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English8 Short Stories: Home

For Year 8 English students at Carramar.

Short Stories

What is a short story? 

A short story is a story with a fully developed theme, however, it is significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel.

A Short Story usually has one plot, and can be read in one sitting.

Title:

The title will generally indicate what the story is about.

Setting:

This is the time and place of where the story occurs.

This is the sequence of events in the short story. The reader can identify a beginning, middle and end.

5 Essential parts to the plot:

Theme: 

It is the author's underlying meaning or main idea that he is trying to convey.

Characters:

The persons (or characters) in a piece of fiction. One person is central to all the action in a short story. The main character is called the  Protagonist. The Antagonist is the opposer to the Protagonist, a simple example is Harry Potter and Lord Voldermort.

Narrator:

The person who is telling the story.

Point of View: Click the images below to read about the different points of view.

  • Introduction: Introduce the charaters and the setting.
  • Rising Action: the events in the story become complicated and the conflict in the story is revealed. This is the most exciting point or the where the most action happens, the reader wonders, "what will happen next?
  • Resolution: things begin to unravel or complications resolve itself.
  • Denouement: the outcome of the story.

Conflict:

Conflict is essential to plot.  Without conflict there is no plot.  It is the opposition of forces which ties one incident to another and makes the plot move. Conflict is not merely limited to open arguments, rather it is any form of opposition, struggle or disagreement that faces the main character.

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Baby shoes.

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By Ernest Hemingway

Short stories in music lyrics

Have you thought of looking at the lyrics of music for a short story? 

Try looking at the lyricd of "Enter Sand Man", by Metallica. What is the title? Who is telling the story? Who is the main caharacter, (protagonist)? Who is the anagonist? What is the conflict or struggle in the song?