Literature takes on many forms, and fiction introduces prose narrative, including both short stories and the novel.  You might have heard of or even read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, O Pioneers! by Willa Cather, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, or Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe — these are all examples of novels that fall under the category of literary fiction.  Additionally, short stories such as Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges, or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “A Private Experience” are all examples of fiction.

What are the characteristics of fiction?  How does one define it as literature?  What can readers do to analyze these works?  This section answers these questions and more.