TYPES OF PROSE FICTION

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 INTRODUCTION

Prose fiction stands out among other prose forms due to its artistic merit, fictional foundation, and its intention to construct an encompassing portrayal of life, drawing from history, contemporary issues, and individual experiences. The depiction of life in prose fiction varies across authors, styles, and levels, resulting in diverse fiction types, including novels, novelettes, short stories, novellas, fables, and fairy tales. Some categorizations even encompass "films, comic books, and video games" as prose fiction (McKeon 30). Beyond the fundamental types, there are additional categories like science fiction and philosophical fiction.

Science Fiction: This branch merges entertainment with scientific speculation.

Philosophical Fiction: An amalgamation of fiction and philosophy, sometimes leaning towards propaganda, these works serve as thought experiments exploring consequences of specific technologies or philosophies.

While there may be other fiction types, our focus in this course remains on the novel, novelette, and short story—fundamental and popular categories.

The Novel

Definition:

The Oxford Twentieth Century Dictionary characterizes the novel as a fictional prose narrative portraying real-life, especially the emotional crises in the lives of the depicted individuals. The Dictionary of Literary Terms defines it as "a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length, portraying characters, actions, or scenes representative of real life in a plot of more or less intricacy" (Harmsworth 78). A lengthy narrative in literary prose, the novel has historical roots in both medieval and early modern romance and the novella tradition. The term "novel" originates from the Italian word "novella," signifying "a compact prose tale of somewhat longer length than the short story" (Kayode-Iyasere 113). In various European countries, the novel is known as "roman," denoting newness or a connection to early romance.

The medium of communication for novels and other forms of prose fiction is print and paper, accelerating the evolution and spread of this literary genre.

Origin:

The term "novel" harkens back to the creation of short stories embedded in European oral storytelling traditions, including fairy tales, jokes, and humorous anecdotes meant to convey a point in conversations. Stories like the exemplum inserted in a sermon by a priest belong to this tradition. These narratives were later collected, written, and circulated in various forms, from practical compilations for clerics to poetic cycles like Boccaccio’s "Decameron" or "The Canterbury Tales," as explored in the last unit. The novel's origin is commonly traced to these early writings. Additionally, the European tradition of the novel, as an extended prose fiction genre, is rooted in medieval "romances." While there are many novel types, we'll focus on the major ones.

The Picaresque Novel

Meaning:

The picaresque novel derives from the Spanish word "picaresca," from "pícaro," meaning "rogue" or "rascal." However, in the English-speaking world, "picaresque" refers more to a literary technique or model than the precise genre the Spanish call "picaresco" (McKeon 20). The English term pertains to an episodic recounting of the adventures of the central character.

Origin:

This novel type originated in Spain, possibly influenced by Arabic literature, which also featured the episodic exploits of a rogue character. It thrived in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, continuing to influence modern literature. Additionally, it was popular in the Classical world, with Petronius’s “Satyricon" and Apuleius’s “The Golden Ass,” known as “Milesian tales,” being the last two surviving examples of the genre from that age (Burgess 32). Medieval Arabic literature also presents novels with similar themes and structures comparable to later European picaresque novels.

Modern Period:

In England, Daniel Defoe’s "Moll Flanders" (1722) is considered picaresque, although some scholars argue that it lacks the "sense of religious redemption of delinquency" deemed vital in the Spanish version (Price 16). The classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West" is also considered to have significant picaresque elements. Since it was written in 1590, it is contemporary but may not "have been directly influenced by the European genre" (Ezeigbo 6).

Composition:

This is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction, often satirical, vividly portraying the adventures of a roguish hero from a low social class navigating a corrupt society with wit. The hero, typically mischievous, shrewd, wicked, and roguish, possesses a charming and likable quality, engaging in a succession of long adventures and escapades.

