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Plot An author's selection and arrangement of incidents in a story to shape the action and give the story a particular focus. In Media Res Describes the common strategy of beginning a story in the middle of the action Flashback a narrated scene that marks a break in the narrative in order to inform the reader of audience member about events that took place before the opening scene of a work Character a person presented in a dramatic or narrative work Protagonist the main character of a narrative Hero/Heroine central character who engages the readers interest or sympathy Antagonist the character, force, or collection of forces in fiction or drama that opposes the protagonist and gives rise to the conflict of the story Static Character does not change throughout the work, and the reader's knowledge of that character does not grow Dynamic Character undergoes some kind of change because of the action of the plor Flat Character embodies one of two qualities, ideas, or traits that can be readily described in a brief summary Stock Character embody stereotypes Round Character more complex than flat characters, display inconsistencies and internal conflicts; fully developed Showing allows the author to present a character talking or acting, lets the reader make inferences about the character Telling the author intervenes to describe and evaluate the character for the reader Motivated Action occurs when the readers 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 present Exposition a narrative device that provides background information about the characters Rising Action complication creates some sort of conflict for the protagonist Conflict the opposition of persons or forces that gives rise to the dramatic action in a drama or fiction Foreshadowing suggesting, hinting, indicating, or sharing what will occur later in a narrative Suspense a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety over the outcome of certain actions Climax 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 Resolution/Denouement the outcome or result of a complex situation or sequence of events, an aftermath or resolution that usually occurs near the final stages of the plot Setting the general locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which the action of a fictional or dramatic work takes place Point of View the way a story gets told and who tells it Narrator the "voice" that speaks or tells a story Omniscient Narrator the narrator is aware of all the facts of the story, including characters' thoughts Editorial Narrator going into the minds of characters, telling what things mean, moving anywhere with characters through time and space, and making judgements along the way Neutral Omniscience allows characters actions to and thoughts to speak for themselves Limited Omniscient Narrator is confined to what is experienced, thought, or felt by a single or small amount of characters Stream of Consciousness writing in which a character's perceptions, thoughts, and memories are presented in an apparently random form, without regard for sequence, chronology, or syntax Objective Point of View the narrator reports speech and action, but never comments on the thoughts of other characters First Person Narrator the narrator uses "I" and is a character who influences the story Unreliable Narrator an imaginary storyteller or character who describes what he witnesses accurately, but misinterprets those events because of faulty perception, personal bias, or limited understanding Naive Narrator a narrator who is inexperienced or innocent, and does not understand the implications of their story Symbol a word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what it is on a literal level Conventional Symbols a symbol that has a widely understood or accepted interpretation Allegory any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning Theme a central idea or statement that unifies and controls an entire literary work Style the author's words and the characteristic way that writer uses language to achieve certain effects Diction the choice of a particular word over others Tone the means of creating a relationship or conveying an attitude or mood Verbal Irony a speaker makes a statement in which its actual meaning differs sharply from the meaning that the words ostensibly express Situational Irony accidental events occur that seem oddly appropriate Dynamic Irony involves a situation in a narrative in which the readers knows something about present or future circumstances that the character does not