Understanding Prose and Fiction Types

Prose

• Prose is straightforward writing with a grammatical structure, lacking a formal metrical pattern.
• It's the opposite of poetry, which uses rhythm and figurative language.

Literature Types

• Poetry: A form of literary expression using rhythmic and often figurative language to evoke emotions.
• Prose: Straightforward writing, following ordinary grammatical structure without formal metrics.
• Fiction: A broader category encompassing various types including short stories, novels, parables, fables, fairy tales, legends, and myths.

Specific Types of Fiction

• Novel: A long fictional narrative, typically exploring themes, emotions, and relationships in detail across chapters.
• Short Story: A brief fictional narrative focusing on a single incident or theme, often with limited characters, aiming to evoke emotion and conveying a message concisely.
• Fairy Tale: A fictional story involving magical elements, often meant for children.
• Myth: A traditional story explaining natural or social phenomena, often involving gods or supernatural beings.
• Legend: A story passed down through generations, typically based on historical events with exaggerated details.
• Parable: A simple illustrative story meant to convey a moral or spiritual lesson, often using human characters in everyday situations.
• Fable: A short fictional story, often featuring animals as characters, that conveys a moral lesson or practical truth.

Novel Examples

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: Explores themes about love, social standing, and personal growth.
• Charlotte's Web by E.B. White: A touching story about friendship between a pig and a spider.
• Matilda by Roald Dahl: A brilliant young girl overcoming adversity.
• The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling: A young wizard navigating school, friendship, and fighting evil.
• The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: A story about a small town's disturbing annual ritual.

Fable Examples

• The Tortoise and the Hare: A story about patience and perseverance.
• The Ant and the Grasshopper: A fable about the value of hard work and planning ahead.
• The Boy Who Cried Wolf: A fable about the consequences of lying.

Essay

• An essay presents an argument, analysis, or interpretation on a specific topic, typically structured with an introduction, body, and conclusion.
• Example: "The Things That Matter" by E.B. White reflects on the simple joys of life.

Biography

• A detailed account of a person's life, written by someone else; covering experiences, achievements, and significant events.
• Example: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson: The biography of Apple's co-founder.

Autobiography

• A person's life story, written by themselves.
• Example: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank: Documentation of her life in hiding during World War II.

Travelogue

• A narrative or descriptive account of an author's experiences and observations while traveling.
• Example: The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain: A humorous travelogue about Twain's journey through Europe and the Holy Land.

Drama

• A narrative presented through theatrical performance designed to entertain, instruct and provoke thought, often discussing universal themes of love, loss, power, identity, and morality.

Short Story Elements

• Characters:
  • Confidante: Revealing the main character's thoughts, feelings, or ideas.
  • Foil Character: A contrasting character to highlight traits of the main character.
  • Stock Character: A recognizable character type that doesn't change significantly.
  • Round Character: A well-developed character, changing and evolving over the narrative.
  • Villain Character: Used to create compelling stories and conflicts.
• Character Traits: Literary terms (adjectives and descriptions) that depict a character's personality for deeper understanding.
• Dialogue: The conversation between characters, revealing their qualities.
• Action: Character's behaviours through their actions.
• Private thoughts: The character's desires, thoughts, personality and goals.
• Setting: The time and place of the story that helps to establish the mood, tone and context.
• Theme: The central idea/meaning of the literary work.

Plot Structure

• Freytag's Pyramid: A model illustrating a story's rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
• Exposition: Introduction of characters and setting.
• Rising Action: Development of the problem.
• Climax: Turning point where the character faces a critical decision.
• Falling Action: Resolution of the conflict.
• Resolution: The conclusion of the story.
• Conflict: Struggle between opposing forces (Character vs. Character, Self, Society, Nature).
• In medias res: Beginning a story in the middle of the action.
• Linear Plot: Events in a story are presented in chronological order.
• Flashback: Interruption of the story's current timeline to relate past events.

12 Stages of Hero's Journey

• A typical narrative structure, where a hero faces challenges, overcomes obstacles, and ultimately achieves some result.

Point of View

• The perspective from which a story is told, determining the amount and type of information known by the reader.

Theme

• The central idea in a literary text that represents the broader concepts explored in the story, such as love, identity, conflict, morality, or the human condition.

This quiz explores the fundamentals of prose and various types of fiction, including poetry, novels, and short stories. It delves into their definitions, characteristics, and differences, providing a comprehensive overview of literary forms. Test your knowledge on these important concepts in literature.