The Story and its Writer-Glossary of Literary Terms
Deconstruction
A critical approach investigating the unstable properties of language, especially the destabilization of single definitions of meaning and the defamiliarization Of literary conventions. (1738)
Formalism
A critical approach that stresses the self-contained and self referential nature of a work of art. (1740)
Metafiction
Stories about language in the process of writing. (1741)
Persona
The fictional mask or voice and author may adopt to tell a story. (1742)
Central Intelligence
A character (often but not always the narrator) through whose perception the author observes the action of a story and whose perspective thus shapes the reader's view of that action. The term was coined by Henry James, who felt, essentially, that the true subject matter of fiction is the effect of the action on the understanding of this central intelligence. (1737)
Antagonist
A CHARACTER in some stories who is in real or imagined opposition to the PROTAGONIST or HERO. The CONFLICT between these characters makes up the ACTION, or PLOT, of the story. It is usually resolved in some way, but it need not be. (1736)
Mise en scene
A French term meaning "putting into the scene," it refers to the arrangement or design of visual elements such as props, lighting, costume, and actors on the stage of the theater or in the frame of the film. (1741)
Allegory
A Narrative in which CHARACTERS, places, things, and events represent general qualities and their interactions are meant to reveal a general or abstract truth. Such characters, places, things, and events thus often function as SYMBOLS of the concepts or ideas referred to. (1736)
Antihero/Antihero
A PROTAGONIST who lacks the conventional qualities of a HERO. Generally the ________________ is considered a modern form of characterization, a commentary on traditional portrayals of idealized heroes. Frank Kafka's protagonist Gregor Samsa is one example. (1736)
Anecdote/Anecdote/Anecdotes/Anecdote
A brief, unified NARRATION of one incident or EPISODE, often humorous and often based on an actual event. Some very good short stories may consist of nothing more than an ________________; others may be made up of several _________________ strung together, or may use one or more _____________________ as a way of advancing the PLOT or developing a CHARACTER. (1736)
Innocent or naïve narrator
A first person narration told from the point of view of a young, inexperienced, uneducated, or unintelligent narrator who doesn't understand the implications of the story. This approach is used by the author to generate irony or sympathy in the reader. (1740)
Parody
A humorous imitation of another, usually serious, work or type of work, in which the parodist adopts the quirks of style for the conventions of the work or works being imitated and uses them in extreme and ridiculous ways or applies them to a comically inappropriate subject matter. (1742)
Modernism
A label loosely applied to the work of certain writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who investigated the structure and texture of literature and challenged its conventions. (1741)
Minimalism
A literary style exemplifying economy and restraint, as seen in the stories of Donald Barthelme and Raymond Carver. (1741)
Novel
A long fictional prose narrative
Fiction
A narrative drawn from an author's imagination, made up of a plot of imagined events involving imagined characters In imagined or imaginatively reconstructed settings. (1739)
Fantasy
A narrative or events in a narrative that have no possible existence in reality and could not have occurred in a real-world. (1739)
Folktale
A narrative that comes out of the tradition - usually the oral tradition - of a specific culture and is used to communicate that culture's beliefs, values, and history from generation to generation. (1739)
Parable
A narrative, usually short, that is told to answer a difficult moral question or teach a moral truth. (1742)
Dialect
A particular variety of language spoken in a specific region, usually by a poorly educated person.(1738)
Epigraph
A quotation an author places at the beginning of a literary work that often suggests its theme.(1738)
Analysis
A separation of a STORY into its component parts, as a means of understanding its meaning or structure. (1736)
Narrative
A sequence of events, often unified and connected and storytelling. (1741)
Novella
A short novel; a work of prose fiction whose length falls somewhere between that of a short story and that of a novel.
Epiphany
A showing force or sudden revelation of the true nature of a character or situation through a specific event - a word, gesture, or other action - that causes the reader to see the significance of that character or situation in a new light. The term was first popularized in modern literature by James Joyce. (1738)
Flat character
A simple, one-dimensional, usually unchanging character who shows none of the human depth, complexity, and contrariness of a round character or of most real people. (1739)
Ambiguity/Ambiguous/Ambiguity
A situation expressed in such a way as to admit more than one possible interpretation; also, the way of expressing such a situation. Many short story writers intend some element of their work to be __________________, but careless or sloppy writing often creates unintentional ___________________ or vagueness. (1736)
Episode
A specific, usually very brief incident, often complete in itself and usually narrated at once and as a whole.(1738)
Fairy tale
A story or fantasy that appeals to our sense of the marvelous, in which we suspend disbelief and let our subconscious patterns of wish fulfillment express themselves through magical occurrences, characters, or objects. (1739)
Legend/Legends
A story transmitted by popular oral tradition about a famous person or an important events. Unlike other folktales, ______________ take place In real locations and are about genuine historical figures (1740).
