REPORT ON TYPES OF NOVELS & SHORT STORIES AND ELEMENTS OF FICTION

Prepared By: Erika Bianca D. Arao

Novels - a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters
and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes.

Full Length – novels that are over 200 pages in length and contains a full- length story with a
beginning, middle and end.
Novellas – novels that are under 200 pages but still contains a full-length story that has a
beginning, middle and end.

Fiction – are literary works invented by imagination; stories that are not based on facts.
- Genre or Category Fiction - is plot driven and attracts a broad audience. It may fall into any category,
such as mystery, romance, science fiction, etc. Bestselling genre authors would be John Grisham, Sidney
Sheldon, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Michael Connelly, Janet Evanovich, Danielle Steel, among others.
- Literary Fiction - is character driven and appeals to a smaller, more intellectual audience. A work of literary
fiction may fall into any of the genres. However, what set it apart are such things as excellent writing and
originality of thought and style that raise it above ordinary writing. Examples of literary fiction: Cold Mountain, To
Kill a Mockingbird, The Grapes of Wrath. Popular authors of literary fiction would be John LeCarre, Barbara
Kingsolver, and Toni Morrison, among others.
- Mainstream Fiction - is a term publishers and booksellers use to describe both commercial and literary
works containing a universal theme that attracts a broad audience. Usually set in the 20th or present-day 21st
century, these books deal with family issues, coming of age initiations, courtroom dramas, physical and mental
disabilities, social pressures, political intrigue, etc. Regardless of genre or category, most of the novels on the
bestseller list are considered mainstream, including authors such as Sue Grafton, Michael Crichton, or David
Guterson.
Non- Fiction – works that deals with facts or real events
- Autobiographies - is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.
- Biographies - is a detailed description or account of someone else's life and the times,
which is or told by a different author.
REPORT ON TYPES OF NOVELS & SHORT STORIES AND ELEMENTS OF FICTION
Prepared By: Erika Bianca D. Arao

- Crime Events and Historical Chronicles

Short Stories -short piece of fiction aiming at unity of characterization, theme and effect

Types of Short Stories

1. Ancient Tales
It is the power of the utilization of the ancient form of the tale in the modern short story. Italian
writer Giovanni Verga's The She-Wolf (1880), and Chinese writer Yeh Shao-Chun's Mrs. Li's Hair
are remarkable examples.
2. Fantasy
Fantasy stories are nothing but the fair combination of the old tales tradition and the
supernatural details. The fine examples of such stories are British writer John Collier's horror
fantasy Bottle Party (1939), Irish author Elizabeth Bowen's The Demon Lover (1941), and British
author Saki's Tobermory (1911).
3. Humor
These types of stories are meant for producing surprise and delight. You will see that the most
famous humorous tales and fables were written by the Americans. Mark Twain's The Celebrated
Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865), and Joel Chandler Harris's The Wonderful Tar-Baby
Story (1894) are remarkable. There is serious humor in the works of Americans like Eudora
Welty's Petrified Man (1939) and Dorothy Parker's The Custard Heart (1939).
4. Satire
The main purpose of satire is to attack the evils of society. There are writers who wrote stories of
sober satire. Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler's Fate of the Baron (1923), and American Mary
McCarthy's The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt (1941) are known for their somber satire.
5. Education Story
Such stories revolve around the education of the main character. The good example is American
educator Lionel Trilling's Of This Time, of That Place (1944).
6. History
History types deal with a life story or historical event. Welty's A Still Moment (a 1943 story about
naturalist John James Audubon) is fine example of story dealing with history event.
7. Local Color
These types of stories deal with the customs and traditions of rural and small-town life. You can
enjoy the local color in the stories of George Washington Cable, Maria Edgeworth, Sarah Orne
Jewett, and Mary Wilkins Freeman.
REPORT ON TYPES OF NOVELS & SHORT STORIES AND ELEMENTS OF FICTION
Prepared By: Erika Bianca D. Arao

These are some of the types you may find in sort story genre. In recent times, stories have more
local color, diversities in the representations, making use of dialects, and vernacular impressions.
The story writes have been taking somewhat flexibility in writing stories as they wish.

The Elements of Fiction

PLOT-is a literary term for the events a story comprises, particularly as they relate to one
another in a pattern, a sequence, through cause and effect, or by coincidence. The plot is how
the author arranges events to develop his basic idea; It is the sequence of events in a story or
play. The plot is a planned, logical series of events having a beginning, middle, and end

SETTING - the time and location in which a story takes place. For some stories the setting is
very important, while for others it is not. There are several aspects of a story's setting to
consider when examining how setting contributes to a story.
Physical Setting – the “where”
- place - geographical location. Where is the action of the story taking place?
Chronological Setting – the “when”
- time - When is the story taking place? (Historical period, time of day, year, etc)
Others :
weather conditions - Is it rainy, sunny, stormy, etc?
social conditions - What is the daily life of the characters like? Does the story
contain local colour (writing that focuses on the speech, dress, mannerisms, customs, etc. of
a particular place)?
mood or atmosphere - What feeling is created at the beginning of the story? Is it
bright and cheerful or dark and frightening?
REPORT ON TYPES OF NOVELS & SHORT STORIES AND ELEMENTS OF FICTION
Prepared By: Erika Bianca D. Arao

CHARACTER - There are two meanings for the word character:

1) The person in a work of fiction.
2) The characteristics of a person.

