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TraditionExperimentation (or Innovation)
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Is written in sentences and paragraphs that read from left to write and top to bottom. There may be section breaks or scene breaks, but otherwise the story itself is being written in a non-graphic, familiar, inuititive manner for the reader.May use other elements besides traditional sentencing and paragraphing, including, but not limited to, bullet points, stanzas, visual or graphic elements, atypical typography, innovative uses of the white space of the page, the infinite canvas, marginalia or footnotes. Text may appear on the page in a more graphical manner, laid out in unexpected directions.
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More concerned with narrative and storytelling.More concerned with creating a work of fiction than a work of narrative.
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Uses the form of the short story or the novel in a way that generally does not mimic, appropriate, or gesture toward other textual forms; is self-contained.Makes use of other text-based forms (e.g.: recipes, artist statements, indexes, comics, appendixes, field guides…); is metafictional, intertextual, and/or hypertextual.
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Privileges first- and third-person point-of-views with familiar tenses; narration or narrators occupy a space in the story that feels recognizable to the reader.Uses more uncommon tenses, point-of-view; narration or the narrator occupies an unfamiliar or challenging space in the work of fiction.
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Punctuation, grammar, and typography is generally used in a way that feels familiar to and accommodates reader.Punctuation and grammar is used in experimental ways; typography is either abandoned (e.g.: Cormac McCarthy's lack of quotation marks) or calls attention to itself.
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Narratives have a beginning, middle, and end.Narratives are less concerned or unconcerned with having a beginning, middle, and end. Might utilize fragmentation, collage, randomness, or otherwise disrupt narrative structure in surprising ways.
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Plot is prioritized; events are used in a recognizable, often Freytagian manner.Plot is secondary or entirely abandoned; alternatively, non-Western dramatic structures (such as Kishōtenketsu) may be used.
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Conflict is present and recognizable; narrative is concerned with "stakes."Conflict is either absent or used in innovative or unfamiliar ways.
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Setting and/or instilling a sense of place in the reader is a primary concern.Setting or a sense of place is minimized or completely absent.
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Storyworld uses characters to drive the story (i.e.: protagonist, antagonist, foil...).Fiction is less concerned with traditional use of character; uses character in non-traditional ways (e.g.: setting-as-character); disregards the actions of characters in accordance with plot; or ultimately disregards characters completely.
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Writer utilizes themes that are familiar or easy for the reader to explicitly identify.Writer uses themes in unexpected, abstract, obtuse, or ambivalent ways—or themes are completely absent.
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Symbols and/or motifs are used in a way to create an identifiable sense of emphasis or repetition.Symbols and/or motifs are largely absent, non-existent, or used in obscure ways.
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More likely to have a moral, takeaway, contain "an emotional core," or aim to instill a specific affective response in the reader by the end of the work of fiction.Less concerned or entirely unconcerned with "an emotional core," moral, takeaway, or instilling a specific affective response in the reader.
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Authors minimize themselves in the narration, otherwise rendering "the author" invisible.The author intrudes upon the text in innovative or unexpected ways.
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