Literary Terms : Fiction complied by the webmaster.

1.Types of short fiction: [top]

a. early forms / parable, fable, and tale parable: a story that teaches readers a lesson and often consists of religious or spiritual nature. ex: parables of Christ in Bible. fable: a brief story with moral issue, and usually including animals as characters. ex: Aesop's fable. tale: " a loosely plotted narrative which is told by a narrator and little concerned with development of character. (Beckson 278). ex: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

b. short story short story:" a prose narrative briefer than the short novel, more restricted in charcters and situations, and usaully concerned with a single effect. " (Beckson 257). ex: Edgar Allan Poe's " The Black Cat, " " The Cask of Amontillado."

c. short novel short novel:" also called novella or novelette a prose narrative briefer than the novel but longer than short story. It combines the concentrated focus of the short story with the novel's expansioveness in developing character and theme" (Beckson 256-7). ex: Henry James Daisy Miller,

 

2. Elements of Fiction:[top]

a. plot /theme plot: " the unified structure of incidents in a literary work. " It is " the action element in fiction and the arragement of events that make up a story" (DiYanni 26). Sometimes we will use a diagram to illustrate the plot of a short story which consists of exposition, complication, crisis ( turning point or climax), falling action,and resolution (denouement) .