Frame story
A story within a story; a narrative told within the framework of another fictional setting and situation. (1740)
Myth
A symbolic narrative, often a folktale arising out of a culture's oral tradition and involving gods or superhumanly heroic figures, that is used to explain the way things are and the way things happened and to transmit the culture's values and beliefs from generation to generation. (1741)
Flashback
A technique of exposition in which the flow of events and a narrative is interrupted to present to the reader an earlier incident or situation that has a bearing on the story or film or its characters. (1739)
Didactic
A term used to describe a narrative or other work of art that is presented in order to teach a specific lesson, convey a moral, or inspire and provide a model for proper behavior. (1738)
Convention
A traditional or commonly accepted technique of writing or device used in writing, often an unbelievable device that the reader agrees to believe - such as, for example, the fact that a first-person narrator is addressing the reader in a friendly and intimate manner. (1738)
Genre
A type of literary work, such a short story, novel, essay, play, or poem. The term may also be used to classify literature with any type, such as science fiction stories or detective novels. (1740)
Fable
A very short, often humorous narrative told to present a moral. A fable's characters are often animals, in particular, animals have conventional associations with specific abstract qualities or values. (1739)
Impressionism
A way of writing in which an author presents characters and events in a highly subjective and personal light, freely admitting an authorial point of view and effectively denying any claim to objectivity or disinterestedness. (1740)
Image
A word or group of words used to give a concrete representation, either literal or figurative, of a sensory experience or an object that is perceived by the senses. (1740)
Initiation story
Also called a coming-of-age story, this type of narrative confronts a protagonist, often a child or adolescent, with a difficult experience or rite of passage that prepares him or her for adult life. (1740)
Open ending
An ambiguous conclusion to a story, which suggests there might be different possibilities in the future of the protagonist. (1742)
Objectivity
An attempt by an author to remove himself or herself from any personal involvement with the characters and actions of the story, to tell the story without bias and without expressing any personal opinions or making any personal judgments of the characters.
Distance
An authors or a narrators spatial or temporal - and hence emotional - removal or aloofness from the action of a narrative, and from its characters. (1738)
Coincidence
An event or situation that arises for no apparent reason and with little or no preparation and then has a significant effect on the working out of the plot or the lives of one or more of the characters in a work; a chance happening that has an important consequence or result; an accident of fate.(1737)
Anti-Story
An experimental short story that attempts to convey OBJECTIVE reality by avoiding what its authors consider the false CONVENTIONS of PLOT, CHARACTER, and THEME, relying instead on seemingly uninterpreted and unarranged fragments of direct experience and language. (1736)
Naturalism
An extreme form of realism in which authors present their work as a scientific observation of a world in which people's acts are strictly determined by their nature and the nature of their surroundings.
Metaphor
An implied comparison of two different things that is achieved by a figurative verbal equation of those things. "Love is a rose," "war is hell," are both examples. (1741)
Allusion
An implied or indirect reference to something with which the reader is supposed to be familiar? (1736)
Anticlimax/Anticlimaxes
An unexpected, insignificant RESOLUTION to a NARRATIVE, sometimes appearing in the place of a CLIMAX, sometimes after a true climax. Many ____________________ are the unintended result of inept writing, but often-they are used intentionally to indicate the randomness, futility, or boredom of human life and action. (1736)
Character
Any person who plays a part in a narrative. The main __________________ in the story can usually be labeled the protagonist or hero. He or she is often in conflict with some other character, and antagonist. (1737)
Action/Action/Action
At its simplest, the thing or things that happen in a story's PLOT-what the CHARACTERS do and what is done to them. A story may have more than one _____________ (a plot and one or more SUBPLOTS), but a successful short story usually has one identifiable central ____________. (1736)
Magical realism
Fiction often associated with Latin America that interweaves realistic and fantastic details, juxtaposing the marvelous with the ordinary. (1741)
Conventional
Following or observing conventions;; often used in a derogatory manner to indicate a certain overreliance on such conventions and thus a lack of originality or failure of imagination on the part of the writer. (1738)
Levels of diction
In English, the four levels of formality and word choice are classified as Vulgate (dialect speech), colloquial English, general English, and formal English. (1740)
Abstract Language
Language that describes ideas or qualities rather than specific, observable people, places, and things, which are described in concrete language. (1736)
Concrete language
Language that describes or portrays specific, observable persons, places, and things rather than general ideas or qualities, which are described in abstract language. (1737)
Graphic storytelling
Substantial single volumes of pictorial images arranged in a sequence to narrate the story with or without words. (1740)
Atmosphere
The MOOD, feeling, or quality of life in a story as conveyed by the author's choices of language and organization in describing the SETTING in which the speech and activity of the CHARACTERS takes place. The atmosphere in which an author makes characters appear and events occur is often important in determining the TONE of the work. (1736)
Limited omniscience
The ability of a third person narrator to tell the reader directly about any events that have occurred, are occurring, or will occur in the plot of a story, and about the thoughts and feelings of one particular character, or a few characters. (1741)
Explication
The act of explaining or interpreting the meaning of the text. (1739
Montage
The art of editing a film. (1741)
Mood
The atmosphere that is created by the author's choice of details and the words with which to present them. (1741)
Diction
The choice and arrangement of specific words and types of words to tell a story. (1738)
Closed ending
The conclusion of a story in which the action ends in unambiguous success or failure or death for the protagonist. (1737)
Denouement
The conclusion of an action or plot, in which the falling action is brought to a close and the outcome or outcomes of the climax are presented to the reader. (1738)
Colloquial English
The correct but informal and casual language of ordinary native speakers, including slang and contractions. (1737)
Narration
The dramatic telling of the events that make up the action or plot of the story. (1741)
Falling action
The events of a narrative that follows the climax and resolve the conflict that reached its highest point in that climax before bringing the story to its conclusion or Denouement. (1739)
Motivation
The external forces and internal forces that compel a character to act as he or she does in a narrative. (1741)
Formal English
The heightened language of educated users, usually written, although spoken on dignified and ceremonial occasions. (1740)
Complication
The introduction and development of a conflict between characters or between a character and his or her situation. A __________________ moves the plot forward by exciting the reader's expectation that the conflict so introduced must lead to a climax and reach some ultimate resolution as a result.