Examples:

Henry Fielding showcased his mastery in Joseph Andrews (1742), The Life of Jonathan Wild the Great (1743), and The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749). Despite claiming inspiration from Cervantes rather than the picaresque novel, Fielding's works exhibit picaresque characteristics. Charles Dickens, influenced by Fielding, penned his first six novels in the picaresque form. Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Nkem Nwankwo’s Danda are additional examples of the picaresque novel.

Gothic Novel

Meaning/Origin: The term "Gothic" originally referred to the Germanic tribe Goths in medieval Europe. English Gothic writers linked medieval buildings with a dark period marked by harsh laws, torture, mysterious rituals, and superstitions. The Gothic novel is credited to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 work, The Castle of Otranto. Gothic literature emerged as a rejection of the clarity and rationalism of the neoclassical style of the Enlightened Establishment (Bloom 68). This genre is associated with the ruins of Gothic buildings, symbolizing the inevitable decay of human creations. It also aligns with sentimentality development and the cult of mystery and the abominable atrocities of the dark ages. While the gothic novel may lack verisimilitude due to some unrealistic incidents and characters, it remains a significant part of prose fiction.

Features:

Melodrama and parody, including self-parody, characterize the gothic novel, expressing an appreciation for extreme emotions, the thrills of fear, and awe inherent in the sublime. It incorporates atrocious crimes like horror, fantasies, kidnapping, rape, sodomy, terror, and murder. Prominent features encompass the portrayal of terror, both psychological and physical, along with mysterious situations. Sometimes referred to as gothic horror, this genre combines elements of horror and romance, presenting a pleasing form of terror and extending Romantic literary pleasures, gaining popularity in the 18th century.

Themes: Explored themes include darkness, death, decay, madness, secrets, and hereditary curses. Some novels adopt satire, exploiting the traditional Gothic's excesses, stereotypes, and frequent absurdities (Skarda, 32).

Characters:

Mainly stock characters populate the gothic novel, featuring tyrants, villains, bandits, maniacs, Byronic heroes, persecuted maidens, femme fatales, monks, nuns, madwomen, magicians, vampires, demons, angels, fallen angels, revenants, perambulating skeletons, the wandering Jew, and the Devil. Characters encompass humans, weird beings, uncanny creatures, monsters, the supernatural, and ghosts.

Setting:

The gothic architecture of the medieval period inspires the novel, typically set in the Dark Ages. Actions unfold in towering structures like castles with dungeons, mansions, secret passages, hidden chambers, monasteries, often remote, crumbling, ruined, and other dark medieval places.

Plot:

The basic plot revolves around a threatening mystery, an ancestral curse, and various trappings like hidden passages and fainting heroines. It features the suffering of an innocent heroine oppressed by a wicked villain. Other plot elements include ghosts, mysterious happenings, and disappearances, sometimes explained later in the novel. Actions are manipulated to evoke terror and horror in the reader.

Influence:

The gothic novel exerted influence on later novelists through parody and imitation. Parody examples include Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1818), where the naive protagonist, influenced by Gothic fiction, envisions herself as a Radcliffian romance heroine, imagining murder and villainy everywhere. Another instance is Eaton Stannard Barrett's The Heroine (1813), where Cherry Wilkinson, a foolish female protagonist immersed in novel-reading, perceives reality through Gothic stereotypes, leading to absurd events ending in catastrophe. After her downfall, Stuart, a paternal figure, guides her to a sound education and corrects her misguided taste (Skarda 31).

Imitation:

The gothic novel influenced novelists like Charles Dickens and others. Its direct impact is evident in the gloomy villain, forbidding mansion, and persecuted heroine found in Sheridan Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas (1864) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Dickens, having read gothic novels in his youth, incorporated their atmosphere into works like Oliver Twist (1837-8) and Bleak House (1854), juxtaposing wealth and order with urban disorder and barbarity. Bleak House introduced urban fog to the novel, a characteristic of urban Gothic literature and film (Mighall 22). The Victorians, fascinated by the gothic novel's mood and themes, embraced its morbid obsession with mourning rituals, mementos, and mortality.

