Here they are:
Fiction Terms
Fiction: Narrative writing from the imagination rather than from fact.
Fable: A short story told to tell a moral idea. Characters are most often animals or objects or supernatural forces.
Parable: A illustrative story teaching a lesson. The parable parallels the situation that is being alluded to.
Tale: A relatively simple and short narrative.
Exposition: the introductory material that creates the tone, gives the setting, introduces the characters, and supplies other facts necessary to understanding. Gives the background information necessary for the reader's comprehension of the story.
Protagonist: The chief character in a work.
Antagonist: The character directly opposed to the protagonist. A rival, opponent, or enemy of the protagonist.
Foreshadowing: The presentation of an element or material in a work in such a way that later events are prepared for. Something happens that hints at what is to come and establishes the mood of the story.
Climax: The item of greatest importance in a rising order of events. It is the highest point of interest, whereat the reader makes the greatest emotional response. It can also denote the turning point of the action or synonymous for crisis.
Denouement: “unknotting” The final unraveling of the plot, the solution, an explanation or an outcome. When everything is resolved and explained at the end of a play.
Plot: A narrative of events, an artistic arrangement of such events. There are debates over the importance of plot. Aristotle established plot as the most important element in a dramatic composition, while others now declare that plot is more of a means to establish character. Either way, plot is essentially the series of events that occur in a story.
In Medias Res: “in the middle of things”, the literary technique of beginning the narration of the story in the middle of the action and then giving past events through flashbacks and other ways of exposition.
Story of Initiation: A story where the character is initiated into experience of maturity.
Narrator: Someone who recounts a Narrative. The teller or speaker of a story. They can be anyone in or apart from the story, known or unknown to the audience.
Point of View: The vantage point from which an author presents a story.
Types of Point of View:
-Narrator as Participant (First Person)
-major character
-minor character
-Narrator a Nonparticipant (Third Person)
-all-knowing
-seeing into one major character
-seeing into one minor character
-objective (not seeing into any character)
-Second Person (You)
Omniscience: The narrator is capable of knowing, seeing and telling all. Typically the third person, with a variety of limitations, depending on the type of omniscience
-impartial: presents the thoughts and actions of the characters, but does not judge them or comment on them
-editorial: the narrator adds their own opinion or judgment of the characters' actions.
-limited: can only see events through the eyes of one character, whether major or minor
-total: knows all of the characters' thoughts and actions
Objective Point of View: The narrator doesn't enter the mind of any character but describes the events from the outside.
Stream of Consciousness: The mind of an individual at any given moment, the total range of awareness . A novel of this genre takes a subject matter and records it's total consciousness as a complete exposition of the author.
Interior Monologue: A technique when presenting stream of consciousness, records the emotional experience of the characters by reaching downwards to a non-verbalized level where images must be used to represent sensations or emotions.
Character: creatures in art that seem to be human beings of one sort or another. A descriptive sketch of a personage who typifies some definite quality. An imagined person who inhabits a story.
Stock Character: Conventional character types. Every type of literature develops stock character who readers recognize so they can differentiate between individual characteristics and conventional traits.
Flat Character: A character constructed around a single idea or quality. A flat character is immediately recognizable and can be represented by a single sentence.
Round Character: A character sufficiently complex to be able to surprise the reader without losing credibility.
Static Character: A character who does not change very much in the story.
Dynamic Character: A character who develops or changes as a result of the actions of the plot.
Characterization: The creation of imaginary persons so that they seem lifelike. Three methods: 1) explicit presentation, 2) presentation through action, 3) representation from within, the emotions and reactions without comment by the author. (Round/Flat characters and Dynamic/Static characters are elements of characterization).
Allusion: A figure of speech that makes brief reference to a historical or literary figure, event or object.
Antihero: A protagonist of a modern play or novel who has the opposite of many of the traditional attributes of the hero. Graceless, inept and dishonesty are all possible traits.
Setting: The background against which action takes place. The elements of setting include 1) geography and physical arrangement 2) the daily lives of the characters 3) the time period 4)the general environment of the characters.
Locale: The physical setting of some action. It is the geographical and scenic qualities.
Regionalism:An author that consistently sets their novels or stories in the same location or region. This is depicted through a representation of the region's habits, speech, manners, folklore, or beliefs.
Tone: The attitude towards the subject and the audience implied in a literary work.
Style: The combination of two elements: the idea to be expressed and the individuality of the author. It involves all elements of the literature such as diction, imagery, rhythm, structure, etc. Patterns seen between works of a particular author or genre establishes that style.
Diction: The use of words. This includes vocabulary, which indicates the words one at a time and syntax, which is the word order.
Irony: The difference between appearances and reality.
Verbal Irony: The actual intent is expressed in words that carry the opposite meaning. Sarcasm differs from verbal irony in that sarcasm is usually more harsh than verbal irony.
Dramatic Irony: When the audience knows something that the characters in the play do not know.
Cosmic Irony: A malicious fate that deliberately frustrates human efforts.
Theme: A central idea. The abstract concept that is made concrete through representation in person, action, and image.
Symbol: Something that suggests more than its literal meaning.
Allegory: A story in which persons, places and things form a system of clearly labeled equivalents.
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