Fiction Terminology

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Fiction

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Any narrative, especially in prose; about invented or imagined characters and action.

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Theme

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(1) Broadly and commonly, a topic explored in a literary work (2) more narrowly and properly, the insight about a topic communicated in a work.

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Character

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An imaginary personage who acts, appears, or is referred to in a literary work.

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Round Character

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Complex and multifaceted and act in a way that readers might not expect but accept as possible.

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Flat Character

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Relatively simple, have a few dominant traits, and tend to be predictable.

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Protagonist

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The most neutral and broadly applicable term for the main character in a work, whether male or female, heroic or not heroic.

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Antagonist

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A charcter or a nonhuman force that opposes or is in conflict with the protagonist

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Plot

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The arrangement of the action. The five main parts or phases of plot are exposition, rising action, climax or turning point, falling action, and conclusion or resolution.

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Exposition

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The first phase or part of plot, which sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play.

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Conflict

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A struggle between the opposing forces. A conflict is external when it pits a character against something or someone outside himself or herself-another character or characters or something in nature or society.

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Complication

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In plot, an action or even that introduces a new conflict or intensifies the existing one, especially during the rising action phase of plot.

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Crisis

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In plot, the moment when the conflict comes to a h ead, often requiring the character to make a decision; sometimes the crisis is equated with the climax or turning point and sometimes it is treated as a distinct moment that precedes and prepares for the climax.

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Climax

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The thirds part of plot, the point at which the action stops rising and begins falling or reversing; also called turning point or peripeteia

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Denoument

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Literally, "untying" in French; A polot-related term used in three ways: (1) as a synonym for falling action (2) as a synonym for conclusion or resolution, (3) as the label for a phase following the conclusion in which any loose ends are tied up.

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In Medias Res

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"in the midst of things" refers to opening a plot in the middle of the action, and then filling in past details by means of exposition and/or flashback.

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Flashback

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A plot-structuring device whereby a scene from the fictional past is inserted into the fictional present or is dramatized out of order.

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Foreshadowing

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A hint or clue about what will happen at a later moment in the plot.

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Epiphany

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A sudden revelation of truth, often inspired by a seemingly simple or common place event.

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Narrator

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Someone who recounts a narrative or tells a story.

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First-Person Narrator

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an internal narrator who consistenly refers to himself or herself using the first-person pronouns I or We

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Third-Person Narrator

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said to be omniscient when they describe the inner thoughts and feelings of multiple characters; they are said to be limited when they relate the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of only one character (the central consciousness).

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Omniscient Narrator

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describe the inner thoughts and feelings of multiple characters.

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Limited Omniscient Narrator

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relate the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of only one character (The central consciousness).

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Unreliable Narrator

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If a work encourages us to view a narrator's account of events with suspicion, the narrator (usually first person) is called unreliable.

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Stream-Of-Conciousness

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A type of third person narration that replicates the thought processes of a character without much or any intervention by a narrator.

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Setting

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The time and places of the action in a work of fiction, poetry, or drama.

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Tone

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The attitude a literary work takes toward its subject, especially the way this attitude is revealed through diction.

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Irony

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A situation or statement characterized by a significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant.

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Verbal Irony

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Word or expression in context means something different, from and usually the opposite of, what it appears to mean

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Dramatic Irony

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When there is instead a gap between what an audience knows and what a character believes or expects, we have dramatic irony.

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Symbol

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A person, place, thing, or event that figuratively represents or stands for something else. Often the thing or idea represented is more abstract and general, and the symbol is more concrete and particular.