STRUCTURE IN THE NOVEL

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STRUCTURE IN THE NOVEL
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• Everything has a beginning, a middle and an end.
• This applies to simple things like making tea,
  cleaning a room or doing a homework task.
• It also applies to more complicated things like
  the writing you do for English and other subjects
  like History.
• All your writing tasks have a beginning, a middle
  and an end. Think of how this applies to
• letters
• essays
• stories.

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• This is what we call structure or form.
• In novels, short stories, films and plays,
  structure takes on a special meaning.
• Lets look at a childrens story, Little Red
  Riding Hood, to see how this works.

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Introduction

• The story begins by introducing tension
• Little Red Riding Hoods mother asks her to take
  some goodies to her grandmother but warns her not
  to stop to talk to anyone along the way.
• This makes us expect something unusual to happen.
• Along the way Red Riding Hood meets the wolf and
  stops to talk to him.
• This increases the tension she is disobeying
  her mother and we suspect something bad will
  happen.

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Rising action
The wolf finds out where Red Riding Hood is going
and they decide to have a competition to see who
can reach the grannys cottage first. Again,
this increases the tension. We know the wolf is
up to something and we blame Red Riding Hood for
disobeying her mothers orders. The wolf reaches
the cottage first and eats the granny. He then
disguises himself as the granny and waits for
Little Red Riding Hood. The tension reaches
breaking point we know Red Riding Hood is on
her way and we suspect the wolf wants to eat her
too.
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Climax
Red Riding Hood arrives and after some
playfulness (Granny, what big eyes you have )
the wolf jumps out of bed and chases Red Riding
Hood around the room.
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Falling action or denouement
Just then a hunter arrives and shoots the wolf
(there are different versions of this ending but
this one will do). And so Little Red Riding Hood
is saved. Now lets plot this structure in terms
of a diagram.
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This is the high point of the action and tension
where the wolf is on the point of eating Red
Riding Hood this stage is the climax.
This is the beginning the tension is introduced
and built up this stage is often called the
exposition or rising action.
This is the falling action, the mopping up after
the climax, also known as the denouement.
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• These are the terms you need to remember and use
  when you talk about structure
• Exposition
• Rising action
• Tension / conflict
• Climax
• Falling action
• Denouement