LET REVIEWER GENERAL EDUCATION - ENGLISH

The 14 different forms of Fiction:

1. Literary Fiction. It refers to literary works with artistic value and literary merit. Political criticism, social commentary, and reflections on humanity are most often the content of literary fiction. Contrary to plot-driven works, they are typically character-driven, and places emphasis and focus on the inner story of the character.

2. Mystery. Also known as detective fiction, mystery often follows a plot with a detective as character or someone playing detective and tries to solve a case with a sprinkling of clues here and there, giving the readers a feel for suspense, creates anticipation, and ultimately bares the truth with some unexpected turns with nonetheless satisfying conclusions.

3. Thriller. This fiction type is characterized by dark, mysterious and suspenseful plots. It rarely utilizes humor but highlights techniques like plot twists, red herrings, and cliffhangers which can keep readers guessing until the very end. 

4. Horror. Written to shock, startle, scare, and even repulse the readers, horror fiction creates a horrifying sense of dread and may include characters like ghosts, vampires, werewolves, witches, and monsters. Horror themes may be of death, demons, evil spirits, the afterlife, and even fear itself.

5. Historical. This type of fiction involves the creative use of research to be able to transport readers to another time and place. This time and place may be real, imagined, or a combination of both. Some historical fiction may utilize characters who were historical figures and use real events in history.

6. Romance. Created with a light-hearted, oftentimes optimistic tone, and most often a satisfying conclusion, romantic fiction highlights love stories between people.

7. Western. Stories of this type often portray characters and setting of the western frontier like cowboys, outlaws, and settlers of the American Old West. One distinct feature of this form is that it relies mostly on the specific locale, culture, and language of that era in history.

8. Bildungsroman. Literally translated as “a novel of education” or “a novel of formation,” this form highlights the transition or metamorphosis of a character from youth into adulthood. The transition from immaturity to maturity experienced by the character may involve a profound loss, an insightful journey, or an intense conflict.

9. Speculative fiction. This type may be a combination of different fiction forms like dystopian, science fiction, and fantasy, or any other combination. The setting may be in a world so unlike the world we live in. Considered as a supergenre, writers of speculative fiction have limitless use of the possibilities beyond the human imagination.

10. Science Fiction. Classified under speculative fiction, sci-fi uses elements that do not exist in the real world. Inspired by both natural science (physics, chemistry, and astronomy) and social sciences (psychology, anthropology, and sociology), sci-fi stories may focus on time travel, space exploration, and societies of the future.

11. Mystery. Another type of speculative fiction, fantasy has imaginary characters and worlds and may have influences of mythology and folklore which can be appealing to both children and adults alike.

12. Dystopian. In contrast to utopian fiction which portrays a world better than the one we have, dystopian fiction depicts a society that is worse than ours. Dystopian fiction is also another type of science fiction.

13. Magical realism. The world portrayed in magical realism is similar to our real world but with added magical elements which are considered “natural” in which the story takes place.

14. Realist literature. This type of fiction portrays a world very much like ours, with all the elements created as truthful as it can be as it happens in our world.

Some academics also classify fiction into sub-genres which include the following:

1.Short Story. Shorter in length than a novel, a short story is a fictional prose work which usually focuses on one plot, one main character (with a few additional minor characters), and one central theme. It aims at unity of effect and creation of mood rather than on plot. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Philosophy of Composition” describes a short story as one that “should be read in one sitting, anywhere from a half hour to two hours. In contemporary fiction, a short story can range from 1,000 to 20,000 words.”

2. Novel. A novel is a narrative prose work of considerable length that talks about significant human experience. The novel’s beginnings date back to as early as the writing of “Tale of Genji” by Murasaki Shikibu; later, in the early seventeenth century, European novels came to be written (Prahl, 2019).

A novel is also characterized by the following: (1) written in prose form, (2) considerable length or word count, (3) fictional content, and (4) individualism; that is, it appeals to an individual audience as a reader rather than to a group.

3. Myth. Derived from the Greek mythos, which has a range of meanings from “word,” through “saying” and “story,” to “fiction,” a myth is a symbolic narrative of unknown origin and tells events which are partly traditional and associated with religious beliefs. Myths are specific accounts with gods or superhuman beings as characters involved in extraordinary events or circumstances in a time that is unspecified but which is understood as existing apart from ordinary human experience. Mythology, on the other hand, refers to both the study of

4. Legend. A legend is a traditional tale that is thought to have historical basis.

5. Fable. A fable is an instructive story about human social behaviour with personified animals or natural objects as characters and always ends with an explicit moral message. The concept of time and space is also not specific in a fable.

