Term
|
Definition
| Description that does not involve the senses but instead relies upon an interpretation or judgement. For example, “The film was excellent” is abstract. “The film won an Oscar” is concrete. We can all agree that it won an Oscar but “excellent” depends on the narrator’s interpretation. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The person who wrote the story. Note: not the same as the narrator, unless it is nonfiction. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An overly familiar phrase, concept, or image that as, as George Orwell expressed it, “lost its force.” For example, the beautiful heroine and the dashing knight in armour are clichés. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The nature of the story’s main actors |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The people or the main actors in a work of fiction |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Description using one or more of the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste or touch. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The conversation between characters in a drama or narrative. A dialogue occurs in most works of literature. It moves the action along in a work and it also helps to characterize the personality of the speakers, which vary depending on their nationalities, jobs, social classes, and educations. It also gives literature a more natural, conversational flow, which makes it more readable and enjoyable. By showcasing human interaction, dialogue prevents literature from being nothing more than a list of descriptions and actions. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Incidents that occur in a story |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A made-up story written according to artistic conventions |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| : “An interruption of the chronological sequence (as of a film or literary work) of an event of earlier occurrence” (Merriam, 288). A flashback is a narrative technique that allows a writer to present past events during current events, in order to provide background for the current narration. By giving material that occurred prior to the present event, the writer provides the reader with insight into a character's motivation and or background to a conflict. This is done by various methods, narration, dream sequences, and memories (Holman et al, 197). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A type of literature. We say a poem, novel, story, or other literary work belongs to a particular genre if it shares at least a few conventions, or standard characteristics, with other works in that genre. Genres include the pastoral poem, epic poem, elegy, tragic drama, and bildungsroman. An understanding of genre is useful because it helps us to see how an author adopts, subverts, or transcends the standard practices that other authors have developed. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A vivid sensory detail. For example, “The red fire truck sped by us, its siren blaring.” |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a type of figurative language in which a statement is made that says that one thing is something else but, literally, it is not. In connecting one object, event, or place, to another, a metaphor can uncover new and intriguing qualities of the original thing that we may not normally notice or even consider important. Metaphoric language is used in order to realize a new and different meaning. As an effect, a metaphor functions primarily to increase stylistic colorfulness and variety. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| one who tells a story, the speaker or the “voice” of an oral or written work. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| What the narrator tells the reader directly, as opposed to what the characters convey through speech and action. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A simplified way of describing a story’s shape in terms of an arc, within which the highest point is the climax, at which point the main character changes significantly. The arc’s upward slope includes exposition (background information) and rising action (the events that lead up to the climax); its downward slope, after the climax, comprises from falling action or denouement. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The personality, tone, sensibility conveyed by a story’s language. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| True events written in narrative form. For example, a memoir is non-fiction |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The pattern of a story’s action; what happens; events. These incidents combine with character and other fictional elements to create narrative tension. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a way the events of a story are conveyed to the reader, it is the “vantage point” from which the narrative is passed from author to the reader. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A significant part of a story, specifically located in a time and place, and in which characters interact. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The time, place, physical details, and circumstances in which a situation occurs. Settings include the background, atmosphere or environment in which characters live and move, and usually include physical characteristics of the surroundings. Settings enable the reader to better envision how a story unfolds by relating necessary physical details of a piece of literature. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a simile is a type of figurative language, language that does not mean exactly what it says, that makes a comparison between two otherwise unalike objects or ideas by connecting them with the words "like" or "as." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A telling of a sequence of events resulting in a change in the main character. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A common thread or repeated idea that is incorporated throughout a literary work. Generally, a theme has to be extracted as the reader explores the passages of a work. The author utilizes the characters, plot, and other literary devices to assist the reader in this endeavour. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The personality, tone, sensibility conveyed by a story’s language |
|
|
