| A | B |
|---|
| Setting | Where and when the story takes place |
| Plot | What happened in a story |
| Symbol | something in a story that maintains its own meaning while standing for something else |
| Theme | main point or central idea |
| Round character | characters are complex and developed |
| Flat character | characters have a single characteristic and not developed. |
| Dynamic character | Character changes throughout the story |
| Static character | Character does not change in the story |
| Climax | The moment the plot reaches the point of greatest emotional Intensity, turning point. |
| Rising action | (complication) Develops and intensifies the conflict. |
| Resolution: or denouement | which means an untying or unraveling. The conclusion of the story |
| Foreshadowing | The writer slips in a suggestion of something to come later. |
| Conflict | the basic opposition that sets the plot of a story in motion |
| Protagonist | Main character |
| Antagonist | causes problems for the main character (protagonist) |
| Flashback | When the author talks about events that happened in the past. |
| Direct Characterization | The author literally tells the audience what a character is like. |
| Indirect Characterization | The audience must infer for themselves what the character is like through the character’s thoughts, actions, speech |
| Irony | literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character's words or actions are clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character. |
| tone | the general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation |
| mood | the atmosphere or pervading tone of something |
| allegory | The main purpose of an allegory is to tell a story that has characters, a setting, as well as other types of symbols, that have both literal and figurative meanings. |
| allusion | a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature. |
| satire | the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or |
| imagery | visually descriptive or figurative language, esp. in a literary work |
| dialogue | The conversation between characters in a drama or narrative. |
| monologue | a literary device that is used when a character reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings |
| metaphor | a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable: “I had fallen through a trapdoor of depression,” |
| simile | makes a comparison between two otherwise unalike objects or ideas by connecting them with the words "like" or "as." |
| personification | A figure of speech where animals, ideas or inorganic objects are given human characteristics. |
| hyperbole | an extravagant exaggeration. |
| point of view first-person | In a first-person narrative the story is relayed by a narrator who is also a character within the story, so that the narrator reveals the plot by referring to this viewpoint character as "I" |
| point of view third-person | In the third-person narrative mode, each and every character is referred to by the narrator as "he", "she", "it", or "they", but never as "I" or "we" |
| point of view omniscient | A story in this narrative mode is presented by a narrator with an overarching point of view, seeing and knowing everything that happens within the world of the story, including what each of the characters is thinking and feeling. |
| motif | a recurring object, concept, or structure in a work of literature. |