POETRY

2 types:

1. Narrative poem – It tells a story with an orientation, complication, crisis, and resolution,

2. Lyrical poem – It conveys an experience, or ideas, thoughts or feelings about a subject without necessarily having ‘something happen.’

Different Forms of Poems

1. Acrostic. It is a poem that consists of vertical first letters name of the topic while horizontal words describe the topic.

2. Ballad. It is a narrative poem which tells a dramatic story in four-line stanza with a regular beat. A ballad was originally set to music and sung. Characterized by simplicity of language, repetition of epithets and phrases, simple rhyming schemes (usually abcd, sometimes abab) and refrains, topics are often drawn from community life, local and national history, legend and folklore; while the verse tales are usually of adventure, war, love, death and the supernatural

3. Chant. Dating to prehistoric time, hence one of the earliest forms of poetry, chant is a poem of no fixed form, but in which one or more lines are repeated over and over. It is usually meant to be spoken aloud.

4. Cinquain. It is a five line poem that follows a pattern and does not rhyme. The cinquain consists of five lines of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 2 syllables respectively.

5. Comic Verse. It is a poem that involves humor and makes sense.

6. Diamante. It is a seven line poem in which the first and last lines are opposites or contrasts. It is written in the shape of a diamond.

7. Elegy. It is a poem of mourning to someone’s death.

8. Epic. It is a long narrative poem on a subject which is thought to be great and serious.

9. Epigram. It is a short and pointed poem, often a witty statement in verse or prose which may be complimentary, satiric or aphoristic.

10. Epitaph. It is a poem with a short inscription carved on a tombstone (or written with that context in mind). It usually rhymes and lends itself to imitation and distortion. While the epitaph in a cemetery is often serious, the form can be made humurous.

11. Free verse. It is a poetry that does not conform to particular schemes or patterns of rhyme, meter or form because it doesn’t follow strict rules it has flexibility. Its rhythm is created by the natural flow of the poet’s thoughts and emotions. Each line is based on speech rhythm which is often a mixture of iambic and anapestic fee.

12.Haiku. Originated in Japan and often tells about nature, it consists of three unrhymed lines containing 17 syllables (5, 7, 5) and portrays a single idea or feeling while having a strong visual imagery.

13, Light verse. It is a poem that is cheerful, airy and light-hearted, it often describes everyday events and uses language of the speaking voice.

14. Limerick. This is usually brief and lends itself to comic effects. The limerick consists of three long and two short lines rhyming aabba. Rhyme and rhythm are used to enhance the content.

15. Lyric. Concerned with feelings and thoughts rather than action or narrative, it usually represents and reflects on a single experience, is intensely personal, and its rhythms often have a musical flexibility. It does not have to tell a story, and is often short (eg haiku, cinquain, shape, tongue twisters, rhyming couplets, acrostic poems).

16. Narrative. It tells a story with an orientation, complication and resolution eg nursery rhymes. It can be short or long, serious, humorous, personal or impersonal. It may come in the form of allegories, fables or accounts of everyday.

17. Nonsense verse. Categorized as light verse that has structure and rhyme and invented words, it is characterized by fantastic themes, absurd images, artificial language and humor.

18. Nursery rhyme. Usually having regular rhymes, strong rhythms and repetition, it could be described as jingles for children, forming part of the oral tradition of many countrie.

19. Ode. Usually celebrating a person, animal or object, an ode is often written without the constraints of formal structure or rhyme.

20. Riddle. It indirectly describes a person, place, thing or idea and can be any length and usually has a rhyming scheme.

21. Song lyric. It is a poem that has been set to music. The word ‘lyric’ comes from the Greek word lyre, a kind of harp that was often used to accompany songs.

22. Sonnet. It is a lyric poem that has fourteen lines of five beats each. Rather than tell a story. It usually explores a feeling or state of mind or expresses a fixed idea. It first appeared in Italy in the 13th century. Many sonnets have an alternating rhyme scheme and usually have a ‘turning point’ at the eighth line.

23. Tanka. A type of Japanese poem similar to haiku, it consists of five lines with the first and third lines usually having five syllables and the others seven, making it a total of 31.

24. Villanelle. It is a fixed form, usually containing five three-line stanzas and a four-line stanza, with only two rhymes throughout.