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Elements of Story

The document discusses the five key elements of a short story: plot, character, setting, conflict, and theme. It provides details on each element and how authors should use them when writing a short story. For plot, it explains the stages of exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. It emphasizes that characters in short stories are glimpsed rather than seen fully, and should have flaws. Setting establishes time, place, and environment. Conflict can be internal or external and drives the story. Finally, theme is the implied moral or message of the story.

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Sherilyn Apostol
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109 views6 pages

Elements of Story

The document discusses the five key elements of a short story: plot, character, setting, conflict, and theme. It provides details on each element and how authors should use them when writing a short story. For plot, it explains the stages of exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. It emphasizes that characters in short stories are glimpsed rather than seen fully, and should have flaws. Setting establishes time, place, and environment. Conflict can be internal or external and drives the story. Finally, theme is the implied moral or message of the story.

Uploaded by

Sherilyn Apostol
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Here are the five key elements of a short story:

1. Plot
2. Character
3. Setting
4. Conflict
5. Theme
Let’s take a closer look at these elements and figure out how you should use
them in a short story.

#1 Plot
A simple way to define plot is to call it a sequence of events in your
narrative. It is a cause-and-effect chain of events that has a beginning
point, a climax, and a resolution.

Writers use the plot to map out their story before beginning their writing process.
For fiction writing, this serves as a creative outline. So, an understanding of the
plot is crucial to craft a compelling narrative and make it impactful.
The sequence of events in a plot is tied to the central conflict in a story. The plot
develops as the protagonist struggles with their given problem, finds a solution,
and eventually accepts the results.
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Six succinct stages of a plot


1. Exposition: An introduction of characters, setting, and conflict, providing all
the necessary background information.
2. Opening incident: The incident that leads the main character to conflict and
begins the plot.
3. Rising action: The conflict develops and takes on newer, more complicated
incidents, leading to the climax.
4. Climax: The conflict reaches a peak, which then leads to a change in the
course of events, giving the reader a new understanding of the story either
through an event or an insight.
5. Falling action: The conflict gets resolved and the action slows down.
6. Resolution: The conflict ends, leaving the reader fulfilled.
Also read: List of the Best Poetry Contests 2023

Plot as a short story element


Often, plots in short stories are simple but end up delivering great suspense,
followed by a grand moment of revelation. For this reason alone, the plot was
once considered the most important of all the five elements of a short story.
Modern short stories are often focused on the nuances of character and setting,
so the plot becomes secondary. However, a plot is the spine of any given
narrative, so it still features first in our study of the short story elements!
Your prime goal as a writer of short stories is to blow your readers’ minds —
wrench their guts — with the least words possible. An ideal short story is
between 5,000–10,000 words in length. You must keep it short and creatively
blunt.
Every paragraph, every sentence, and every word should lead the reader closer
to the climax. Cut anything that doesn’t serve this purpose. Short stories give you
a very small space to work with, so brevity becomes important.
Some techniques to add more kick to your story are creating suspense,
foreshadowing, flashback, and a short story staple, the surprise ending.
Also read: Short stories: Do’s and Don’ts

#2 Character
Your characters are the people, animals, or other figures who appear in
your stories. They perform actions and say dialogue to move the story
along. Without characters, a story can’t exist.
Depending on how you see it, a character can be classified as either round or
flat, dynamic or static, a protagonist or an antagonist. For a short story, well-
rounded and dynamic characters will be your strength.
The easiest way to write interesting characters is to make sure that they have a
flaw. Always keep in mind that in any story, perfect characters fall flat.
Also read: What Are Foil and Stock Characters?

Writing characters for short stories


Be careful that you don’t put too much emphasis on character traits and
backstory. Unlike novels, characters in a short story are only glimpsed at, rather
than seen in the round.
You may say that characteristics of a short story are abbreviated versions of the
same in novels. So, short stories will feature only two or three major characters,
while novels can boast a dozen!
Short stories can be great character studies, but a good rule of thumb is to focus
on dialogue and action.
Make the interaction between the characters dynamic. This includes what they
do and say to each other, how they affect and influence each other, and how the
effects of their actions keep the story going toward the climax and the
subsequent resolution.
Also read: 17 Steps of the Hero’s Journey

#3 Setting
Ever felt transported to another world while reading a short story? That’s the
work of a writer who can imagine and write a whole other world into being.
This element of a short story is crucial in making it real to the reader. The setting
establishes a time, place, and environment in which the characters and
events of the story are based.
Aspects of setting:
1. Time: A story is usually set in a time period. This includes the historical time of
the story, its specific time frame, and even the time of the day when the events
take place.
2. Place: Place is the geographical landscape, real or imaginary, where a
particular story unfolds.
3. Environment: The environment of a story can include anything from weather
conditions to the social, cultural, and political backdrop to a given story.
For example, Guy de Maupassant’s short story The Necklace takes place during
the 19th century in the city of Paris and has the environmental backdrop of class
difference in French society.
Like the main conflict of class difference in The Necklace, all other characteristics
of a short story derive from its setting. When well-designed, this can also help set
up the dominant emotional tone. Of course, it takes a significant amount of
research to deliver a setting both beautifully and believably.

#4 Conflict
Conflict is closely linked to the theme of a narrative, as it motivates the
characters and affects the plot. It usually surfaces when
the protagonist (main character) faces an obstacle or hardship. Conflict
forms “the heartbeat of a story”, so your story needs to have a defining conflict to
impact the reader’s mind.
There are two main types of conflict: internal conflict and external conflict.
Types of conflict
1. Internal conflict is a person’s struggle with themselves. It takes place inside
the psyche of a character, such as Hamlet’s conflicted state of mind about how to
take revenge for his father’s murder.
2. External conflict takes place between different people or groups of people. It
is possible to further divide this type of conflict based on who or what the
protagonist(s) are struggling against. For example, the conflict in A Game of
Thrones is between kingdoms, but also between people and the supernatural
elements of the fantasy world.
Regardless of the type of conflict you choose, making it believable will hold the
reader’s attention. Various literary devices like mystery, causality, empathy,
surprise, insight, universality, or simply high stakes for the character, all add a
different dimension of conflict to the plot. Conflict drives your story and makes it
interesting.
Also read: How to Write in the Past Tense

#5 Theme
A theme is what children would call the moral of the story. It can be the
subject of the story, or an idea that runs through it, or simply the message
that is conveyed from the writer to the reader through the short story. The
writer can use all the other characteristics of a short story to best articulate their
theme into words.
A well-told story, the kind which gets published or made into a film, explains
itself. For example, while reading O. Henry’s short story The Gift of the Magi, you
can easily understand that the story is about the value of love and sacrifice. In
this way, theme is implied rather than stated explicitly, and it is up to the writer’s
skill to best convey it through their writing.
For a short story, it is usually best to decide on a single, resonant theme and
then build around it. This helps maintain brevity in your story and helps you grasp
the reader’s attention.
Now that you know the five elements of a short story, you can go ahead and
write your own. We expect to find your manuscript on a story editor’s desk very
soon!
Happy writing!

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