Example:

The Castle of Otranto (1764) is often regarded as the first Gothic novel, with one of the best and popular examples being Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho. Writers drew inspiration from Gothic architecture, contemplating the stories that might have unfolded within such structures. They explored the ruins of once magnificent buildings, relating them to human life that flourished and later decayed due to age and death.

For instance, Horace Walpole, whose The Castle of Otranto (1764) is often considered the first true gothic romance, was fascinated by Gothic architecture. He admitted to being so obsessed with medieval gothic architecture that he built his own house, Strawberry Hill, in that form, sparking a gothic revival fashion (Punter 177). In the novel, he aimed to blend elements of medieval romance, deemed too fanciful, with the modern novel, considered too confined to strict realism (Punter 178). This supports the notion that, in terms of realism in the novel, gothic novels should not be strictly classified.

In America, two notable Gothic tradition writers from the end of the 19th century were Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers, who presented a horrific, pessimistic, and decadent tradition in their works.

Epistolary Novel

Meaning:

An epistolary novel is written as a series of documents, often in the form of letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings, and other documents may be used. Recently, electronic "documents" like recordings, radio, blogs, and emails have also been employed. The term "epistolary" comes from the Latin word "epistola," meaning a letter. This form enhances realism in a story by mimicking real-life workings, allowing for different points of view without relying on an omniscient narrator.

Origin:

There are two schools of thought on the genesis of the epistolary novel. The first asserts that the genre originated from novels with inserted letters, gradually reducing the portion containing third-person narrative in between the letters (Doody 76). The other view posits that the epistolary novel emerged from miscellanies of letters and poetry, wherein some letters were intertwined into a mostly amorous plot (McKeon 65). The first truly epistolary novel is the Spanish "Prison of Love" (Cárcel de amor) (c.1485) by Diego de San Pedro, in which a large number of inserted letters dominate the narrative. The English novel's origin is attributed to James Howell (1594–1666) with "Familiar Letters," covering topics such as prison, foreign adventure, and the love of women.

Development:

The epistolary novel as a genre gained popularity in the 18th century through authors like Samuel Richardson, renowned for immensely successful novels like Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1749). In France, Montesqui's Lettres Persanes (1721) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Julie ou la Nouvelle Heloise (1761) demonstrated the dramatic effectiveness of the epistolary form, with events not always related directly or explicitly. In Germany, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Die Leiden des Jungen Werther (1774) and Friedrich Holderlin’s Hyperion contributed to the genre. The first North American epistolary novel, Frances Brooke's The History of Emily Montague (1769), was composed in this form.

Types:

There are three types of epistolary novels: monologic, dialogic, and polylogic.

- Monologic: In this style, the letter is addressed to only one character, as seen in Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter.

- Dialogic: In this case, the narrative in the form of letters is presented by two characters, exemplified by Mme Marie Jeanne Riccoboni’s Letters of Fanni Butlerd (1757).

- Polylogic: This type involves three or more letter-writing characters, as seen in novels like Clarissa and Dangerous Liaisons. One distinctive feature of this type is the "dramatic device of 'discrepant awareness,' which is the simultaneous but separate correspondences of the heroines and the villains creating dramatic tension" (McKeon 52).

Contemporary Examples:

Examples of epistolary novels include Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982), Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) composed as letters from an anonymous character to a secret role model, Richard B. Wright’s Clara Callan (2001) employing letters and journal entries to narrate the story of a middle-aged woman in the 1930s, Meg Cabot's The Boy Next Door (2002), a romantic comedy presented entirely in the form of emails among characters, and Lemony Snicket's The Unauthorized Autobiography (2002) by Daniel Handler, utilizing letters, documents, and other scripts to construct the plotline. We Need to Talk about Kevin (2003) is a monologic epistolary novel, written as a series of letters to the narrator's husband Franklin.

Criticism:

Some scholars express concern that the occurrence of letters within letters in epistolary novels might confuse readers about the point of view in a given section of the work.

