Short Story Terms

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Allegory

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A narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface, often relating each literal term to a fixed, corresponding abstract idea or moral principle; usually, the ulterior meanings belong to a pre-existing system of ideas or principles.

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Allusion

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A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history.

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Antagonist

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Any force in a story or play that is in conflict with the protagonist. It may be another person, an aspect of the physical or social environment, or a destructive element in the protagonist's own nature.

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Artistic Unity

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That condition of a successful literary work whereby all its elements work together for the achievement of its central purpose. In this type of work nothing is included that is irrelevant to the central purpose, nothing is omitted that is essential to it, and the parts are arranged in the most effective order for the achievement of that purpose.

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Chance

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The occurrence of an event that has no apparent cause in antecedent events or in predisposition of character.

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Character

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Any of the persons presented in a story or play.

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Dynamic Character

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A character who during the course of a work undergoes a permanent change in some distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits or outlook.

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Flat Character

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A character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are summed up in on or two traits.

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Foil Character

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A minor character whose situation or actions parallel those of a major character, and thus by contrast sets off or illuminates the major character; most often the contrast is complimentary to the major character.

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Round Character

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A character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are complex and many-sided.

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Static Character

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A character who is the same sort of person at the end of a work as at the beginning.

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Stock Character

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A stereotyped character: one whose nature is familiar to us from prototypes in previous literature.

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Climax

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The turning point or high point in a plot.

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Coincidence

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The chance concurrence of two events having a peculiar correspondence between them.

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Commercial Fiction

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Fiction written to meet the taste of a wide popular audience and relying usually on tested formulas for satisfying such taste.

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Conflict

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A clash of actions, desires, ideas, or goals in the plot of a story or drama. It may exist between the main character and some other person or persons; between the main character and some external force - physical nature, society, or "fate"; or between the main character and some destructive element in his or her own nature.

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Denouement

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The portion of a plot that reveals the final outcome of its conflicts or the solution of its mysteries.

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Deus Ex Machina

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The resolution of a plot by use of a highly improbably chance or coincidence (so named from the practice of some Greek dramatists of having a god descend from heaven at the last possible minute - in the theater by means of a stage machine - to rescue the protagonist from an impossible situation).

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Dilemma

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A situation in which a character must choose between two courses of action, both undesirable.

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Direct Presentation of Character

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That method of characterization in which the author, by exposition or analysis, tells us directly what a character is like, or has someone else in the story do so.

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Dramatic Convention

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Any dramatic device which, though it departs from reality, is implicitly accepted by author and audience as a means of representing reality.

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Dramatic Exposition

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The presentation through dialogue of information about events that occurred before the action of a play, or that occur offstage or between the staged actions; this may also refer to the presentation of information about individual characters' backgrounds or the general situation (political, historical, etc.) in which the action takes place.

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Dramatic Framework

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The situation, whether actual or fictional, realistic or fanciful, in which an author places his or her characters in order to express the theme.

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Dramatization

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The presentation of character or of emotion through the speech or action of characters rather than through exposition, analyses, or description by the author.

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Editorializing

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Writing that departs from the narrative or dramatic mode and instructs the reader how to think or feel about the events of a story or the behavior of a character.

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Falling Action

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That segment of the plot that comes between the climax and the conclusion.

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Fantasy

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A kind of fiction that pictures creatures or events beyond the boundaries of known reality.

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Figure of Speech

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Broadly, any way of saying something other than the ordinary way; more narrowly a way of saying one thing and meaning another.

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Happy Ending

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An ending in which events turn out well for a sympathetic protagonist.

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Imagery

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The representation through language of sense experience.

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Indeterminate Ending

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An ending in which the central problem or conflict is left unresolved.

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Indirect Presentation of Character

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That method of characterization in which the author shows us a character in action, compelling us to infer what the character is like from what is said or done by the character.

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Irony

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A situation or a use of language involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy.

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Verbal Irony

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A figure of speech in which what is said is the opposite of what is meant.

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Dramatic Irony

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An incongruity or discrepancy between what a character says or thinks and what the reader knows to be true (or between what a character perceives and what the author intends the reader to perceive).

