s image of the author based on the
text”.
• What is the narrator type in
“The Story of An Hour”?
• What is the tense used?
Questions about narration and point of view
 Character
• Any personage in a literary work that acts,
appears or is referred to as playing a part.

• Is it only humans who play roles in stories?

Or can an object play a role? How?
clip
Character
A clip.
• Hero/heroine and Villains vs. Protagonist and
Antagonist
Antihero
• Major vs. Minor characters
• Flat vs. Round characters TYPES
Joey in Friends and the happy prince in The Happy Prince
• Static vs. Dynamic characters
Patrick Star (SpongeBob) vs. Mme. Loisel in The Necklace
• Stock characters:
Familiar types, e.g., dumb blond, mad scientist, absent-minded professor.
• Archetypes:
Character that appears in many cultures and ages, it represents a universal human pattern.
e.g., the mean mother-in-law, the kind grandmother, the mentor.
• Characterization: the art and technique od representing fictional personages.
Direct and Indirect
 What type of characterization is used for Wednesday?
 Setting

• Explains where and when?

1. Temporal setting (Time)
2. Geographical setting (Place)

• Can a setting determine genre?

• Can a work of art have multiple times and places?
• The moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and
breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding−places.
• Frankenstein.
 Functions of Setting
Establishes:
1. Mood: triggers feelings in the reader, e.g., "bright place: joy,
comfort/ dark place: fear, suspense, excitement…”
2. Situation: readers begin developing expectations about what
might happen. E.g., if a story starts in a hospital room, readers
expect the struggle to be with a disease.
3. Character: a place reveals aspect of the characters. E.g., old
Western town: characters are likely cowboys and outlaws/ not
scientists.
* A character’s house or bedroom reveals characteristics about
him/her. E.g., a house full of clocks: character is obsessed with
time. A messy bedroom: messy or sad person.
 Functions of Setting
4. Conflict: setting can increase a conflict. E.g., in The
Devil Wears Prada, the main character struggles with
body image issues and with her desire to succeed in
her career, so a high demanding job for a renowned
fashion magazine is perfect to highlight those
struggles.
5. Theme: setting helps develop the theme. E.g., in
WALL-E, one of the themes is warning against the
consequences of pollution, so setting the movie in the
future when the planet is destroyed emphasizes this
theme.
 Vague vs. Vivid Setting

• Do all stories rely on setting? To what extent?

Can a setting be vague? Can a setting be a
crucial element of the story?
 Vague vs. Vivid Setting

• Archetypal setting: vague: “long time ago”, “in a land far away”, “in a dark
castle”, "‫ …“في قديم الزمان‬etc.
Significance: urges readers to see the conflict as universal and timeless, not
exclusive to certain time, place, or people.
• Certain stories cannot be removed from their setting, otherwise they would not
work. E.g., Titanic, Wild West Stories.
• Most fiction takes a place between these two extremes.
 Traditional
Expectations of
Time And Place
Symbols and Figurative Language
• Definition: something that represent something else.
• Types (in general):
1. Symbols that resemble what they represent. E.g., skull and bones.
2. Arbitrary symbols. E.g., stop sign in traffic, the alphabet.
• Literary symbol: it expresses abstractions in a more concrete form.
It carries rich meanings, appears multiple times.
• Traditional symbols: used by many people for a long time.
Blue balloons for boys and pink balloons for girls
• Archetypal symbols: apple orchard.
• Literary symbol: Examples.
1. Rain symbolizes/represents rebirth and new start.
2. Blood on a character’s hands: feelings of guilt.
3. Green and white: Saudi patriotism.
4. Fog: confusion.
5. Central Perk Café sofa in Friends: characters’ unity.
6. Balloons: hope and moving forward, e.g., Up.
• FIGURES OF SPEECH: a word or phrase that replaces literal meaning.
• They constitute the imagery of a story.
Key Figures of Speech:
• Allegory: is an extended symbol.
It has two levels of meanings. E.g., Animal Farm
• Myth.
• Allusion: reference to someone or something external to the text.
E.g., quotes and mentioning famous names.
• Irony: meaning or outcome contrary to the expected.
Meaning:
1. "Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.“ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
2. Saying (Sure! It's not like I have anything better to do) when you are busy.
Outcome:
3. A fire station burns down.
4. A YouTube video about the uselessness of social media.
5. A person gets hit by an ambulance.
6. ‫باب النجار مخلوع‬.
Sarcasm: a form of irony but is harsh and intended to mock.
 Key Figures of Speech
• Metaphor: representing something as if it were another, without using like or as.
e.g., the expression “family tree”
• Simile: representing something as if it were another, while using like or as.
e.g., “He looks like a beggar”
--------------------
• Metonymy: referring to something by naming something related to it.
e.g., crown represents power, The White House represents the USA administration.
• Synecdoche: referring to something by one of its parts, the part represents the whole.
e.g., asks a woman’s hand in marriage, hand refers to a lady and it is a part of the lady.
 Key Figures of Speech
• Oxymoron: contradiction
e.g., wise fool, open secret
• Personification: attributing human qualities to nonhuman objects.
e.g., the lion in The Lion King.
• Symbol: something that represents more than its literal meaning.
 Theme
• The theme of a work is the general idea
conveyed by that work.
• Theme does not mean the objective or purpose
of a work, rather, it is the meaning of it.
• Some texts, like fables, explicitly state their
themes (direct). Others imply it, making the
reader think, guess and reread (indirect).
Theme or Themes

• One theme and several subthemes, or multiple

themes?
• The main point is that a literary work expresses
multiple ideas.
Theme vs Topic
• The theme of a work is the insight or idea it expresses
about a topic.
When you want to identify theme, don’t say it is “love”. You
have to say what the work says about love.
• However, do not be very specific and, for example,
describe what the characters do or say.
• Theme vs. Plot
Theme vs Moral
• Moral: a rule of conduct or maxim for living.
• Most themes are observations and insights. It is about
how human behave rather than how they should
behave.
• What a story teaches vs. What it reveals.
• Rule: Phrase the theme as a statement rather than a
command.
 Tips for Identifying a Theme
• Pay attention to:
1. The title, chapters titles, quotations the authors include.
2. Repeated words, phrases and objects.
3. Reasons behind a character’s change.
4. Conflicts in the work.
5. Characters’ general statements about life, human nature, morality, religion, evilness, truth,
nobility… etc. E.g.:
There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men
and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A
kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked
upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
The End