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Aspects of the Novel

by Dr Fathia Al-Ghoreibi

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Definition:Novel isFictional prose narrative of considerable length and some complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. The novel was established as a literary form in England in the 18th century through the work of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding. The typical elements of a conventional novel are plot, character, setting, narrative method and point of view.

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Short Story isBrief fictional prose narrative. It usually presents a single significant episode or scene involving a limited number of characters. The form encourages economy of setting and concise narration; character is disclosed in action and dramatic encounter but seldom fully developed. A short story may concentrate on the creation of mood rather than the telling of a story. Despite numerous precedents, it emerged only in the 19th century as a distinct literary genre in the works of writers such as E T A Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant and Anton Chekhov.

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How to Understand the Elements of a Short Story or Novel

There are 5 basic elements to any short story or novel. These include the setting, plot, characters, point of view and theme. If you have all of these elements within a writing, then you have everything you need to make a good story. Here is an explanation of each element.

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Step 1First there is the theme. This is what the author is trying to tell us about the subject of the story. It is usually the underlying message or moral.Step 2Characters are the actors in the story. They are the people, animals or things around which the story revolves. There are major and minor characters in every story.Step 3The plot is the series of events that lead to a revelation of the conflict crisis and eventual resolution. It will lead up to a climax that is the high tension in a story, and then begin to wind down.

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Step 4The setting is where the story is taking place. This includes time, place and environment. For instance, it may be a rainy, windy day, or a forest or beach.Step 5Point of view is the perspective from which the author tells the tale. It can be written in the first, second or third person. Narrators may tell the story, or it may be told with dialogue from the characters.

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How Does a Short Story Differ From a Novel?

Determining what exactly separates a short story from longer fictional formats is problematic. A classic definition of a short story is that one should be able to read it in one sitting. The short story and the novel are both a form of narrative fiction, but they are quite different. However, they both focus on three points of emphasis: the theme of the narrative, the characters and the plot.

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In the short story, the reader will reach the climax of the story a lot faster here than in a novel. A short story is a more concentrated piece of work and bares its soul up front. The theme is evident, the characters are limited, and so is the time span. The crafting of the story is done much faster. Oftentimes, there is only time for one incident to take place, so it will not be as complex as the novel. Every word will count in a short story, so the word choice will always be very descriptive. The dialogue will be very engaging throughout the entire story.

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The novel tends to court the readers for a while before getting to the really good stuff. It is an extended version of narrative fiction. Even though the novel is a work of fiction, it will try to imitate life or certain situations that readers can empathize with, or at least be sympathetic towards. The novel often starts with allegory, followed by an exposition, complication, a crisis and a climax, before reaching the conclusion. 

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Characteristics Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually a short story focuses on only one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a small number of characters, and covers a short period of time.

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In longer forms of fiction, stories tend to contain certain core elements of dramatic structure: exposition (the introduction of setting, situation and main characters); complication (the event that introduces the conflict); rising action, crisis (the decisive moment for the protagonist and his commitment to a course of action); climax (the point of highest interest in terms of the conflict and the point with the most action); resolution (the point when the conflict is resolved); and moral.

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Because of their length, short stories may or may not follow this pattern. Some do not follow patterns at all. For example, modern short stories only occasionally have an exposition. More typical, though, is an abrupt beginning, with the story starting in the middle of the action. As with longer stories, plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis, or turning point. However, the endings of many short stories are abrupt and open and may or may not have a moral or practical lesson. As with any art form, the exact characteristics of a short story will vary by creator.

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Literary Concepts - Elements of a StoryI. SettingSetting is the location of a narrative in time and space. It may be specifically historical or geographical, or it may be imaginary. The suggestive mood that the setting may create is called the atmosphere. For example, the open windows of the nursery in Peter Pan create an atmosphere of innocence and magic.

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II. Points of View:The point of view is the perspective that a narrative

takes toward the events it describes .A- First-person narration: A narrative in which the narrator tells the story from his/her own point of view and refers to him/herself as “I.” The narrator may be an active participant in the story or just an observer. When the point of view represented is specifically the author’s, and not a fictional narrator’s, the story is autobiographical and may be nonfictional.

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B- Third-person narration: The narrator remains outside the story and describes the characters in the story using proper names and the third-person pronouns “he,” “she,” “it,” and “they.” C- Omniscient narration: The omniscient point of view is that of the all-knowing author who is also the narrator. The narrator knows all of the actions, feelings, and motivations of all of the characters. For example, the narrator of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina seems to know everything about all the characters and events in the story.

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D- Limited omniscient narration: The narrator knows the actions, feelings, and motivations of only one or a handful of characters. For example, the narrator of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has full knowledge of only Alice.E- Free indirect discourse: The narrator conveys a character’s inner thoughts while staying in the third person. Gustave Flaubert pioneered this style in Madame Bovary, as in this passage: “Sometimes she thought that these were after all the best days of her life, the honeymoon, so-called.”

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F- Objective narration: A style in which the narrator reports neutrally on the outward behavior of the characters but offers no interpretation of their actions or their inner states. Ernest Hemingway pioneered this style.G- Unreliable narration: The narrator is revealed over time to be an untrustworthy source of information. Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is good example of an unreliable narrator.

