Elements of Short Stories
The elements of a short story are the same elements as novels and plays. Yes and No!
The elements appear to be the same, but they are used in different ways to accommodate the needs of a short story. What I have given you are thumb nail definitions. The complete definition would take a book. That is a not too subtle hint to look in your text for more complete definitions.
The eight elements below are the found in all short stories and will be key in the analyses we will be doing. By contrast the definitions on the next page, may or may not be in a specific story. However, you must understand the vocabulary in order to expand your analysis.
a) characterization---the author must decide if the goal is to have people who would logically do the acts of the story plot, or if the people represent a group, a moral issue, or an allegory. Baldwin presents people who act logically, if not acceptably. Hawthorne often fails to give his central characters physical descriptions because he wants the characters to represent a moral allegory. The characters may not act in an expected way, but they will not act in a random way they will illustrate the allegory. We understand that the characters in an allegorial story is not the focus.
b) plot---Plots are essentially the list of actions that occur. However, short stories may not have set actions. Many author force you to analyze your own potential actions in a given circumstance.
c) time sequencing---Generally the time sequence of a short story is straight forward but limited. A short story will occur within a few hours or days. When a short story does a flash back or cover years the action at each time point will be limited. Most likely the action, in an extended time frame, will occur within a character’s mind.
d) use of sections in stories---If an author wishes to call attention to changes in a key element (time, character’s maturation, focal point of the story, etc), the author will divide the story into sections. This division usually happens with language clues (abrupt change of topic, different voice speaking, etc), however in older stories authors inserted numbers.
e) setting--- Since elementary school you have defined setting as the place(s) where the action occurs. Now the definition of setting must expand to include the setting as the cause, enabler, stopper, and participator in the action. The setting is often a character. We know when the setting is a character by its intrusion into the lives of the characters.
f) style---The author chooses diction, punctuation, grammatical correctness (or lack thereof), sentence forms, metaphors, similies, personification, puns, and heavens knows how much more. The author’s choices create the style of the piece. If the author continually makes the same choices, we say we recognize the author’s style.
g) tone and irony---Detecting the tone of a story is similar to picking up on tone of voice. It's not what is being said or done — it's a matter of how. According to the Literary Terms & Poetry Glossary, tone is "the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice that expresses meaning. Tone is described by adjectives, and the possibilities are nearly endless. Often a single adjective will not be enough, and tone may change from chapter to chapter or even line to line. Tone is the result of allusion, diction, figurative language, imagery, irony, symbol, syntax, style, and so on." (CliffsNotes)
h) theme---Central idea running through out the story. The beliefs of the author that are being conveyed. Not the characters or the plot but what issue(s) is (are) grounding the story. The theme(s) are ideas that all humanity and the laws of the universe can relate to in some manner. (Thanks to Rachel Simon for helping me with the wording.)
i) historical and geographical perspectives---How did the societial views of the writer’s time period/country affect the writer’s thinking? Does the story mean the same thing today as it did when it was written? Does a story written today by people in cultures different from our own convey the same meaning to us as it does to the people in the other country? Do not answer any of these questions with a quick no. Sometimes time and culture does not impact the story. Sometimes the language of the author (even 1800’s English to 2000’s English) can impact the meaning. Clearly stories written in a non-English language and translated have had their meaning impacted.