Prose Terminology 10

Terms in this set (36)

• Protagonist

The main character in the story

The force against the protagonist.

This is a minor character with one or maybe two sides to the personality.

These characters are believable and complex people with several sides to their personality.

Also known as a kinetic character, a dynamic character changes in some important way because of plot events.

These characters are the opposite of dynamic characters. These are people who don't change in the course of a story.

Also known as stereotypical, these characters are people who are easily recognized as "types".

The events of the story or the series of actions that take place in the story are referred to as the plot.

Exposition/Introduction

The reader meets the characters and discovers the setting.

This builds up the story, is the longest part of the story and is a series of steps that lead to the climax.

Here, the reader finds out what happens to the conflict, or how the conflict is resolved.

The plot begins to wrap up in this section of the story which is usually brief.

Denouement/Resolution

This part follows quickly after the climax and provides the last pieces of information for the reader.

A piece of prose fiction that is in between the short story and novel in terms of complexity and length

Drives the plot forward and creates interest.

• Internal conflict

When the conflict is inside a character's head

• External conflict

When the conflict is outside a character in a novel.

An introduction to the story including the mood and the physical _____________

• Emotional Setting

The mood or atmosphere of the story

• Physical Setting

The time, place, season of a story

"I" is the central character and tells his or her own story.

• Second person

the story is told about "you".

• Third person

A point of view in which the narrator is outside the action and refers to characters as he or she. There are three types of this...

• Omniscient narrator

A point of view that sometimes takes the form of writing as though observing all that is transpiring; sometimes the reader is able to enter the heads of some or all of the characters: God-like

Deals with right and wrong, with acceptable and non-acceptable societal values, and is limited to this

Defined as a main idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work that may be stated directly or indirectly.

Theme statement

The message the author is trying to convey written as a full sentence.

Strangeness between what might be expected and what actually occurs

when the audience knows of a plot event or situation but the characters do not.

speaks something contradictory to what she/he intends to.

situational irony

a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.

A style of writing that has the goal of mocking or scorning an individual, an institution or society as a whole.

A literary work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or work for comic effect or ridicule; a humorous, satirical or off-beat imitation of a person, event or serious work of literature.

Has two levels of meaning: a literal level and a figurative level.

Objective point of view

the narrator does not enter the mind of any character but describes events from the outside, like a movie camera

limited omniscient point of view

Author tells the story in third person, but from the viewpoint of a single character. The thoughts and feelings of other characters are not shown.

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