Historical Novel

Meaning:

The historical novel, as the name implies, is based on historical events. In this type of novel, characters and events are drawn from history, representing a genre in which the plot is set amidst historical events. The author may use real events but adds fictional characters or events, or alters the sequence of historical events. Historical fiction can focus on historical or fictional characters, reflecting an earnest attempt, based on considerable research or serious reading, to tell a story set in the historical past as understood by the author's contemporaries.

Origin:

The origin of the historical novel is traced to Luo Guanzhong’s 14th-Century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, covering a crucial period of Chinese history. In Western Europe, the genre was pioneered by the German author Benedikte Naubert (1756-1819), who wrote 50 historical novels. Her technique of focusing attention on a person of minor historical significance, witnessing events through their eyes, was adopted by Sir Walter Scott, who had read her works. Some scholars, however, trace the origin of the modern historical novel to Scott’s Ivanhoe.

Development/Effects:

The historical novel gained popularity in the 19th century, particularly among artists classified as Romantics. Sir Walter Scott is often regarded as the first novelist to employ this technique, evident in his novels of Scottish history such as Waverley (1814) and Rob Roy (1818). Ivanhoe (1820) is credited with renewing interest in the Middle Ages. Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) and Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace are other early examples. Early historical novels played a vital role in European popular interest in the history of the Middle Ages. For instance, Hugo's Hunchback is credited for fueling the movement to save Gothic architecture in France, leading to the establishment of the Monuments historiques by the French government for historic preservation. Scott's novels ignited public interest in Scottish history, while Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter served a similar function for Norwegian history, earning her a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. Writers of historical novels have often distanced themselves from their own time and place to gain perspective on society and the human condition while recounting historical events fictitiously. Robert Stevenson’s Kidnapped narrates private adventures against the backdrop of the Jacobite troubles in Scotland, and Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities is based on the French Revolution.

Social/Sociological

Origin:

The social or sociological novel, also known as social problem novels or realist fiction, originated in eighteenth-century England but gained prominence in the nineteenth century with the rise of the Victorian Era. Seen as a reaction to industrialization, social, political, and economic issues and movements, these novels were not confined to England but were written throughout Europe and the United States. An example is the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, who advocated for reform in his country, particularly in education, as reflected in his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Features:

The social novel primarily explores the impact of economic and social conditions of a period on characters and events. It is also concerned with the culture of a people and their way of life. In Victorian England, the social novel served as an instrument of protest, creating awareness about abuses by the government and industry, as well as the repercussions suffered by the working class. The novel presented sensational accounts and stories of the working-class poor with the intention of eliciting sympathy from the middle class, encouraging them to advocate for legal and moral changes in society.

Types:

There are two major types of the social novel: the industrial and the moral types. The industrial novel focuses on the country’s working class in rural and urban areas, depicting deplorable conditions in factories and mines, the plight of child labor and endangered women, and the constant threat of rising criminality, epidemics due to overcrowding, and poor sanitation. The moral novels incorporate a moral or supernatural element, linking reform to Christianity and playing on the perception that the middle class is more economically sound and devoted to their religion, making them more prone to assist the lower classes. An example is Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol, where the lead character Scrooge is instructed by several ghosts to live a Christian life and help his less fortunate neighbors and employees.

Examples:

Notable social novel writers and their works include Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist (1838) and Hard Times (1854), George Eliot’s Adam Bede (1859), Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge (1883), John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958), Ngugi wa Thiong'o’s Weep Not Child (1964), among others. However, a novel could be classified under two types; for instance, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart contains historical elements and could be considered a historical novel.

Bildungsroman

Origin:

Bildungsroman, which in German means “novel of formation” or “novel of education,” is a genre of the novel that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood. It emerged during the German Enlightenment and evolved from folk tales of a dunce or a youngest son going out into the world to seek his fortune. Usually, in the beginning of the story, there is an emotional loss that motivates the protagonist to undertake his journey.

