Intro to Short Fiction
Terms
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- Plot?
- the center of the story and holds it all together
- Rising action?
- The conflict to make the story interesting
- Climax?
- highest point of action; the turning point
- Falling action?
- follow in result of the climax
- Conclusion?
- result of the plot
- Foreshadowing?
- introducing an image or event that will hint at something later on
- Dramatic irony?
- when the readers' awareness is more informed than the character
- Denouement?
- the story unravels and something is revealed
- Character?
- any person part of a narrative; sometimes non-human
- Protaganist?
- main character, the action is usually the resolution of an internal or external conflict
- Antagonist?
- character in real or imagined opposition to the protaganist
- Verbal Irony?
- The reader's awareness of a discrepancy between the real meaning of the situation being presented and the literal meaning of the author's words in presenting it
- Static?
- an unchanging character
- Folktale?
- stories that come from tradition of a culture and can tell people what they were trying to teach their children
- Style?
- habitual manner of expression of an author
- Bathos?
- a use of pathos when it's past pity, but using a combo of humor and pity
- First person point of view?
- When narrator takes part in the story
- Theme?
- The central, unifying point or idea that is made concrete, developed,and explored in the action and the imagery of a work of fiction
- Setting?
- The place and time in which a story's action takes place; the culture and ways of life of a character
- Omniscience point of view?
- the ability of an author to tell the reader directly about any events that have occurred in the plot and the thoughts and feelings of any character
- Limited Omniscience POV?
- the ability of a third-person narrator to tell the reader the same thing as omniscience, but only about one particular character
- Third person POV?
- the telling of a story by a detached narrator
- Voice?
- a term referring to the specific manner chosen by the author to tell the story; includes elements of POV and style
- Allegory?
- a narrative in which characters, places, things, and events represent general quality and are meant to reveal an abstract truth.
- Realism?
- the telling of a story in a manner that is faithful to the reader's experience of real life
- Naturalism?
- extreme form of realism; authors present their work as scientific observation of a world in which people's acts are stricly determined by their nature and the nature of their surroundings
- Steam of consciousness?
- when an author attempts to capture the flow of a character's thoughts