kind of Literature and Story Elements

Genre is a French word meaning kind or group

It is pronounced jon-ra

- Three (3) Genres of Literature

1. PROSE
2. POETRY
3. DRAMA

- The word genre refers to:

a category of
•Artistic
•Musical or
•Literary
composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content.

1. PROSE :
Consists of those written within the common flow of conversation in
sentence and paragraphs. Prose is a form of language which applies
ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than
rhythmic structure (as in traditional poetry).

There are 2 kinds of Prose or Literature:
● Fiction
● Non-Fiction

KINDS OF LITERATURE

Fictional Literature is imaginary composed writing or work of art that is

meant to provide information, education and
entertainment to the reader. In other words, fictional literature is based on
the writer's imagination rather than reality.
Non-fictional Literature is factual writing or written work that gives facts
that can be proved as it provides real places, events, characters, times or
reality rather than imaginary things.
 

➢ Fiction :

-
Literature in the form of prose, especially short stories and novels,
that describes Imaginary events and people.
- There are 2 kinds of Fiction literature:
● Realistic Fiction - is a genre consisting of stories that could have actually
occurred to people or animals in a believable setting.
● Fantastic Fiction -a type of fiction that ideologically and by aesthetically
subordinates reality to imagination depicting a world of marvels that is
contrasted to everyday reality and to accepted views of what is credible.


➢ Non-Fiction :

Prose writing that is based on facts, real events, and real people. such as
biography or history.
There are 4 kinds of fiction Literature:
● Biographies : is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more
than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death,
but also portrays a subject's experience of these life events.
● Autobiographies : is a written account of the life of a person written by
that person.
● Essays : is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own
argument-but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of an article,
a pamphlet, and a short story.
● Articles - a piece of writing included with others In a newspaper,
magazine, or other publication.
● Humour-situations, speech, or writings that are thought to be
humorous.

ELEMENTS OF FICTION (THE STORY)

● Generally, fiction is any form of literature that tells about imaginary

(invented, made up or unreal) people, places, or events. Short stories, novels,
and folk tales are kinds of fiction.
● A short story is a short fictional prose narrative built on a plot that includes
the basic situation, complications, climax, and resolution.
● In contrast, a Novel is a long fictional story that uses all the elements of
storytelling, namely, plot, character, setting, theme, and point of view,
● Oral or traditional literature has some form of stories often told by word of
mouth from generation to generation such as folk tales. legends, and myths
which have now been written down as stories for us to read.


KINDS OF LITERATURE (CONT'D)

● Examples of Fictional Literature include plays, poems, short stories, novels,

oral literature, and songs
● Examples of Non-Fictional Literature include autobiographies. biographies,
essays, diaries and journals, magazines, newspapers, subject text books
such as in Geography, History and Civic Education.
● Generally, its main concern is with Drama (Plays). Fiction (stories). and
Poetry (Poems).

The Novel

★ Epistolary Novel
★ Historical Novel
★ Science Fiction
★ Crime
★ Utopia (Socio-political Satire)
★ Fantasy
★ Romance
★ Graphic (Comic) Novel
★ Young Adult
★ Horror/Gothic fiction

Short Story

The short story is an autonomous prose narrative that clocks in, typically, at
a length somewhere between 1,000 and 15,000 words..


 ELEMENTS OF FICTION

The Story, whether it is a short story, novel or fork tale, has the following
general elements that are used to analyze any written story:
❖ Author
❖ Setting
❖ plot
❖ Themes
❖ Characters
❖ Style
❖ Language

Short Story

➢ A fictional prose narrative that's longer than a couple of pages. but

recognizably shorter than a novel (or, indeed, a novella), the and
self-contained .
➢ While its precursors include both the fable and the framed tale the short
stand-alone story rose to prominence across Europe, the USA and beyond
during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in part due to the spread
of print periodicals and newspapers.
➢ This increase in popularity continued into the mid-20 century. thanks to the
rise of US university writing programmes and the widespread circulation of
literary journals. Its attraction to readers lies in its particular ability to express
an intense awareness of human loneliness

ELEMENTS OF FICTION (AUTHOR)

➢ Author: This is the writer of any written work of art or fiction. It is very important
to not only know the name of the author, but you should also understand and
appreciate his or her background. This will help you the reader to understand
what, how and why the author writes any story or novel.
➢ For example, authors have different writing styles in their works.
and they are motivated variously in their writing the story. Once you appreciate
these things about the author, it most likely that you shall understand and enjoy
the story you are reading and analyzing
 ELEMENTS OF FICTION (SETTING)
➢ Setting:
● This is the place and time in which the story unfolds or takes place.
● Setting is important in understanding the background and impact of the story
or incidents in the story. If a story is well told, we will recall the setting later,
long after we have put the story aside. Where the setting threatens the
characters, it creates the conflict which is as important in fiction writing or
literature.
● So, in interpreting or reviewing a setting of a story, you may have to ask and
answer such questions as: How does the setting or atmosphere influence the
work? Where do the events of story take place? When do they occur? What
was the mood when the incident took place?

ELEMENTS OF FICTION (PLOT)

● This is a series or chain of related events that tells us what happens in a story.
When a plot is well mapped out, it 'hooks' us. that is, it catches our curiosity
(interest) about what will happen next. A good plot draws us along after the
narrator, just as a fish is hooked and played and reeled in by an expert
fisherman. The first thing to recognize about plot is the nature of that hook
which pulls us along and keeps us reading. What the hook grabs is our own
curiosity, making us wonder about the outcome of a conflict. When a story is
strong, you can be reasonably sure its conflict is strong.

