1. Literary Elements Setting Characterization Plots Themes Stance of the Implied Reader Point of View Style

2. Setting Setting tends to become most important in realistic fiction and historical fiction. Setting establishes the parameter of a story and forces its consistency.

3. Characters Are Developed: Through their actions Through their relationships Through their sense of themselves Through the roles they play in the plot

4. Plots are Conflicts: Between characters Within a character Between a character and the environment Between a character and society

5. Plot Structures Complication - Main character has a problem and sets a goal Rising Action - striving to reach goal Climax - tensions is highest Resolution - problem is decided Denouement - left for the reader to imagine

6. Recurring Plots Initiation story The Journey The coming of age

7. Other Plots Episodes - Stories within stories The Real story vs the story revealed Variations in Time - flashbacks and time shifts Plot and Genre - the genre determines the possible plots that are acceptable

8. Theme - the lesson or issue Explicit and Implicit May lie entirely in the background and experiences of the reader Often images are used to carryout a theme - i.e. a wheel

9. Reading against the Grain Examines the unexamined - holds up to scrutiny the unstated. Is the book a true portrait of how people behave or ought to behave? Males & Females, old & young, varying social classes, different races, Americans and third world residents, people of differing abilities.

10. Implied Reader The ideal interpreter of the work What the author keeps in mind when writing the book Either identifies with the characters, takes a moral perspective, or fills in the gaps to make the story work.

11. Point of View First person - written from one character’s point of view Third person - narrated. The narrator knows more than any individual character.

12. Style - Not what but How Words Images Metaphors Sounds Voice