Prose fiction explores human experience through invented stories. It allows writers to examine emotions, relationships, social structures, moral dilemmas, and cultural identities through the lens of character and narrative.
Unlike non-fiction, which is bound by what actually happened, fiction is free to construct scenarios that reveal truths about how people think, feel, and behave.
Thecontext of a prose fiction extract (period, genre, literary movement) can inform your reading but is not required for analysis.
What matters is what the passage does with language: how it constructs character, how it creates atmosphere, how it positions the reader relative to the events described.
Genre and Convention
Prose fiction operates within genre conventions. A Gothic extract uses darkness, confinement, and the supernatural. A realist extract uses detailed social observation and psychological interiority.
A modernist extract may fragment chronology, use stream of consciousness, or withhold conventional plot structure.
Recognising the genre conventions at work helps you understand what the passage is doing and what it expects of its reader.
Active recall
Name two purposes this literary form can serve.
How can context shape a reader's interpretation?
How does the intended audience affect the writer's choices?
