Reading Prose Fiction for N(A)-Level Literature in English (SEAB 2022): how to analyse characterisation, point of view, plot and structure, setting and word choice in stories

What the Reading Prose Fiction module is for

Reading Prose Fiction is the strand of N(A)-Level Literature in English (SEAB 2022) that builds the skill of analysing a short story or novel, whether the question is passage-based on a printed extract or an essay about the whole text. The principle is the same as in poetry: a story makes meaning through deliberate choices, and your job is to explain how those choices work, not to retell what happens. The marks live in the move from a feature you notice to the effect it creates on the reader.

This module gathers five dot points. Each gives you a way into a passage, and together they let you read a story on every level.

The toolkit: character, narrator, structure, setting and style

• Characterisation. Analyse how a writer builds a character through actions, speech, description and what others say at characterisation in prose. The key idea is show, not tell: look for the specific words that reveal a character rather than statements that simply label them.
• Narrative point of view. Work out who is telling the story and how much they know at narrative point of view. First person and third person each control what you understand and who you side with.
• Plot and structure. Analyse how events are arranged, including build-up, climax, resolution, flashbacks and foreshadowing, at plot and structure in stories. Write about the effect of the shaping, never just the events.
• Setting and atmosphere. Explain how place, time, weather and small details build mood and can mirror feeling at setting and atmosphere.
• Word choice and style. Analyse diction and sentence style, and explain how short or long sentences and loaded words create effect, at word choice and style.

The unifying principle is that no choice is analysed for its own sake. You always ask what effect it creates and how it serves the meaning of the story.

Joining the tools into one reading of a passage

In an exam you do not analyse these five things separately; you bring them to bear on the same extract. A passage might reveal character through speech, be coloured by a first-person narrator's bias, sit at a moment of rising tension in the plot, be set in a gloomy place that mirrors a character's mood, and be written in short, breathless sentences. A strong answer selects the few details that do the most work and explains how they combine to create the writer's effect.

A worked passage-analysis walkthrough

Check your knowledge

Attempt these under timed conditions, then check the solutions and try the Reading Prose Fiction quiz.

1. Explain the difference between showing and telling in characterisation. (2 marks)
2. Explain how a first-person narrator differs from a third-person narrator. (2 marks)
3. Explain how to write about plot without simply retelling the story. (2 marks)
4. Explain how setting can do more than describe a place. (2 marks)
5. Explain the effect a short, blunt sentence can create in prose. (2 marks)