Here are the elements of a short story that a reader should look for when analyzing.
ELEMENTS OF SHORT STORY – Whether you are a writer or a reader when analyzing a story, there are certain key elements you must be looking for.
In the short story genre, some of the most prominent figures are Anton Chekhov, O. Henry, Alice Munro, and Tobias Wolff. Apart from how they weave words and thoughts together to create an impact on the readers, they are also masters in combining the essential elements of a short story.
A short story is a brief fictional prose narrative that is relatively shorter than a novel with a few characters, limited settings, and a single major event. Simply speaking, this story is meant to be finished in a single sitting.
These elements are the best starting points for novice writers.
The five key elements of a short story:
- Plot
- Character
- Setting
- Conflict
- Theme
- Plot – This is the sequence of events in the story. It reflects the cause-and-effect chain of events that has a beginning, climax, and resolution. A strong plot ensures a captivating narrative – captivating enough to enthrall and attract readers. A has stages such as exposition, opening incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
- Character – The characters are the people, animals, or other figures in the stories. They are the ones that perform the action and tell the dialogue. It is not possible to have a story without a character or characters. Well-rounded and dynamic characters are the strength of the story and they could be classified as round or flat, dynamic or static, a protagonist or an antagonist.
- Setting – This is the power of being able to put a writer’s imagination into writing a whole other world into being. This is crucial as this has to be real to the reader. This establishes the time, place, and environment where the characters and events of the story are based.
- Conflict – This is associated with the theme of the narrative that serves as the motivation of the characters and impacts the plot. There are two types of conflict – internal or the person’s struggle with themselves and external or the problem between different people or groups of people.
- Theme – From a children’s point of view, this is the moral of the story. It also refers to the subject of the story, the idea that runs through it, or the message that the writer would like to relay to the readers.