elements of story

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Elements of Story

By Jennifer Rabe

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Do you know the essential parts of a story — or why they’re essential?

Think back to the last story you read (or listened to) that captured your imagination and held onto it to the end.

And you can probably point to at least one of them and remember how that element in the story took hold of you. But what are the elements of a compelling story? And how do you put them together to create one of your own?

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What are the elements of a story?

To break down a story into its elements for the purpose of analyzing it, it helps to start by breaking the plot down into five stages:

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• ​Exposition (or Introduction)

  Rising Action

  Climax

  Falling Action

• Resolution

​As you add information from the story to flesh out this basic outline, you’ll gain a better understanding of the details that are not only memorable but necessary to the story.

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If that sounds like too haphazard an approach, consider the questions a journalist would ask when writing a story:

• “Who?” = characters, point of view (POV)

• “What?” = plot, theme, symbolism, conflict

• “When?” = setting

• “Where?”= setting

• “Why?” = plot, theme, conflict, morals/messages, perspective

• “How?” = plot, theme/s, resolution​

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​From there, we can make a list of our essential elements, starting with the five that every story should have.

The remaining five make a story come to life and help it find a permanent place in our collective memory — connected to others that aren’t so different but sound different enough and feel familiar enough to make us want more.

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10 Essential Parts of a Story

Here follows the list of story elements no narrative should go without. Once you understand the elements and why every story needs them, you’ll be able to read any short story or novel, identify its parts, and understand why its treatment of those parts has left you with the impression you have.

And if the story is a dud, you’ll also likely think of ways to make it better.

​5 Parts of a Story that are Foundational

1. Characters

Your characters are the people who make the story happen — or to whom the story happens. Depending on the length of your story, those can include the following but must have at least the first of them.

·        Main character or hero/ protagonist

·        Antagonist (possibly a villain)

·        Antihero

·        Supporting characters

It’s important to note, too, that none of the characters have to be human (or even human-shaped). Your favorite character might be a dog, a centaur, a sentient tree, or something completely different.

The main thing you want your main character to have is a clear goal. Your most important characters should want something. And something or someone should stand in the way.

2. Setting

The setting of a story deals with the where and when — the places your characters go, the era in which the story happens, the time of the year, the times of a day, and so on. It also includes details like the weather, the language spoken, cultural norms, the political climate, and other things that can influence your other story elements.

Setting can change from scene to scene, and the setting itself can even serve as a character. It can also provide symbolism and hint at the story’s overall message. How the narrator describes the setting can also offer clues about the perspectives involved.

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3. Plot

In 1863, German playwright and novelist Gustave Freytag wrote Die Technik des Dramas in defense of the 5-act dramatic structure. His study gave us what we call Freytag’s Pyramid, which breaks down the plot of a story into five key elements:

• Exposition (or introduction)

• Rising action (rise)

• Climax

• Falling action (fall or return)

• Catastrophe, denouement, resolution, or revelation (finale)

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The diagram shown above puts climax at the top and in the middle of it all, which doesn’t necessarily mean it happens in the middle of the story.

The exposition is basically the story’s introduction, where we meet the main character, get a feel for the setting and other essential details, and learn what’s at stake.

Then plenty more happens during the rising action that leads the reader to that moment of truth — or “the point of no return” or whatever pithy phrase comes to mind when someone asks you, “What is climax?”

It’s the thing we hope our readers recognize. No one wants to hear, “Are we there yet?” when what was supposed to be the climax has already happened.

And on the downturn, during the falling action, we want to see loose threads gathered and neatly tied up. We want to see the consequences of whatever happened at the climax.

We also want to see story plots with a satisfying resolution. And when that resolution comes at the end of the story, it could be a catastrophe. Or it could be what the reader hoped would happen.

Or it could be neither.​