Canon

Works generally considered by scholars, critics and teachers to be the most important to read and study, which collectively constitute the “masterpieces” of literature.

Formula Fiction

Follows a pattern of conventional reader expectations. Offers happy endings, entertains wide audiences, and sells tremendously well.

Antagonist

The character, force or collection of forces in fiction of drama that opposes the PROTAGONIST and gives rise to the conflict of the story.

Character

A person presented in a dramatic or narrative work.

Climax

The moment of greatest emotional tension in a narrative, usually marking a turning point in the plot at which the rising action reverses to become the falling action.

Conflict

The struggle between opposing forces within the plot.

Denouement

A French term meaning “unraveling” or “unknotting,” used to describe the resolution of the plot following the climax.

Exposition

A narrative device, often used at the beginning of a work, which provides necessary background information about the characters and their circumstances.

Flashback

A break in the narrative used to inform the reader of events that took place before the opening scene of a work.

Foreshadowing

The introduction early in a story of verbal and dramatic hints that suggest what is to come later.

Hero

A male, central character who engages the reader’s interest and empathy.

Heroine

A female, central character who engages the reader’s interest and empathy.

in media res

Describes the common strategy of beginning a story in the middle of the action. The reader enters the story on the verge of some important moment.

Plot

An author’s selection and arrangement of incidents in a story to shape the action and give the story a particular focus.

Protagonist

The main character of a narrative.

Resolution

The conclusion of a plot’s conflicts and complications. It follows the climax of the plot.

Rising Action

Complications create some sort of conflict for the protagonist.

Suspense

The anxious anticipation of a reader or an audience as to the outcome of a story, especially concerning the character or characters with whom sympathetic attachments are formed.

Absurdist Literature

Literature in which characters are often alienated from themselves and their environment in an irrational world.

Antihero

A protagonist who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero.

Characterization

The process by which a writer makes a character seem real to read.

Consistent Character

Occurs when the characterization of a character is reliable and constant.

Dynamic Character

When a character undergoes some kind of change because of the action in the plot.

Flat Character

A character who embodies or two qualities, ideas or traits that can be readily described in a brief summary.

Foil

A character in a work whose behavior and values contrast with those of another character in order to highlight the distinctive temperament of that character (usually the protagonist).

Motivated Action

Occurs when the reader or audience is offered reasons for how the characters behave, what they say, and the decisions they make.

Plausible Action

Action by a character in a story that seems reasonable, given the motivations presented.

Round Characters

More complex than flat or stock characters, and often displays the inconsistencies and internal conflicts found in most real people.

Static Characters

A character who does not change throughout the work, and the readers knowledge of that character does not grow.

Stock Characters

Characters who embody some kind of stereotype. They become types rather than individuals.

Showing

Allows the author to present a character talking and acting, and lets the reader infer what kind of person the character is.

Telling

The author intervenes to describe and sometimes evaluate the character for the reader.