Every fictional story is made up of several components. Each element has its own role and importance in keeping your masterpiece running smoothly and progressing in a logical structure that your audience will comprehend. In this article, you will learn more about the basic elements of a story and how you can develop each of them.

1. Characters

These are the fictional individuals that move inside the story. Whenever you introduce a character, make sure that you provide enough information that will help readers visualize them. You can talk about their physical characteristics like hair and eye color, height, or weight, and also their personalities.

Stories usually have a main character that decides how the plot will develop. He or she also has the solution to the problem that a story centers upon. There should be minor characters to spice up the plot and provide additional details and action. Every character must have a constant description all throughout the tale so that the reader will easily understand them.

2. Setting

It is the location where all the action happens. Provide detailed descriptions of each setting so that readers can visualize the scenes. What can they see, hear, touch, taste, or smell in each location? The more unusual your settings are, the more detailed they should be.

3. Point of View (POV)

This element deals with how the tale is told and who will tell it. There are two distinct types of POV and each has its own variations:

First person POV – a character within the tale is the narrator. He or she uses the first person pronoun I. Its variations are:

First person protagonist – the main character is the narrator.

First person observer – a secondary character narrates the story.

Third person POV – instead of the character narrating the tale, an “invisible author” will be the one to unfurl the plot using the third person pronoun.

Omniscient – the narrator knows the thoughts and actions of each character.

Dramatic narrator – the narrator only provides information based on what he or she has recorded.

4. Plot

It is the framework of the story. The usual format of the plot is the beginning, middle, and ending. But to make it interesting, you can even jumble the format and start with either the end or the middle. Pepper your story lines with adequate descriptions, suspense, and other details so that readers can grasp what is happening.

5. Conflict and resolution

Every tale has a certain conflict that needs to be resolved. The plot usually revolves around a problem and the ways in which each character will crack it.

The resolution, meanwhile, shows the solution to the conflict and how each character will move on after the crisis.

To wrap things up

Learning the different important components of a story is just the first step in crafting an amazing literary masterpiece. Once you know all these parts, hone your skills through reading works by other authors and developing a daily writing routine.