| A | B |
|---|
| Plot | The sequence of incidents or events of which a story is composed |
| Climax | Also called the turning point;the point at which the action stops rising and begins falling or reversing. |
| Irony | A situation, or a use of language, involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy. The difference between what you expect and what happens. |
| Theme | The central idea, or underlying meaning, of a literary work. |
| Symbolism | Something that means more than what it is; an object, person, situation, or action that in addition to its literal meaning suggests other meanings as well |
| Tone | The writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the audience, or herself or himself; the emotional coloring,or emotional meaning, of a work |
| Setting | The time and location in which a story takes place. |
| Conflict | A clash of actions, desires, ideas, or goals in the plot of a story or drama. Conflict may exist between the main character and some other person or persons; between the main character and some external force - physical nature, society, or "fate"; or between the main character and some destructive element in his or her own nature. |
| Foreshadowing | The use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in the plot. |
| Imagery | The representation through language of sense experience. |
| Antagonist | Any force in a story that is in conflict with the protagonist. an antagonist may be another person, an aspect of the physical or social environment, or a destructive element in the protagonist's own nature. |
| Protagonist | The central character in a story. |
| Point of View | The angle of vision from which a story is told. The four basics are: omniscient pov, limited omniscient pov, first person pov, and objective (dramatic) pov. |
| Exposition | That part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play. |
| Static Character | A character who is the same sort of person at the end of a story as at the beginning. |
| Dynamic Character | A character who during the course of a story undergoes a permanent change in some aspect of character or outlook. |
| Dialect | A way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical region. |
| Dialogue | Conversation between characters in a drama or narrative. |
| Diction | An author's choice of words. |
| Fiction | A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact. |