ELEMENTS OF PLOT
● Let us explore this idea of conflict further because it is a core or basic element
of plot in the story. It is conflict or struggle that gives any story its energy.
● This conflict can be between one person or animal and another, one person or
animal and a group of persons or a whole society, one person or animal and
nature, or one person or animal with something in the person or animal such
as fear, shyness, homesickness, or just an inability to make a decision.

ELEMENTS OF PLOT CONFLICT

● A conflict can be external, as when a person struggles with another person, or
with an angry warthog or with a hurricane. On the other hand, a conflict can be
internal, that is, it can take place inside a person's mind or heart. This might
happen when a character has to make a hard decision, or struggle against
fear, or resist an urge to poke his nose into everyone's business.

ELEMENTS OF PLOT
● More conflicts in a story result into complications that develop as you read
the story that require resolutions In most cases, these complications are full of
suspense that builds up as you anticipate what happens next in the story. This
leads to a climax in the story, that is, the most emotional moment or the
tensest mood of the story (breath-taking). Lastly, every story with conflicts
should come to a resolution or an end. Sometimes the story may end in
suspense, leaving you to guess what happens at the end of the story.
However, most stories especially short stories will often have a resolution or
conclusive end. In other words, your questions are answered at the end of the
story whether for good or bad.

ELEMENTS OF FICTION (THEME)

● Theme: This refers to the controlling, main idea or central insight in the novel
or short story. Theme answers the question "What does it mean?" A story's
theme is often hard to state, but it is what the author means or what the reader
perceives to mean by the whole story.
● A theme is usually stated in a sentence or statement. This is so because a
theme has to say something about the subject rather than just stated as a
subject phrase!


ELEMENTS OF PLOT
● Therefore, in interpreting or reviewing a plot for the story, you may have to ask
and answer such questions as: What is the central conflict of the story? Why
does the conflict occur? What larger meaning or picture is suggested by the
way the conflict is resolved?

ELEMENTS OF FICTION (THEMES)

Mostly questions are framed in such a way as to let you show that you have
learnt one or so lessons from the novel that bear on human interests. These
are usually challenging questions because they require you to have a good
overview of the text with regard to a wide spectrum of issues raised in tife
novel or short story. Such questions may be asked and answered as: What
central idea or insight into life does the work convey? How do other
elements help illustrate or reveal this idea or insight?

ELEMENTS OF FICTION (CHARACTERS)

● Characters: These are persons or animals involved inst story in order to show
entertain and show us some truth about human experience and ourselves. A
good character should be 'alive' to help us appreciate the story well. In a story,
we can recognize a character by his/her/its appearance, actions and thoughts,
 reactions of others (what other characters say or do in relation to the
character), and direct statement of the author (comments made by the writer of
the story as the narrator).
● However, the best story is one in which the narrator doesn't tell much directly
about what the character is like. Instead, you learn about the character
indirectly by how the character acts and how others act toward him/her, and
by noticing what he/she thinks and says.

ELEMENTS OF FICTION
● Characterization refers to the kinds of characters the novel or short story has
depending on the level of their development and involvement in the story of
the book. For example, are the characters flat or round. protagonists or
antagonists, major or minor, stars or backers?
● So, in most cases, questions come in such a way that you need to compare
and contrast, describe, discuss pros and cons of one or more characters with
regard to the development of the story or show appreciation of the characters
generally. In other words. you can ask and answer such questions as: Why do
characters act as they do? What are their motives? Do the characters change?
How do they change?

ELEMENTS OF FICTION (STYLE)

● This refers to the way the novel or short story is written in order to have a
desired effect on the reader or audience.
● It also refers to the techniques used by the writer of a
literary work such as point of view, humor, fantasy, flashbacks, tone, and so
on.
● Style of writing if understood and appreciated well, can help you to analyze the
story very well.

● On rare occasions, questions are asked to test your knowledge and skills in
these literary devices or techniques based on a novel or story that you have
read. The questions that may help you interpret or review a work of literature
include: What stylistic devices does the author use? What effects do they
have? How does the tone, or author's attitude, affect the work of art?

● Point of View: This refers to the style the writer of a story uses to narrate the
story. In other words, writers usually chose who should tell the story or who
should be the mouth piece in the story. So, you can tell the story from various
angles by using points of view. There are three basic points of view often used
in narratives: omniscient, third-person limited, and first-person.

● The third-person (limited) point of view is where the writer has decided to tell
the story from the limited point of view of a single person (participant) in the
story. This kind of story reads as if a camera is zooming in on just one
character. The writer uses the third person singular (he or she, or the actual
name) of the character. This is very close to the omniscient point of view in
that the writer still takes a prominent role.

● The omniscient (unlimited) point of view is the point of view of a god-like

(all-knowing) being who has created a fictional world and who can tell us
everything that is going on in the minds of all the characters. The omniscient
narrator is outside the story; he or she is not part of the action at all.

● And in the first-person (limited) point of view, the narrator speaks as 'T. as a
character in the story This character can tell us only what he or she sees and
hears and thinks about what is going on. In other words, the narrator is a
participant in the story. The writer chooses to tell the story in the name of
another fictitious person and uses the first person pronoun T as witness and
partecipant in the events that unfold in the story. In this case, the point of view
is also limited in that the narrator can only tell what he or she sees or
experiences rather than what others do.

● In order to review the points of view of any story, you may need to ask and
answer such questions as:
● What is the point of view used in the story?
● Is it consistently used?
● How does it affect your understanding of the work?
● Why did the author choose that point of view?