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Situational Irony

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A situation in which there is an incongruity between appearance and reality, or between expectation and fulfillment, or between the actual situation and what would seem appropriate.

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Metaphor

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A figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. It may take one of four forms: (1) that in which the literal term and the figurative term are both named; (2) that in which the literal term is named and the figurative term is implied; (3) that in which the literal term is implied and the figurative term is named; (4) that in which both the literal and the figurative terms are implied.

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Metonymy

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A figure of speech in which some significant aspect or detail of an experience is used to represent the whole experience.

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Moral

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A rule of conduct or maxim for living expressed or implied as the "point" of a literary work.

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Motivation

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The incentives or goals that, in combination with the inherent natures of characters, cause them to behave as they do. In commercial fiction actions may be unmotivated, insufficiently motivated, or implausibly motivated.

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Mystery

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An unusual set of circumstances for which the reader craves an explanation; used to create suspense.

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Narrator

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In drama a character, found in some plays, who, speaking directly to the audience, introduces the action and provides a string of commentary between the dramatic scenes. They may or may not be a major character in the action itself.

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Overstatement or Hyperbole

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A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth.

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Paradox

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A statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements.

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Paradoxical Situation

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A situation containing apparently but not actually incompatible elements. Example: the celebration of a fifth birthday anniversary by a twenty-year-old man is paradoxical but explainable if the man was born on February 29. The Christian doctrines that Christ was born of a virgin and is both God and man are, for a Christian believer, paradoxical.

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Paradoxical Statement or Verbal Paradox

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A figure of speech in which an apparently self-contradictory statement is nevertheless found to be true.

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Personification

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A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept.

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Phonetic Intensive

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A word whose sound, by an obscure process, to some degree suggests its meaning. The meanings of these words do not refer explicitly to sounds.

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Plot

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The sequence of incidents or events of which a story or play is composed.

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Plot Manipulation

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A situation in which an author gives the plot a twist or turn unjustified by preceding action or by the characters involved.

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Poeticizing

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Writing that uses immoderately heightened or distended language to sway the reader's feelings.

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Point of View

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The angle of vision from which a story is told.

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Omniscient Point of View

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The author tells the story using the third person, knowing all and free to tell us anything, including what the characters are thinking or feeling and why they act as they do.

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Third-Person Limited Point of View

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The author tells the story using the third person, but is limited to a complete knowledge of one character in the story and tells us only what that one character thinks, feels, sees, or hears.

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First-Person Point of View

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The story is told by one of its characters, using the first person.

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Objective Point of View

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The author tells the story using the third person, but is limited to reporting what the characters say or do; the author does not interpret the characters' behavior or tell us their private thoughts or feelings.

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Prose

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That part of a poem's total meaning that can be separated out an expressed through paraphrase.

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Protagonist

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The central character in a story or play.

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Rising Action

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That development of plot in a story or play that precedes and leads up to the climax.

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Sarcasm

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Bitter or cutting speech; speech intended by its speaker to give pain to the person addressed.

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Satire

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A kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the purpose of bringing about reform or of keeping others from falling into similar folly or vice.

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Sentimentality

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Unmerited or contrived tender feeling; that quality in a work that elicits or seeks to elicit tears through an oversimplification or falsification of reality.

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Setting

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The context in time and place in which the action of a story occurs.

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Simile

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A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. The comparison is made explicit by the use of some such word or phrase as like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems.

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Stream of Consciousness

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Narrative that presents the private thoughts of a character without commentary or interpretation by the author.

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Surprise

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An unexpected turn in the development of a plot.

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Symbol

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Something that means more than what it is; an object, person, situation, or action that in addition to its literal meaning suggests other meanings as well.

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Synecdoche

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A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole.

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Theme

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The central idea or unifying generalization implied or stated by a literary work.

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Tone

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The writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the audience, or herself or himself; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, of a work.

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Understatement

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A figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means, or of saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrants.

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Unhappy Ending

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An ending that turns out unhappily for a sympathetic protagonist.