
Stories are everywhere: in film and TV culture, what people post online via social media platforms such as Twitter, music albums or musical performances; stories can cover any and every subject imaginable.
Use sensory details to captivate and draw in readers to your story’s setting, but take care not to overdo it – using too many cliched descriptions may become excessive and overwhelm readers.
Plot
A story’s plot is defined as the sequence of events that forms its narrative. Plot structures such as Freytag’s pyramid or Booker’s meta-plot are commonly employed; however, successful stories often employ multiple structures simultaneously to craft their stories.
Your first act should introduce the inciting incident that sparks change for your protagonist, while in the second act characters must adjust to changing circumstances around them. Reactions will intensify over time until reaching the climax of your plot.
As soon as the climax has ended, your protagonist must face the consequences of their choices and decisions. This process is known as reversal or resolution; here they may either succeed in accomplishing their mission or face devastating failure.
Character
Characters are individuals in fiction stories who interact with one another to form stories. Characters may be either real or fictional and defined by their traits and features that reflect an individual’s image, personality or behavior. Over the course of a story’s progression, characters can develop further adding depth and complexity.
A main character, known as the protagonist, often drives the plot and captures reader empathy. Love interests can add romantic subplots. Friends or mentors provide support, guidance and comic relief; while foil characters help emphasize character strengths or weaknesses.
Dynamic characters adapt and transform throughout a story, while flat characters remain static; this difference can make all the difference in an otherwise dull story. Furthermore, character thoughts can reveal their true values and beliefs while other criteria used to assess a character include appearance, actions and behavior, biography dialogue emotions.
Setting
Setting refers to the overall place and time of a story, including details such as geography, architecture, weather and culture – such as language and religion – which impact its characters. A setting may exist either real-life like New York today or imagined like Middle Earth from JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series.
Environment can influence plot and character development by providing context for their actions. For instance, how characters relate to their hometown can impact how they interact with strangers from other cities. Setting can also convey mood or theme through sensory details such as scents, textures and seasons.
As many stories take place across multiple settings, these environments provide contrast and variety while giving characters opportunities to develop in unfamiliar circumstances. Help your students create visual maps of these settings from what they read while also exploring how these environments reflect various literary elements such as conflict, theme and character development.
Theme
Themes are what elevate narratives beyond an engaging series of events into insightful explorations of human existence. From universal concepts like love or good vs evil to specific story elements such as family or betrayal or redemption, themes bring stories alive for audiences across demographic boundaries.
A story’s theme is its central message conveyed through characters, setting and plot development in its narrative. This may include moral lessons for its protagonist or more universal insights into human experience that transcend characters.
Development of themes requires careful balancing to ensure they progressively unfold throughout a narrative without becoming obscured by plot development. Authors typically intertwine themes into dialogue or character actions without becoming didactic, drawing from personal insights as needed to craft meaningful thematic elements that resonate with readers.