Basic Elements of Short Stories

A story is a one form of narrative that gives a specific kind of pleasure to listeners and readers. The different characters and their actions make a story interesting for the readers. It is the inquisitiveness of listeners and readers that empower the writer to write an interesting story. Stories have different genre like comic story, tragic story and values in action stories, teaching stories and vision stories. Similarly, short stories are categorized into various types. A short story is small work fiction, which is created with the help of imaginary characters. Let us understand the basic elements of short stories.

1.  Setting: In a short story, a setting refers to the place and time in which the story takes place. Setting plays an important role in many short stories. It illustrates the geographical location, time period and weather condition of the story.

2.  Character: A character is a person or an animal that are identified in the story through their actions and dialogues. In simple words, characters are those persons who are represented in a dramatic work. In the story, the central character is recognized as a protagonist and the person who opposes the central character is known as the antagonist.

3.  Plot: A plot is series of events that are arranged in a proper order by the writer. Usually, a plot consists of a beginning, middle and the end part. A short story normally has one plot.

4.  Conflicts: The conflict refers to the struggle or problems between two characters or things. It is an essential part of a short story and without conflict there will be no plot. In a story, the central character may struggle against other character, society, and natural calamity or against his or her emotions and feelings.

5.  Theme: It is the main idea or belief in a short story. It depends on the writer that how he narrates the story.

What are Kinds of Pronoun and its Uses

In English grammar, a pronoun is recognized as a part of speech. It is a word or phrase that is replaced with a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns can be used as a subject, indirect and direct object and the object of the preposition. A pronoun is used in a sentence to avoid the repetition of a noun. ‘It’, ‘she’, ‘he’, ‘we’, ‘who’ and ‘they’ are widely used pronouns. Besides, these are also used for some adjectives, adverbs and other pronouns. Thus, if you want to describe about a person, place, animal or thing, then you can use pronouns and can make the sentence concise and clear for the readers.

Types of Pronoun

A pronoun is broadly categorized into following types:

1.    Personal pronoun
2.    Possessive pronoun
3.    Reflexive pronoun
4.    Relative pronoun
5.    Demonstrative pronoun

Let us understand the usage of different kinds of pronouns in detail.

1.    Personal Pronoun: Personal pronoun refers to a specific person, thing or group. It represents a thing or a person with the help word like ‘I’, ‘It’, ‘She’, ‘He’, ‘You’, ‘We’, ‘You’ and ‘They’.

For example:

•    He helps aged people.
•    They won the tournament

2.   Possessive Pronoun: Possessive pronoun shows ownership or close possession. Besides, it shows the relationship of a person or thing to another person or thing. ‘Mine’, ‘Ours’, ‘Yours’, ‘His’, ‘Their’ and ‘Her’ are possessive pronouns.

For example:

•    This painting is mine.
•    Her voice is really good.

3.  Reflexive Pronoun: A reflexive pronoun acts with another noun or pronoun when something does something to itself. In other words, reflexive pronoun explains a noun when subject’s action influence the subject itself. ‘Myself’, ‘Herself’, ‘Himself’, ‘Ourself’, ‘Themselves’ and ‘Yourself’ are reflexive pronoun.

For example:

•    They prepare themselves for the match.
•    How do you build confidence in yourself?

4.  Relative Pronoun: A relative pronoun is used to explain a noun that has been mentioned before and to give more information about that noun. ‘Which’, ‘Who’, ‘That’, ‘Whom’ and ‘Whose’ are relative pronoun.

For example:

•    The painter who designed this painting is standing outside.
•    The girl whom I met yesterday is my classmate.

5.  Demonstrative Pronoun: A demonstrative pronoun is used to replace certain thing or people, which have been previously mentioned. ‘This’, ‘That’, ‘Those’ and ‘These’ are demonstrative pronoun.

For example:

•    Those are rotten.
•    This is blue.

Classification of Adjectives in English Grammar

An adjective is a part of speech that modifies, describes and quantifies a noun or pronoun in the sentence. Apart from one word, a cluster of words with a subject and a verb also acts as an adjective. In this case, the cluster of words is considered an adjective clause. An adjective is classified into five parts, which includes:

•    Possessive adjective

•    Descriptive adjective

•    Adjective of quantity or numeral adjective

•    Demonstrative adjective

•    Interrogative adjective

Let us understand the different types of adjectives in detail.

1.  Possessive Adjective: a possessive adjective shows possession of a noun by something or someone. It is quite similar to possessive pronoun. ‘His’, ‘her’, ‘my’, ‘our’, ‘your’, ‘their’ and ‘its’ are possessive adjective.

For example:

•    Your mobile phone is lying on the table.

•    Her husband is standing outside.

2.  Descriptive Adjective: A descriptive adjective describes the quality or the type of noun or pronoun.

For example:

•    Sherry is a beautiful girl.

•    Rock is very tall.

3.   Adjective of Quantity or Numeral Adjective: A numeral adjective expresses the number of nouns. This type of adjective is also known as an adjective of quantity, which answers the questions like ‘how many’ or ‘how much’?

For example:

•    Twenty pilgrims injured in a bus accident.

•    She needs more money.

4.  Demonstrative Adjective: This form of the adjective is mainly used to point out nouns or pronouns. A demonstrative adjective always come before the word they are describing. ‘These’, ‘this’, ‘those’ and ‘that’ are demonstrative adjective.

For example:

•    I always prefer to wear this type of dress.

•    That girl is cute.

5.  Interrogative Adjective: Interrogative adjective is used for interrogation. In simple words, it is used to ask questions like ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘which’, etc.

For example:

•    What are you cooking today?

•    Which place would you like visit? 

What are Heteronyms give some examples

Heteronyms are the words that have similar spelling but different meaning and pronunciation. These are also known as homographs, but not homophones. Heteronyms are certain types of homographs that are identified through pronunciation and meaning. Some heteronyms sound as verb and others as a noun. Besides this, most heteronyms have related meanings, but some have totally different meaning. A list of words is mentioned below that are heteronyms.

1.    Alternate (verb) and alternate (adjective)

2.    Affect (verb) and affect (noun)

3.    Bass (voice) and bass (fish)

4.    Close (verb) and close (adjective)

5.    Desert (noun) and desert (verb)

6.    Deliberate (adjective) and deliberate (verb)

7.    Entrance (noun) and entrance (verb)

8.    Invalid (adjective) and invalid (noun)

9.    Lead (metal) and lead (verb)

10.    Minute (noun) and minute (adjective)

11.    Resign (as in resignation) and resign (as in signature)

12.    Row (line) and row (argument)

13.    Sow (noun) and sow (verb)

14.    Tear (verb) and tear (noun)

15.    Wound (past tense of wind) and wound (noun)

Let us understand the heteronyms from below mentioned sentences.

•    She will read the letter that her elder brother read last month.

•    I will resume my job search after updating my resume.

•    I want to present you the best anniversary present.

•    Close the door as the dust storm is getting close.

•    I want you to separate the books and keep it into two separate racks.

•    The guard will permit you to auditorium if you show him a valid permit.

•    They alternate the currency through alternate machine.