| A | B |
|---|
| novel | a long fictitious prose story of some complexity, involving characters, scenes, and action |
| novelette | a short novel, about fifty to a hundred pages long, also called a novella |
| plot | the central plan of action in a story of play; the author's arrangement of certain episodes |
| coincidence | the remarkable ocurrence of certain events at the same time, apparently by chance |
| suspense | uncertainty as to the outcome; anxiety caused by a tense situation |
| flashback | an interruption in a stroy or play to present action which occured earlier |
| anachronism | representing something as happening in the wrong historical period |
| setting | the physical and spiritual surroundings or enviroment in which a story takes place |
| local color | picturesque color-of customs, dialect, and scenery-that bring out a specific story setting |
| point of view | the writer's way of telling the story, whether as participant or as observer, whether as seen by one character or by characters, whether with objectivity or with editorial comment |
| characterization | the protrayal of people, their physical and spiritual traits and perculiarities |
| motivation | that which causes a character to do what he does |
| protagonist | the main character of a drama or fictional work |
| anti-hero | a protagonist who lacks the noble spirit or admirable life purposes usually found in a heroic figure |
| stream of conciousness | thoughts and feelings of a character presented as an unceasing, disjointed sequence. |
| irony of fate | the way that destiny twists or foils the plans of men |
| epistolary novel | a novel written in the form of a series of letter |
| picaresque novel | a novel that has a vagabond hero who goes from one adventure to another |
| gothic novel | a horror tale often involving a haunted castle, secret passages, mysterious noises and crimes |
| victorian novel | an Englih novel written during the reign of Queen Victroia, 1837-1901, and reflecting-unthinkingly or satirically-the leisurely literay style, "decent" tastes, and empty respectibility of that period |
| science fiction | fantasies about time machines, space travel, and future marvels, mad credible by technical detail |
| whodunit | a murder story dealing with the detection of the criminal; a detective story |
| allegory | a symbolic story in which the actions and characters have a secondary set of meanings |
| satire | wit, irony, or sarcasm used to ridicule abouses and follies |
| social criticism | the exposure of faults in various aspects of society |
| sentimentalism | excessive emotionalism, with emphasis on tender feelings and tears; called sensibility during the eighteenth century |
| realism | the presentation of everyday life as it is, in accurate, photographic detail rather than in a romanticized way |
| naturalism | an extension of realism tending to stress sordidness and sexuality and to portray man as a soulless animal shaped by his enviroment and heredity |
| existentialism | a view of life which maintains that man is alone in a purposeless universe and that he must exercise his own free will to oppose a hostile enviroment |
| alienation | a separation from others and from participation; loss of affection |
