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| This is where most stories begin. During exposition, the setting is described and major characters are introduced. |
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| Generally, after exposition comes a period of rising action during which time a series of complications occur that unfold into the major conflicts of the story. |
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| This is the turning point, the highest point of action of interest, or the story’s most intense moment. |
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| After the climax or climaxes, the story enters a period of falling action where events begin to fall into place. |
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| Finally, at the story’s resolution, the conflict is resolved and loose ends are tied up. |
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| In medias res literally translates as "in the middle of things". In medias res plots have no exposition; instead they throw you right into the rising action. |
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| Literature that develops plot and character through the dialogue and action of actors. |
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| Conversation between characters |
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| A long, uninterrupted speech by one character that reveals the character’s feelings. |
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| An actor speaks his private thoughts as if the audience were not there. |
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| A short speech delivered directly to the audience as if the other characters could not hear it. |
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| The sequence of events that usually begins with a conflict that worsens, reaches a peak, and then is resolved. |
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| The main plot contains several shorter stories that may or may not directly relate to the main plot. |
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| Realism is an artistic movement in which artists and writers represent objects, events, or social conditions as they really are. |
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| Naturalism, an extension of the Realism movement, also rejected the idealism of the Romantic movement. A Naturalist writer portrays the physical appearance of nature and focuses on its harsher aspects rather than romantic fields of lilies or butterflies flitting in the sunshine. |
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| Studying the art of literature and exploring the ways that literature affects us emotionally, intellectually, and aesthetically. |
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| Criticizing the literary work itself, especially its forms, designs, and patterns, and assessing how the work functions as a harmonious whole. |
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| Examining the culture and society from which a literary work came and how these influences affect the literature. |
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| Psychological criticism attempts to explain the reasons for human actions and to offer maps to the unconscious stages of psychic development. |
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| Feminist critics place their focus on the questions of how gender affects a literary work, writer, or reader through a critical approach. |
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| Historically, most literature was written from a masculine point of view and for male audiences. There is a societal misconception that treats the masculine viewpoint as the norm and the feminine viewpoint as a deviation. |
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| Reader response criticism |
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| Reader response criticism focuses on how the reader constructs the meaning of, or responds to, the text. |
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| Criticizing to what extent the writer is writing about himself or herself, and at what point in their creative development they are doing this biographical writing. |
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| How authors arrange their sentences. |
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| The words that the author chose to incorporate into their writing. |
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| Language that is not to be taken literally. |
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| The way in which the author chooses to tell the story. |
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| The author’s attitude toward the subject. |
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