Characteristics:

The genre is characterized by formal, topical, and thematic features. It tells a story about the growing up or coming of age of a sensitive person who is looking for answers and experience. The aim of the novel is to present maturity, so change is important. The protagonist achieves maturity gradually and with difficulty, and there is usually a main conflict between him and society. Typically, the values of society are gradually accepted by the protagonist, and he is ultimately accepted into society. This acceptance marks the end of the protagonist's mistakes and disappointments. In some works, the protagonist is able to reach out and help others once maturity is achieved.

Plot:

Usually, the plot follows a pattern in which the protagonist grows from a child to an adult in the novel. At an early stage, a loss or some sort of discontent pushes him or her away from home or the family setting, providing an impetus to embark on a journey. This main character often develops through "self-actualization". The process of maturation is “long, strenuous, and gradual, involving repeated clashes between the protagonist's needs and desires and the views and judgments enforced by an unbending social order” (Minden). Some novels have plots similar to the bildungsroman. For instance, a military story might show a new recruit undergoing a baptism by fire and becoming a battle-hardened soldier, while a fantasy quest story may depict a transformation from an adolescent protagonist into an adult who becomes aware of his or her lineage or powers. However, neither of these story types corresponds exactly to the bildungsroman (Jeffers 16). Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island are good or classical examples of this fictional type in English literature.

Psychological Novel

Meaning:

The psychological novel, also referred to as psychological realism, is a work of prose fiction that emphasizes the motives, circumstances, and internal actions springing from the character's interior, manifesting in external actions. It states what happens and explains the motives behind these actions.

Origin:

The Tale of Genji, written in 11th-century Japan, has often been considered the first psychological novel. In the West, some scholars trace the origin of the psychological novel to Giovanni Boccaccio’s Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (1344), while others insist that the first psychological novel as a genre started with sentimental novels like Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (Bayam 1697).

Features:

In this type of writing, character and characterization are crucial, with novelists delving deeper into the mind of a character than in other types of novels. The psychological novel can be called a novel of the "inner man," exploring the minds of characters rather than the physical aspects or the external reality in which the characters operate. In some cases, techniques like stream of consciousness, flashbacks, and interior monologues are employed for a better illustration of the inner workings of the human mind. The stream of consciousness technique has been adopted by modern authors, presenting an “unbroken flow of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of the unconscious minds of characters in the novel” (Ezeigbo 10).

Examples:

Some examples of writers and their works include James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1952), and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Political/Novel of Ideas

As the name implies, the political novel deals with politics or the science and art of government. It presents "the art of the possible, the strategies and tactics of governance, and the whole business of organizational intrigue: the maneuvering for power and advantage and the interplay of Machiavellian forces and characters" (Ezeigbo). These novels tackle issues of good and evil, justice and injustice, hate and love as characters scheme and seek political positions. The novelists believe in Aristotle’s dictum that man is a ‘political animal,’ so they cannot be excluded from the game of politics, with its carefully orchestrated power-play. Characters and the setting are given prominence in this type of novel.

Examples:

Some examples of this genre of the novel are Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo (1904), Peter Abrahams’s A Wreath for Udomo (1956), Cyprian Ekwensi’s Beautiful Feathers (1963), Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People (1966), and Timothy Aluko’s Chief the Honourable Minister (1970).

Self-Assessment Exercise.

Explain the focus of the political novel.

Magic/Magical Realism

This term is used to describe the prose fiction of some Latin American writers and is now also used to describe the works of other Third World writers who exhibit the same artistic/novelistic idiosyncrasies. The novels under this label contain a mixture of realism and fantasy. In other words, they are graphic representations of ordinary events and experiences presented in detailed descriptions, with elements of fantasy and surrealism. Other features of this type of fiction are dreamlike states, mythic elements, and supernatural forces, as well as fairy tales.

