of the genres: social, psychological, scientific, historical, detective, documentary.
A historical story usually deals with the events and characters drown from the past;
The social genre studies the effect of social conditions at a given time and place upon human life and content;
Psychological genre is concerned mainly with the mental and emotional lives of the characters;
Detective genre is the type in which usually a murder problem is solved;
Scientific genre deals with advances in science and their influence on human beings. Sometimes the background of the text is quite fantastic and there is no connection with reality.
Documentary story contains real events as close to reality as possible. It’s main task being to involve the reader in some vital issue of the moment.
Composition. The interrelation between different components of literary work is called composition. Any fiction text consists of a combination of relatively independent pieces of narrative: narration, description, dialogue, interior monologue.
Narration is dynamic; it gives continuous account of events while description is static, it’s a verbal portraiture of an object, person or scene. Narration may be detailed and direct or impressionistic, giving few but striking details.
Narration is never homogeneous as to the form and content of the information it carries. Both very much depend on the view point of the addresser, writer as the author and its characters may offer different perception of the reality described.
Dialogue is a piece of the text in which personages express their minds in the form of uttered speech. In their exchange of remarks, the characters while discussing other people expose themselves too. Dialogue is important form of the personage’s self-characterization. It allows the author to seemingly eliminate to the process. It also brings the action nearer to the readers, makes it more swift and intense.
Interior monologue is an interior speech of the personage. It allows the writer and the reader to peep into the in-world of the character, to observe his ideas and views showing one major topic of his thinking offering causes of his actions. Insets in interior speech present immediate mental and emotional reactions of the personage to the other person’s remark. In extreme cases the author describes the disjointed purely associative manner of thinking, which makes interior speech almost or completely incomprehensible. These cases belong to the so-called stream-of-consciousness technique which is especially popular with representatives of modernism. It gives the reader an impression of unending and uneven flow of ideas, feelings and memories in a character’s mind.
There can be found a peculiar combination of the view points and language spheres of the author and character. This combination is analyzed as represented speech.
Represented speech is made use of to show either the mental reproduction of a once uttered remark or the character’s thinking. The first is known as represented uttered speech, the second – as represented inner speech. The later is close to interior speech.
The Author’s Point of View. In contemporary fiction the author’s task is to effectively impart to the reader various views and emotions of both: the writer and his personages and to impress the reader that the events described are real. This all fully depends on the form of the author’s narration or speech which is defined as the author’s point of view. There are many ways of telling the story: it may be told
– by the author
– by one of the characters
– by means of letters or diaries
– by reproducing (recording) the thoughts of some characters.
So, the point of view of a story is determined by the questions «Who tells the story?» «How much is he allowed to know?» «To what extent does the author look inside the character and report their thoughts and feelings?»
There are four basic points of view:
– omniscient = entrusted
– limited omniscient:
a) major character
b) minor character
3) first person: a) major character
b) minor character
4) objective.
In the omniscient point of view, the story is told by the author, using the third person. He knows all and he can tell us as much or as little as he pleases. It’s the most flexible point of view. It permits the widest scope.
The limited omniscient point of view is that in which the author tells the story in the third person, but he tells it from the point of view of one of the characters of the story. The character may be major or minor. The author tells us what that character sees and hears and what he thinks and feels. But he shows no knowledge of what other characters are thinking or feeling and doing. He can only guess about their feelings.
In the first person point of view the author disappears into one of his characters who tell the story in the first person. He may be major or minor character and observer. It offers a gain in immediacy and reality. The author’s being is eliminated (dropped out). But there’s an opportunity for direct explanation by the author. In some of the stories the heart of the story may lie in the difference between what the narrator perceives and what the reader perceives. In such cases the author makes use of irony to show his own judgement.
In the objective point of view, the author disappears into a kind of camera which records only what is seen or heard. It can’t comment, interpret or enter the character’s mind. The reader is placed in the position of a spectator at a movie or a play. Such stories may be written in a dialogue or give an external action. The reader is to make his own interpretations.
Plot is a sequence of incidents or events of which a story is composed. A plot may be recounted with lesser or greater detail. It may include what a character thinks or says as well as what he does. But it leaves out description and analysis and concentrates mostly on major happenings. The plot isn’t only schemes and intrigues. Every story must have significant action. The gist of the plot is a conflict. The main characters may be in conflict with some other person or a group of persons (a man-against-man conflict) or with some external force, for example physical nature (a man-against-environment conflict). He also may be in conflict with society (a man-against-society conflict) or some element in his own nature (a man-against-himself conflict). Besides, the conflict may be physical, mental, emotional or moral. The essential character in the conflict (sympathetic or unsympathetic) is referred to as the protagonist. The forces acting against him (things, conventions of society or traits of his own character) are referred to as the antagonist. In some stories the conflict is single, clear cut and easily identifiable. In others it’s multiple, various and subtle. Sometimes a person may be involved into conflicts without knowing it. The conflict may be external (expressed by actions and wishes) or internal.
The Plot Structure. The plot of a literary work is its plan and the structure of the action comprising a series of incidents or system of events. Episode is a separate incident, helping to unfold the action in a large piece of fiction. Each and every event that represents the conflict (the gist of the plot) has a beginning, a development and an end. The plot accordingly consists of exposition, story and ending. In the exposition the necessary preliminaries to the action are laid out such as the time, the place and the subject of the action. Also some light must be cast on the circumstances that will influence the development of the action. Story seldom leads quickly and logically to the crucial moment of the plot development. Story embraces four elements: the beginning, the development, the highest point and the relaxation of the conflict. The corresponding components of the plot story are the beginning and the development, the climax and the denouement. The beginning of the