| A | B |
|---|
| character | a person presented in a dramatic or narrative work |
| protagonist | central character who engages the reader’s interest and empathy |
| antagonist | character, force, or collection of forces that stands directly opposed to the protagonist and gives rise to the conflict of the story |
| static character | a character who does not change throughout the work and about who the reader’s knowledge does not grow |
| dynamic character | character who undergoes some kind of change because of the action in the plot |
| flat character | character who is not psychologically complex and who embodies only one or two qualities, ideas, or traits that can be readily described in a brief summary |
| stock character | character who who embodies stereotypes and is a type rather than an individual |
| round character | complex and fully developed character who display the inconsistencies and internal conflicts found in most real people |
| direct characterization | intervenes to describe and sometimes evaluate the character for the reader |
| indirect characterization | author presents a character talking and acting and lets the reader infer what kind of person the character is |
| setting | the physical and social context in which the action of a story occurs |
| conflict | struggle within the plot between opposing forces |
| external conflict | struggle against some outside force, another character, society as a whole, or some natural force |
| internal conflict | struggle between forces or emotions within one character |
| theme | central meaning or dominant idea in a literary work |
| theme | opinion about an abstract concept explored through an entire literary work |
| syntax | sentence structure, sentence variety, sentence arrangement, word order, parallelism, spelling, grammar conventions (or lack thereof), phrasing, punctuation, and repetition |
| diction | word choice with its denotation and connotation as well as concrete and abstract details |
| tone | writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward the subject, the audience, himself, or herself, which provides the emotional coloring of a work |
| figurative language | metaphor, simile, hyperbole, understatement, synecdoche, metonymy, paradox, and allusion |
| imagery | categorized as auditory, gustatory, kinetic, olfactory, organic, tactile, and visual |
| imagery | appeal to the senses |
| point of view | first-person, third-person, omniscient, stream-of-consciousness, narrative, childhood, adulthood, personal, and impersonal |
| musicality | sound of language—euphony, cacophony, or monotony |
| rhyme | repetition of sounds and may be formal, informal, traditional, unconventional, and completely absent |
| use of time | flashback, flash-forward, or a framed story with narration that is chronological, realistic, synchronous, asynchronous, magical, or circular |
| repetition | repeating words, phrases, clauses, sentences, images, structure, or grammatical type within a literary work |
| characterization | process by which a writer reveals the personality of a character, making that character seem real to the reader |
| setting | geographical location, occupations and daily manner of living of the characters, time period in which the action takes place, and general environment of the characters (social, religious, cultural, moral, and emotional conditions and attitudes) |
| style | writer's distinctive manner of arranging words to suit his or her ideas and purpose in writing |
| style | unique imprint of the author's personality upon his or her writing |