Well-known practitioners of this genre are Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Colombia, who wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967); Salman Rushdie’s (India) Midnight Children (1981) and Satanic Verses (1988); and Ben Okri’s (Nigeria) The Famished Road (1991).

The Novella

A novella is simply a term used for a miniature or short novel. It shares all the characteristics of the novel and can fall into any of the categories of the novel. However, it is not as popular as the novel, and sometimes readers cannot differentiate between a novel and a novella. It is a written fictional prose narrative longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count of between 17,500 and 40,000. Other definitions start as low as 10,000 words and run as high as 70,000 words (Wikipedia).

The novella is regarded as one of the richest and most rewarding of literary forms because “it allows for more extended development of theme and character than does the short story, without making the elaborate structural demands of the full-length” book – the novel. It, therefore, provides an intense and detailed exploration of its subject by providing, to some degree, both the concentrated focus of the short story and the broad scope of the novel.

Structure:

A novella generally has fewer conflicts than novels, yet more complicated ones than short stories. The conflicts also have more time to develop, and their endings are usually located at the brink of change. Sometimes, they are not divided into chapters, but in such cases, white space is often used to demarcate the sections (Barnet 312). Novellas are often intended to be read at a single sitting, just like the short story, since they maintain a single effect.

In most cases, there are no subplots or multiple points of view. Most often it is concerned with personal and emotional development rather than with the larger social sphere. The novella “generally retains something of the unity of impression that is a hallmark of the short story, but it also contains more highly developed characterization and more luxuriant description” (Obstfeld 40). The Germans were the most active writers of the Novelle (in their language), and for them, it is a fictional narrative of indeterminate length—a few pages to hundreds—restricted to a single, suspenseful event, situation, or conflict leading to an unexpected turning point, provoking a logical but surprising end.

Origin:

The English word "novella" is derived from the Italian word "novella," feminine of "novello," which means new. For the Germans, it is "Novelle"; plural: "Novellen" (Wikipedia). The novella is a common literary genre in several European languages, and the idea of the novella dates back to the 10th-century prose narrative, Arabian Nights. Still, as a literary genre, its origin is traced to early Renaissance literary works like Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the novella was fashioned into a literary genre structured by precepts and rules (McKeon 24).

Examples:

English language novellas include George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. However, opinions are divided on the classification of these works as novellas instead of novels.

The Short Story

The short story is a genre of prose fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels or books. A short story is defined based on length, but this differs somewhat even among professional writers. Since the short story format includes a wide range of genres and styles, the actual length is determined by the individual author's preference. Another major determinant of the length of a short story is the submission guidelines that are relevant to the story's actual market. Guidelines vary greatly among publishers. Many short story writers define their work through a combination of creative, personal expression, and artistic integrity. Consequently, definitions of the short story based upon length splinter even more when the writing process is taken into consideration. Short stories are usually used for literary competitions, so the organizers often stipulate guidelines for submission.

A classic definition of a short story is that one should be able to read it in one sitting, a point most notably made in Edgar Allan Poe's essay, “The Philosophy of Composition” (1846). In contemporary usage, the term short story most often refers to a work of prose fiction that is not longer than 20,000 words and not shorter than 1,000.

Origin:

Short stories have their roots in oral storytelling traditions and the prose anecdote, a swiftly sketched situation that quickly comes to its point. The art of storytelling is doubtlessly older than the record of civilization. Perhaps the oldest and most direct ancestor of the short story is the anecdote and illustrative story, straight to the point. The ancient parable and fable, starkly brief narrative used to enforce some moral or spiritual truth, are reflected in many contemporary short stories.

Short stories in written form date back to oral storytelling traditions that originally produced epics such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Oral narratives were often told in the form of rhyming or rhythmic verse, often including recurring sections or, in the case of Homer, Homeric epithets. Such stylistic devices aided recall, rendition, and adaptation of the story. Short sections of verse might focus on individual narratives that could be told at one sitting. Another school of thought traces the origin to fables invented in the 6th century BC by a Greek slave named Aesop. These ancient fables are today known as Aesop's Fables. The other ancient form of the short story was the anecdote, and they functioned as a sort of parable, a brief realistic narrative that embodies a lesson.

