| A | B |
|---|
| Alliteration | The recurrence of initial consonant sounds |
| Allusion | A causal and breif reference to a famous historical or literary figure |
| Apologue | A moral fable, usually featuring animals or inanimate objects which act like human beings in order to shed light on the human condition |
| Epic | A long narrative poem recounting actions, travels, adventures, and heroic episodes and written in a high style |
| Flashback | A device that allows the writer to present events that happened before the time of the current narration or the current events in the fiction |
| Irony | A mode of expression, through words (verbal irony) or events (irony of situation), conveying a reality different from and usually opposite to appearance or expectation |
| metaphor | A comparison which imaginatively identifies one thing with another dissimilar thing, and transfers or ascribes to the first thing (the tenor or idea) some of the qualities of the second (the vehicle or image). |
| Persona | The person created by the author to tell a story |
| Personification | The metaphorical representation of an animal or inanimate object as having human attributes--attributes of form, character, feelings, behavior, and so on. As the name implies, a thing or idea is treated as a person |
| Pseudonym | A "false name" or alias used by a writer desiring not to use his or her real name |
| Rhyme | The similarity between syllable sounds at the end of two or more lines |
| Sarcasm | A form of verbal irony, expressing sneering, personal disapproval in the guise of praise |
| Satire | A manner of writing that mixes a critical attitude with wit and humor in an effort to improve mankind and human institutions. Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and several other techniques are almost always present |
| Setting | The environment in which the action of a fictional work takes place |
| Simile | A direct, expressed comparison between two things essentially unlike each other, but resembling each other in at least one way |
| Symbol | Something that is itself and yet also represents something else, like an idea |
| Tone | The writer's attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view |
