Fiction: Short Stories and Longer Extracts
The elements examiners ask about
A short story is a designed object: every detail is chosen. Questions usually target narration (who tells and how much they know), character (how we learn what someone is like), setting (what place and period make possible), conflict (the pressure that forces change), and the ending (what is resolved and what is deliberately left open).
Working vocabulary
- Point of view: first person (participant, limited, possibly unreliable), third-person limited (one character's mind), omniscient (authorial access to all).
- Characterisation: direct (told) versus indirect (shown through speech, action, reaction, appearance, what others say).
- Round vs flat: a round character changes or is seen in contradiction; a flat character serves a function.
- Epiphany: a moment of sudden understanding that reorients the protagonist.
- Symbol and motif: an object carrying meaning beyond itself; a repeated image that builds theme.
- Irony: verbal (saying the opposite), situational (outcome reverses expectation), dramatic (reader knows more than the character).
Worked example
Illustrative sentence: 'She straightened the photograph on the desk before answering, though no one had moved it.' Q: What does this reveal about the character? Reasoning: there is no external cause for the action, so it must be internal - a need for order or delay. Model answer: 'The unnecessary tidying suggests she is composing herself, using a small ritual of control to postpone the conversation she dreads.' The answer links an action to a state of mind.
Traps
Summarising the plot when asked about technique; confusing the narrator with the author; treating a symbolic object as coincidence; ignoring the final paragraph, where tone often shifts.