Elements of a Novel
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Created by:
dgrigoryan on May 11, 2011
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35 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Characterization | The methods a writer uses to communicate information about characters to readers |
| Climax | The moment when the action comes to its highest point of dramatic conflict. |
| Complication | Any obstacle that increases the tension of the story conflict. |
| Conflict | The central source of tension and drama in the story |
| Dialogue | The actual words that characters speak |
| Dramatic irony | A technique that increases suspense by letting readers know more about the dramatic situation that the characters know |
| Exposition | Background material about the characters, setting, and dramatic situation with which the author introduces the essentials of the story to the reader |
| Falling Action | The part of the story, following the climax and leading to the resolution, in which there is a sharp decline in dramatic tension |
| foreshadowing | A writing technique that gives readers clues about events that will happen later in the story. |
| Imagery | The use of selected details to describe one thing in terms of another. |
| Irony | A particular tone created when the speaker intends a meaning that is opposite to the words he or she says |
| Character development | The ways in which a novelist shows how a character changes as a result of experiencing a sequence of events over an extensive period of time |
| crisis | a small peak of dramatic tension that functions within a chapter in the way that the more dramatic climax functions in the novel plot as a whole |
| flashback | a dramatic scene that is presented out of chronological plot sequence |
| foil | a character that serves as a contrast to another |
| genre | Any of a number of traditional forms of the novel that are categorized by a particular treatment of characters, settings, plot, or style |
| In media res | A latin term meaning "in the midst of things" that describes a plot that starts at a moment of high action in the middle of the stor and provides the reader with necessary background information later on |
| Multiple points of view | A narrative technique in which the novel's storyline is told by more than one character in the plot. |
| Parallel plotting | The technique of presenting more than one storyline to the reader at the same time |
| plot | the arrangement of story events that defines a novel's structure |
| serial plotting | the technique that creates suspense by telling the plot in a series of unresolved chapters with cliffhanger endings. |
| stream of consciousness | a narrative point of view that presents the actual thoughts going on inside the character's mind |
| subplot | a secondary storyline involving secondary characters that parallels or contrasts with the main plot involving the central characters |
| narrator | the speaker who tells the story |
| point of view | the perspective from which a story is told |
| protagonist | the central character of the story |
| resolution | the conclusion of the story |
| rising action | the part of the story, including exposition, in which the tension rises |
| setting | the environment in which the story takes place |
| structure | the framework that determines how a story is put together, it's skeleton. |
| style | the characteristic ways that an individual author uses language |
| suspense | techniques used by the author to keep readers interested in the story |
| symbol | an image, object, character, or action that stands for an idea beyond its literal meaning |
| theme | the story's main ideas, the message that the author intends to communicate by telling the story |
| tone | the clues in a story that suggest the writer's own attitude toward the elements of his or her story |
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