Articles by jng
The Five Elements of Fiction
There are five main elements of fiction to be found in (nearly) every piece of fiction: plot, setting characters, narrative perspective, and theme. Plot is the sequence of events and their relationship in a […]
Story Design (Freytag’s Pyramid)
Classical plot Aelius Donatus, a Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric from the mid-fourth century AD, gave a plot structure for plays (novels did not exist yet). Very simply put, a play has a beginning […]
What is literature and why read it?
What is literature? There is no definition, there are no boundaries that tell what makes a work literary. There is a continuous debate on what is literature, as if the term itself is the holy […]
Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
Lolita is a controversial novel by Vladimir Nabokov that tells the story of Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged man who becomes infatuated with a 12-year-old girl named Dolores Haze, whom he nicknames Lolita. The book explores […]
I’m the King of the Castle (Susan Hill)
I’m the King of the Castle Author: Susan Hill List: Modern Classic Year of publication: 1970 Pages: 224 Goodreads: I’m the King of my Castle
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)
A Farewell to Arms Author: Ernest Hemingway Project: War – World War I Year of publication: 1929 Pages: 293 Goodreads: A Farewell to Arms
Room (Emma Donoghue)
Room Author: Emma Donoghue Year of publication: 2010 Pages: 401 Goodreads: Room
The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes)
The Sense of an Ending follows Tony Webster, a retired man reflecting on his youth and the unreliability of memory. As he delves into his past, a long-buried secret resurfaces, forcing him to confront the […]
All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)
All the Light We Cannot See is a historical novel set during World War II, following the intertwining stories of Marie-Laure, a blind French girl, and Werner, a young German orphan with a knack for […]