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Elements of a Story (continued)

We've already review setting, what are the other four elements of a story?

Characters

Every story needs at least one character. Characters are the people in a story.

An animal, alien, or even an object can be a character.
Most stories focus on one very important character called the main character. The main character in Naruto is Naruto. Other characters are called secondary characters. The story may not focus on them quite as much, but they’re still important!
Character traits are the qualities we use to describe characters, like cowardly! Other characters might be brave or silly or evil.

The plot is the events that happen in a story. If someone asked you to

summarize a story, you’d probably explain the plot. The beginning of a story is the

introduction, or exposition. Readers usually learn about characters and a story’s setting

in the introduction. Events in a story typically build up to a climax, or the most exciting part. And plots tend to finish with a resolution. A resolution is how a story’s conflict is resolved or comes to an end.

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Plot

A conflict is a problem a character or characters must face. It keeps the plot moving and adds tension. There are things the main character wants or needs to do, but something gets in the way of those things. That’s the conflict. There are external and internal conflicts. An external conflict comes from the world around the character—external means outside. An internal conflict is a struggle inside a character’s mind—internal means inside.

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Theme

The last element is a story’s theme. A theme is an idea or message an author wants to get across with their story. It’s usually a big idea about the world or life, and authors usually don’t come out and tell you a story’s theme. You have to infer a theme based on what you read. You can think about the plot or conflict or how characters changed throughout the story to figure out the theme. Sometimes

a story’s theme will stick with you for a long time. It might even help you make sense of your own life story.