Foreshadowing
The introduction of specific words, images, or events into a narrative to suggest or anticipate later events that are central to the action and its resolution. (1739)
Moral
The lesson to be drawn from a story, especially from a fable or from a heavily didactic story. (1741)
Protagonist
The main character of a narrative; it's hero. The action of the story is usually the presentation and resolution of some internal or external conflict of the protagonist. (1743)
Connotation
The meaning of a word (or words) that is implied or suggested by the specific associations the word calls to mind and by the tone in which it is used, as opposed to its literal meaning or denotation. (1738)
Editorial point of view
The occasion in a text in third person narration when the narrator adds his or her own comments, which may or may not be the opinions of the author.(1738)
Conflict
The opposition presented to the main character (or protagonist) of a narrative by another character (an antagonist), by events or situations, by fate, or by some aspect of the protagonists own personality or nature.(1737)
General English
The ordinary speech of educated speakers. (1740)
Conclusion
The outcome or resolution of a plot at the end of the story. Also called denouement, as it may untie or resolve the plot complications encountered during the rising action.(1737)
Point of view
The perspective from which an author lets the reader view the action of a narrative. This the choice of who tells the story(First or Third person narration).(1742)
Exposition
The presentation of background information that a reader must be aware of, especially of situations that exist and events that have occurred before the action of the story begins. (1739)
Hero/Heroine
The protagonist of the story or other narrative; the main character, whose conflict is presented and resolved in the action or plot. (1740)
Pathos
The quality in a work that evokes sorrow or pity. (1742)
pace
The rate at which the action of a story progresses. (1742)
Irony
The reader's or audiences awareness of a reality that differs from the reality the characters perceive or the literal meaning of the authors words. (1740)
Dramatic irony
The readers awareness of a discrepancy between a character's perception of his or her own situation or activities, or of their consequences, and the true nature of that situation or those consequences.(1738)
Plot
The series of events in a narrative that form the action, in which a character or characters face an internal or external conflict that propels the story to a climax and ultimate resolution. (1742)
Narrator
The teller of the story; usually either a character who participates in the stories action or a detached, anonymous observer who may or may not present himself or herself as omniscient of the stories action from the beginning. (1741)
First person narration
The telling of a story by a person who was involved in or directly observed the action narrated. (1739)
Impartial omniscience
The telling of a story by third person narrator whose omniscience does not allow for any evaluation or judgment of the characters and their activities. (1740)
Realism
The telling of a story in a manner that is faithful to the readers experience of real life, limiting events in the plot to things that might actually happen and characters to people who might actually exist. (1743)
Crisis
The turning point in a narrative the point at which the action reaches its climax and its resolution becomes inevitable. (1738)
Climax/Climactic
The turning point or point of highest interest in a narrative; the point at which the most important part of the action takes place and the final outcome or resolution of the plot becomes inevitable. Leading up to the ______________ Is the rising action of the story; after the ______________, the falling action takes the reader to the denouement or conclusion, in which the results of the _____________ action are presented.(1737)
Figurative language
The use of a word or a group of words that is literally inaccurate to describe or define a person, event, or thing vividly by calling forth the sensations or responses that person, event, or thing evokes. Such language often takes the form of metaphors. (1739)
Compression
The use of few or short words, sentences, or paragraphs, or of very brief descriptions of characters and settings and narrations of incidents, to tell a story as clearly and simply as possible; in general, and economical use of language.(1737)
Imagery
The use of images, especially of a consistent pattern of related images - often figurative ones - to convey an overall sensory impression. (1740)
Description
The use of language to present the features of a person, place, or thing.(1738)
Dialogue
The written presentation of words spoken by characters in a narrative; used to introduce the conflict, give some impressions of the lives and personalities of the characters who are speaking, and advance the action to its climax and resolution. (1738)
O. Henry ending
a surprising conclusion that reverses the reader's expectations of the way a narrative will end, often affected by an unexpected source or by withholding information at an earlier stage of the story. (1742)
Omniscience
literally, "all knowingness"; the ability of an author or a narrator to tell the reader directly about any events that have occurred, are occurring, or will occur in the plot of the story and about the thoughts and feelings of any character. (1742)
