Various Types of Elements of a Short Story

Description: Suspense causes a reader's curiosity to grow. The author may withhold information.

Description: Conflict is tension in the story. It can be between or among characters, and it can be between someone and something. Here are various types of conflict:

• Person against person (external conflict)
• Person against nature (external conflict)
• Person against himself or herself (internal)
• Person against society (external)
• Combinations of the above

Description: The plot is the plan of the story, which follows a pattern. It includes complications (to keep the reader's interest), the climax (the highest or most dramatic point of the story), and the resolution (the finalizing of the story).

Description: The theme is the central idea of the story. One or two sentences can state the theme of the story. The theme is often to teach a moral lesson.

Description: To foreshadow is to give hints and clues about things that will happen or be made known later in the story.

Description: Character portrayal is how the author gets the reader to know the characters. This happens through dialogue, when the narrator describes them, the characters talk about each other, the behavior of the characters, the characters' inner thoughts, the characters' reactions to the plot, and combinations of these.

Description: The setting is the time and place of a story.

Description: Who is telling the story? A first-person narrator is a character telling the story from her or his point of view. A third-person narrator has an all-knowing point of view.

Description: A symbol is something that represents something else. For example, a heart represents love. "Red" could be the nickname of a small, red-headed, mischievous boy.

Description: The author's feelings toward characters and subjects; the reader senses the tone--it is not stated