Narrative Conventions
The Plot
Plot is what happens in a story. It shows a causal arrangement of events and actions within a story.
See below Freytag's Pyramid which describes the elements of plot.
See below Freytag's Pyramid which describes the elements of plot.
Exposition: The start of the story. The way things are before the action starts.
Rising Action: The series of conflicts and crisis in a story which lead to the climax.
Climax: The turning point. The most intense moment.
Falling Action: All of the action which follows a climax.
Denouement (Resolution): The conclusion, the tying together of all the threads.
Rising Action: The series of conflicts and crisis in a story which lead to the climax.
Climax: The turning point. The most intense moment.
Falling Action: All of the action which follows a climax.
Denouement (Resolution): The conclusion, the tying together of all the threads.
Characterisation
Characterisation is the method used by a writer to develop a character.
The method includes (1) letting the character speak (Says), (2) showing the character's appearance (Appearance), (3) displaying the character's actions (Actions), (4) getting the reactions of others (Others) and (5) revealing the character's thoughts (Thoughts).
These elements of characterisation can be remembered by the mneumonic SAAOT.
Activity:
Read this short story and consider all of the elements that construct character. You might like to use a retrieval chart to help you. Use the chart to note down examples. The examples will tell you what kind of person the character is. You should develop these ideas in your chart.
The method includes (1) letting the character speak (Says), (2) showing the character's appearance (Appearance), (3) displaying the character's actions (Actions), (4) getting the reactions of others (Others) and (5) revealing the character's thoughts (Thoughts).
These elements of characterisation can be remembered by the mneumonic SAAOT.
Activity:
Read this short story and consider all of the elements that construct character. You might like to use a retrieval chart to help you. Use the chart to note down examples. The examples will tell you what kind of person the character is. You should develop these ideas in your chart.
You may also consider the following:
- Are the characters believable? Have you ever felt like this character, or have you known anyone who felt like this character? What about the character seemedreal and true?
- Is each character’s behavior consistent with what we know about him or her? Does the behavior remain consistent throughout the book? Is the change that occurs in the character consistent with what we know about the character?
- Although the character’s behavior is consistent, is it also not stereotyped? Does the character’s behavior show that the character is a unique individual?
- Do you identify with the character? How would you have reacted if you were the character?
- Does the character change or learn as the story progresses? Does the character reach a new understanding about the situation or about life?
- Is the character memorable? Will you remember this character in a month?
Setting
Every story would be another story, and unrecognisable if it took up its characters and plot and happened somewhere else... Fiction depends for its life on place. Place is the crossroads of circumstance, the proving ground of, What happened? Who's here? Who's coming? -- Eudora Welty
When creating a setting writers use language to give us details about where the events of their story will take place, and where their characters exist. Sometimes an author will leave much of the setting to the reader's imagination. Other times they will paint a picture with words.
Writers may describe sights, sounds, colours, and textures. Setting might include the following:
Activity:
Consider the setting in this short story. What feeling is created by the description of the setting?
When creating a setting writers use language to give us details about where the events of their story will take place, and where their characters exist. Sometimes an author will leave much of the setting to the reader's imagination. Other times they will paint a picture with words.
Writers may describe sights, sounds, colours, and textures. Setting might include the following:
- Place/surroundings/location
- Time of day
- Time of year/season
- Era (year/decade/century)
Activity:
Consider the setting in this short story. What feeling is created by the description of the setting?
Narrative point of view
The person who is used to tell the story is called the narrator, a character developed by the author expressly for the purpose of relating events to the audience.
First-person narrative: The story is told by a narrator who is also a character within the story. This way the narrator is able to reveal the plot of the story from their perspective. The first-person narrative is used to convey the internal, otherwise unspoken thoughts of the narrator; thoughts that may not necessarily be conveyed to other characters within the story. Often, the narrator's story will revolve around him/herself and readers will follow their actions as the protagonist of the story. It also allows the character to be further developed through his/her own style in telling the story. The story will be told using pronouns "I", "me", "my" and plural, "we".
Second-person narrative: This mode is very rarely used in fictions texts. You will often find that self-help books and non-fictions texts use this point of view as a way of delivering instructions and involving the reader. Fiction texts may use second-person narrative in a similar way, the intention being to involve the reader as a character in the text. The story will use "you".
You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might become clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder. Then again, it might not. A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity is a result of too much of that already.
-- Jay McInerney Bright Lights, Big City
Third-person narrative: This is the most commonly used narrative mode in literature. When an author uses third-person narrative they will refer to all of their characters as "he", "she", "it", or "they", but never as "I" or "we" (first-person), or "you" (second-person). In third-person narrative, the narrator will be an uninvolved onlooker who conveys the story, but who is not a character within the story.
Third-person narrative can be split into two axes:
The advantage of first-person narrative and third-person limited narrative is the access they provide in terms of a character's thoughts and feelings/why they feel the way they do/ why they may act in a certain way/ their values/attitudes.
Third-person omniscient has its advantages if you wish to see into the lives of many characters to gain a greater understanding them and why they do/say the things they do.
First-person narrative: The story is told by a narrator who is also a character within the story. This way the narrator is able to reveal the plot of the story from their perspective. The first-person narrative is used to convey the internal, otherwise unspoken thoughts of the narrator; thoughts that may not necessarily be conveyed to other characters within the story. Often, the narrator's story will revolve around him/herself and readers will follow their actions as the protagonist of the story. It also allows the character to be further developed through his/her own style in telling the story. The story will be told using pronouns "I", "me", "my" and plural, "we".
Second-person narrative: This mode is very rarely used in fictions texts. You will often find that self-help books and non-fictions texts use this point of view as a way of delivering instructions and involving the reader. Fiction texts may use second-person narrative in a similar way, the intention being to involve the reader as a character in the text. The story will use "you".
You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might become clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder. Then again, it might not. A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity is a result of too much of that already.
-- Jay McInerney Bright Lights, Big City
Third-person narrative: This is the most commonly used narrative mode in literature. When an author uses third-person narrative they will refer to all of their characters as "he", "she", "it", or "they", but never as "I" or "we" (first-person), or "you" (second-person). In third-person narrative, the narrator will be an uninvolved onlooker who conveys the story, but who is not a character within the story.
Third-person narrative can be split into two axes:
- Subjectivity/objectivity axis, with "subjective" narration describing one or more character's feelings and thoughts, while "objective" narration does not describe the feelings or thoughts of any characters.
- "Omniscient" and "limited", a distinction that refers to the knowledge available to the narrator. An omniscient narrator has omniscient knowledge of time, people, places and events; a limited narrator, in contrast, may know absolutely everything about a single character and every piece of knowledge in that character's mind, but it is "limited" to that character—that is, it cannot describe things unknown to the focal character.
The advantage of first-person narrative and third-person limited narrative is the access they provide in terms of a character's thoughts and feelings/why they feel the way they do/ why they may act in a certain way/ their values/attitudes.
Third-person omniscient has its advantages if you wish to see into the lives of many characters to gain a greater understanding them and why they do/say the things they do.