Persons in a work of fiction - Antagonist and Protagonist

Short stories use few characters. One character is clearly central to the story with all major
events having some importance to this character - he/she is the PROTAGONIST. The opposer of
the main character is called the ANTAGONIST.

The Characteristics of a Person -

In order for a story to seem real to the reader its characters must seem real. Characterization is
the information the author gives the reader about the characters themselves. The author may
reveal a character in several ways:
a) his/her physical appearance
b) what he/she says, thinks, feels and dreams
c) what he/she does or does not do
d) what others say about him/her and how others react to him/her

Characters are...
1. Individual - round, many sided and complex personalities.
2. Developing - dynamic, many sided personalities that change, for better or worse, by the end
of the story.
3. Static - Stereotype, have one or two characteristics that never change and are emphasized
e.g. brilliant detective, drunk, scrooge, cruel stepmother, etc.

CONFLICT

Conflict is essential to plot. Without conflict there is no plot. It is the opposition of forces which
ties one incident to another and makes the plot move. Conflict is not merely limited to open
arguments, rather it is any form of opposition that faces the main character. Within a short story
there may be only one central struggle, or there may be one dominant struggle with many minor
ones.

There are two types of conflict:

1) External - A struggle with a force outside one's self.

2) Internal - A struggle within one's self; a person must make some decision, overcome pain,
quiet their temper, resist an urge, etc.

There are four kinds of conflict:

1) Man vs. Man (physical) - The leading character struggles with his physical strength against
other men, forces of nature, or animals.
2) Man vs. Circumstances (classical) - The leading character struggles against fate, or the
circumstances of life facing him/her.
3) Man vs. Society (social) - The leading character struggles against ideas, practices, or
customs of other people.
4) Man vs. Himself/Herself (psychological) - The leading character struggles with
himself/herself; with his/her own soul, ideas of right or wrong, physical limitations, choices, etc.
REPORT ON TYPES OF NOVELS & SHORT STORIES AND ELEMENTS OF FICTION
Prepared By: Erika Bianca D. Arao

SYMBOL

Don’t get bent out of shape about symbols. Simply put, a symbol is something which means
something else. Frequently it’s a tangible physical thing which symbolizes something
intangible. The Seven/Eleven stores understood that a few years ago when they were selling
roses with a sign saying, “A Rose Means ‘I Love You.’”

The basic point of a story or a poem rarely depends solely on understanding a symbol. However
important or interesting they might be, symbols are usually “frosting,” things which add interest
or depth.

It’s normal for you to be skeptical about symbols. If I tell you that the tree in a certain story
symbolizes the Garden of Eden, you may ask “Is that really there or did you make it up?” or
“How do you know what the author meant?”

Literature teachers may indeed “over-interpret” at times, find symbols that really aren’t there.
But if you don’t occasionally chase white rabbits that aren’t there, you’ll rarely find the ones that
are there.

In the film 2001, a computer named HAL is controlling a flight to Jupiter. When the human crew
decides to abort the mission, HAL—programmed to guarantee the success of the mission
—“logically” begins to kill off the humans. Science fiction’s oldest theme: man develops a
technology which he not only cannot control, it controls him.

Consider HAL’s name. Add one letter to each of the letters in his name. Change the H to I, the A
to B, and the L to M. When you realize how close HAL is to IBM, the first response is disbelief.
But clearly the closeness of the names is either an absolute accident or an intentional choice. As
much as we are startled by the latter, we probably agree that the odds against the former—it
being an accident—are astronomical.

Somebody thought that up. Or maybe a computer.

POINT OF VIEW

Point of view, or p.o.v., is defined as the angle from which the story is told.
1. Innocent Eye - The story is told through the eyes of a child (his/her judgment being different
from that of an adult) .
2. Stream of Consciousness - The story is told so that the reader feels as if they are inside the
head of one character and knows all their thoughts and reactions.
3. First Person - The story is told by the protagonist or one of the characters who interacts
closely with the protagonist or other characters (using pronouns I, me, we, etc). The reader sees
the story through this person's eyes as he/she experiences it and only knows what he/she knows
or feels.
4. Omniscient- The author can narrate the story using the omniscient point of view. He can
move from character to character, event to event, having free access to the thoughts, feelings
and motivations of his characters and he introduces information where and when he chooses.
There are two main types of omniscient point of view:
a) Omniscient Limited - The author tells the story in third person (using pronouns they, she,
he, it, etc). We know only what the character knows and what the author allows him/her to tell
us. We can see the thoughts and feelings of characters if the author chooses to reveal them to
us.
b) Omniscient Objective – The author tells the story in the third person. It appears as though
a camera is following the characters, going anywhere, and recording only what is seen and
heard. There is no comment on the characters or their thoughts. No interpretations are offered.
REPORT ON TYPES OF NOVELS & SHORT STORIES AND ELEMENTS OF FICTION
Prepared By: Erika Bianca D. Arao

The reader is placed in the position of spectator without the author there to explain. The reader
has to interpret events on his own.

THEME

The theme in a piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central insight. It is the author's
underlying meaning or main idea that he is trying to convey. The theme may be the author's
thoughts about a topic or view of human nature. The title of the short story usually points to
what the writer is saying and he may use various figures of speech to emphasize his theme, such
as: symbol, allusion, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or irony.

Some simple examples of common themes from literature, TV, and film are:
- things are not always as they appear to be
- Love is blind
- Believe in yourself
- People are afraid of change
- Don't judge a book by its cover