Short Story Literary Terms

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Setting

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the time, place, era, or a work of literature takes place in.

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Plot

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used to describe the events that make up a story or the main part of the story.

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Exposition

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used to introduce background information about events, settings, characters, etc. to the audience or readers.

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Rising Action

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a related series of incidents in a literary plot that build toward the point of greatest interest.

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Climax

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the moment in a play, novel, short story, or narrative poem at which the crisis reaches its point of greatest intensity and is thereafter resolved.

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Falling Action

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the part of a literary plot that occurs after the climax has been reached and the conflict has been resolved.

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Protagonist

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character who shows growth of change as a result of the conflict in the literary work.

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Antagonist

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character or idea which creates the conflict in a literary work.

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Conflict

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A problem or struggle between two opposing forces with different needs and desires.

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External Conflict

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character struggles against an outside source.

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Internal Conflict

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character struggles against himself.

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Dialogue

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a conversation between two or more people.

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Foreshadowing

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the author provides subtle, as well as obvious hints toward future events in the work.

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First Person

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A literary work where the narrator is a participant in the action.

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Third Person limited

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the narrator only knows the thoughts and feelings of one character.

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Third Person Omniscient

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a method of storytelling in which the narrator knows the thought and feelings of all the characters in a story.

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Irony

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An amusing contrast between appearance and reality.

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Verbal Irony

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When a character purposefully says one thing but means another. ie. sarcasm.

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Situational Irony

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contrast between what a character and the reader expect what actually happens.

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Dramatic Irony

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the reader knows something but the character themselves are unaware.

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Idiom

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a figurative expression which has a meaning that is only understood in the specific language, dialect or geographic region from which it originates.

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Suspense

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the tension that the author uses to create, for the reader, a feeling of discomfort about the unknown.

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Dilation of time

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the stretching or manipulation of time and sequence of events by an author to make events appear longer than reality would suggest in an effort to build suspense.

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Flashback

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An interruption of the chronological sequence of an event to illustrate an earlier occurrence.

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Theme

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the universal truth or central message about human nature which the author is attempting to reveal throughout the literary work.

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Pathetic Fallacy

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the author's use of natural occurrence and mood to mirror an event in the narrative or a character's mood.

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Imagery

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language that appeals to the five senses.

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Motif

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reoccurring structures, contrasts, or literary techniques used by the author to assist in conveying the theme of a literary work.

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Tone

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the reflection of a writers attitude, bias, manner, mood, or moral outlook towards the topic.

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Mood

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the feeling or atmosphere which the writer creates in a work of literature.

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Personification

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endowing non-human objects or creatures with human qualities or characteristics.

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Hyperbole

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a figure of speech, which involves an exaggeration of ideas for the sake of emphasis.

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Allusion

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a reference to something literary, mythological, or historical that the author assumes an educated reader will recognize.

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Metaphor

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comparison of two items where one item is directly referred to one as another.

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Simile

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comparison of two like things using like or as.