Characteristics:

Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually, a short story focuses on one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a small number of characters, and covers a short period of time. A typical pattern in a short story could be presented with exposition, complication, climax, and resolution as in longer forms of fiction. However, some short stories may not follow this pattern, while some do not follow any patterns at all. For example, modern short stories only occasionally have an exposition. More typical, though, is an abrupt beginning, with the story starting in the middle of the action (in medias res). As with longer stories, plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis, or turning point. However, the endings of many short stories are abrupt and open. As with any art form, the exact characteristics of a short story vary by its creator.

CONCLUSION

There are many types of prose fiction, evolving from storytelling traditions worldwide, including epic narratives and romance, to the present forms. In modern prose fiction, the novel, novella, and short story stand out as popular genres. The novel, distinguished by an element of verisimilitude, holds a prominent position. Notably, some melodramatic prose fictions, like thrillers, don't meet the criteria for classification as novels. Both the short story and novella share characteristics with the novel but are shorter in length, with the novella being longer than the short story.

SUMMARY

In this unit, we explored the main genres of prose fiction: the novel, the short story, and the novella. The novel, being the most popular, encompasses various types that share a common aspect of depicting life but differ in style. The author's intent significantly influences the work, with historical novelists conducting research to accurately place the work in its historical context. Conversely, picaresque novelists focus on telling an interesting, adventurous story, drawing from imagination or real events and experiences.

REFERENCES/ FURTHER READINGS

Abrams, M. H. (2005). Glossary of Literary Terms (8th ed.). Boston: Thomson Wadsworth.

Alexander, A. P. (2009).Literature and the Delinquent: The Picaresque Novel in Spain and Europe, 1599-1753. Madrid: Visor Libros.

Barnet, S., Morton Barman and William Burto (1987).Literature for Composition. 2nd Edition. Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman& Company.

Bloom, C. (2007).Gothic Horror: A Guide for Students and Readers. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

British Fantasy Awards Constitution(Wikipedia Accessed 17 Sept 2009). Burgess, A. ().

Ezeigbo, A. (1998). A Companion to the Novel.Lagos: Vista.

Fuchs,B.(2004).Romance.London: Routledge.

Kayode-Iyasere, W. (1997). “The Novel and Its Types” in R. A. Masagbored.  The  Way of Prose Fiction: Exploratory Perspectives. Benin City: Headmark.

Magill, F. (1997).Short Story Writers.4thed. California: Salem Press.

McKeon, M. (1987).The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740. Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins University Press.

McKeon, M. (2000)Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach.Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins University Press.

Mighall, R. (2003).A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction: Mapping History's Nightmares. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mighall, R.  (2007).  "Gothic Cities", in C.  Spooner and E.  McEvoy,  eds,  The Routledge Companion to Gothic. London: Routledge.

Morrell, J. P. (2006). Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction  Writing. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online.(Accessed 7 Mar 2010)

Obstfeld, R. (2002). Fiction First Aid: Instant Remedies for Novels, Stories and Scripts. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books.

Punter, D. (2004).The Gothic. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

Price, Leah (2003). The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel: From Richardson to

George Eliot. London: Cambridge University Press.

Sanderson,   Mark   (4  November   2003).“The   Picaresque   in   Detail”.   Telegraph   (UK). http:/www.telegraph.co,uk/culture/books/3605787/The-picaresque-in-detail.html.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Awards FAQ.(Accessed 16 May 2009).

Selgin, P. (2007). By Cunning & Craft: Sound Advice and Practical  Wisdom for Fiction Writers. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books.

Skarda, P. (1986)."Gothic Parodies".In Jack Sullivan ed. (1986) The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, 178-9.

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Woods, George, Homer A. Watt and George K. Anderson (1936) Chicago: Scott, Foresman &  Company