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H- Stream-of-consciousness narration: The narrator conveys a subject’s thoughts, impressions, and perceptions exactly as they occur, often in disjointed fashion and without the logic and grammar of typical speech and writing. The character's thought processes are conveyed, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions. In stream of consciousness, the speaker's thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself); it is primarily a fictional device.

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III. Character A fictional character is any person, persona, identity, or entity that originated in a work of art. Along with plot, setting, theme, and style, character is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction. Characters may be entirely fictional, or they may be based upon real entities, contemporary or historical. They may be human, supernatural, mythical, divine, animal, or personifications of an abstraction. Characterization is the process of creating an image of a person in fiction, complete with that person's traits, features, and motivation.

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A character is a person, animal, or any other thing with a personality that appears in a story. Protagonist: The main character around whom the story revolves. If the protagonist is admirable, he or she is called the hero or heroine of the story. A protagonist who is not admirable, or who challenges our notions of what should be considered admirable, is called an antihero or anti-heroine. For example, Meursault in Albert Camus’s The Stranger is an antihero because he challenges the traditional conception of what a hero should be.

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Antagonist: The primary character or entity that acts to frustrate the goals of the protagonist. The antagonist typically is a character but may also be a nonhuman force. Stock character: A common character type that recurs throughout literature. Notable examples include the witty servant, the scheming villain, the trusty sidekick, the old miser, and so on. A stock character that holds a central place in a culture’s folklore or consciousness may be called an archetype. Foil: A character who illuminates the qualities of another character by means of contrast.

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Characters as Symbols Some characters, rather than simply being people, may stand for something larger, a given quality or abstraction. For example, some characters in western literature have been viewed as Christ symbols. Other characters have been viewed as symbols of capitalist greed (as in Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby).

A character may also be representative of a certain group of people. For example, Bigger Thomas of Native Son by  Richard Wright may be viewed as representative of young black men in the 1930s, doomed to a life of poverty and exploitation.

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Names of characters

The names of characters may have significance. Sometimes a name echoes an adjective or idea, if slightly changed, to suggest qualities of a character; for example, Mr. Murdstone of David Copperfield suggests "murder" and unpleasantness.

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IV. Plot A plot is the arrangement of the events in a story, including the sequence in which they are told, the relative emphasis they are given, and the causal connections between events. Plot is often designed with a narrative structure, storyline or story arc, that includes exposition, conflict, rising action and climax, followed by a falling action and resolution.

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Elements of a plot: A plot can have a complicated structure, but most plots have the same basic elements. 1- Conflict: The central struggle that moves the plot forward. The conflict can be the protagonist’s struggle against fate, nature, society, or another person. In certain circumstances, the conflict can be between opposing elements within the protagonist.

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2- Rising action: The early part of the narrative, which builds momentum and develops the narrative’s major conflict.3- Climax: The moment of highest tension, at which the conflict comes to a head. The word “climax” can refer either to the single moment of highest tension in the plot or, more generally, to any episode of high tension. An anticlimax occurs when the plot builds up to an expected climax only to tease the reader with a frustrating non-event. Jane Austen’s novels, such as Sense and Sensibility, are full of romantic anticlimaxes.

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4- Falling action: Also called the denouement, this is the latter part of the narrative, during which the protagonist responds to the events of the climax and the various plot elements introduced in the rising action are resolved.5- Reversal: Sometimes called by its Greek name, peripeteia, a reversal is a sudden shift that sends the protagonist’s fortunes from good to bad or vice versa.6- Resolution: An ending that satisfactorily answers all the questions raised over the course of the plot.

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Types of plot: Plots can take a wide variety of forms, ranging from orderly sequences of clearly related events to chaotic jumbles of loosely connected events. • Chronological plot: Events are arranged in the sequence in which they occur. Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, for example, tells a roughly straightforward story from beginning to end.• A Non-chronological plot: Events are not arranged in the sequence in which they occur. For example, Homer’s Iliad is full of flashbacks and digressions that relate what happened before and after the central conflict of the poem.

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• Climactic plot: All the action focuses toward a single climax. Aeschylus’s Agamemnon is a classic example of a climactic plot.• Episodic plot: A series of loosely connected events. Cervantes’s Don Quixote is episodic.• Non sequitur plot: More of an “anti-plot,” the non sequitur plot defies traditional logic by presenting events without any clear sequence and characters without any clear motivation.

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Subplot: A secondary plot that is of less importance to the overall story but may serve as a point of contrast or comparison to the main plot.V. Tone: the attitude of the author toward his subject or toward the reader (Think of tone of voice when someone is talking.)VI. Mood: the feeling or state of mind that predominates in a story creating a certain atmosphere.

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VII. Irony: events contrary to what is expected. VIII. Foreshadow: a hint or clue to future events in the story. IX. Flashback: a break in the continuity of a story to introduce an earlier event. The narrator of the story will be speaking in the present day (for example) and the underlying story or plot itself will unfold through the use of flashbacks.  The flashbacks themselves do not have to be in any particular order per se.  Rather, the flashbacks can be used to develop the tension and drama of the story itself as desired and as necessary to make for the most interesting and entertaining tale.

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X. ThemeA theme is the main idea of an essay, paragraph, or a book. The idea about life is revealed in a work of literature. The message may be about life, society, or human nature. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and may be implied rather than stated explicitly. Along with plot, character, setting and style, theme is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction. It is the universal statement or feel when you read a piece of writing.