Here's a passage of my own writing where I've identified the building blocks of fiction within brackets. It's from the opening section from chapter one of The Cure for Death by Lightning. As you can see, the building blocks bleed into each other and are often very difficult to tease apart and see, particularly in our own writing.
"(Transition: a bridge to this time and place:) When it came looking for me I was in the hollow stump by Turtle Creek at the spot where the deep pool was hidden by low hanging bushes, (now we're into description: deep pool, low hanging bushes) where the fishing was the very best and only my brother an I figured we knew of it. (Now we're into exposition: only I and my brother knew of it.) Now, in spring, the stump blossomed purple and yellow violets so profusely that it became something holy and worth pondering (description, exposition: she explains it's something holy and worth pondering). Come fall, the stump was flagrantly, shamefully red in a coat of dying leaves from the surrounding trees. (Description builds the setting for the reader; all five of the reader's senses should become engaged in description. Don't forget smell and sound!) (Now we move into exposition again, where she explains things:)This was my stump, where I stored my few illicit treasures: the lipstick my mother smuggled home for me in a bag of rice; the scrap of red velvet that Bertha Moses tucked in my pocket as she left the house on the day of my fifteenth birthday; the violet perfume I received as my gift at the Christmas pageant the year before; and the bottle of clear nail polish my father threw into the manure pile after he caught me using it behind the house, the bottle I had salvaged, washed, and spirited away. (Note that within this exposition, there are several little "sketches" that I could have turned into scenes if I'd chosen to: for example, the "sketch" of the father throwing the bottle into the manure pile could have been a whole scene, or even a whole sequence or chapter, depending on how I'd chosen to handle this. Look at your own work with this in mind: what exposition can you expand into a scene.)
(Now we're into a scene: action unfolds in real time in front of the reader, as opposed to the exposition above, where action is NOT unfolding in real time). I was in there, hiding, my knees up to my nose, listening to the sound of it rushing, crashing through the bush, coming for me. A cobweb stretched over my face, an ant roamed over the valleys in my skirt, spiders invaded my hair, and an itch started on my nose and traveled to my arm, but I stayed still. I closed my eyes and willed it away, and after a while the sound of crashing did move off. It became nothing but wind playing tricks on me, a deer I scared up with my own fear. (Bit of exposition there: she's explaining it’s the wind playing tricks on her, a deer she scared up.)
(Now into a scene: action unfolding in front of the reader in real time:) I waited, listening, until my leg cramped up, then climbed from the stump and wiped off my skirt. The weight of my body had pushed the perfume bottle and lipstick into the earth. I brushed off the scrap of velvet, smoothed it across my face, and rubbed it down the inside of my bare leg. I imagined I was touched that way, by a city man -- no farmer's hands were like velvet -- (now we're back into exposition as information is given -- a city man, who works in the office is going to have nice hands, but no farmer would) a man who worked in an office with clean papers, whose polished heels clicked along the pavement, and whose hands never dug into manure."
Example is always the best teacher. Take the time to highlight the building blocks, each in a different colour, in your own work or a work you admire, to see how the building blocks work together. It's the first step in learning how to read as a writer.
