Literary Devices
The introduction to a story, including the primary characters' names, setting, mood, and time.
What is the exposition?
An event that sets the action of the story in motion. This event occurs after the exposition and pushes the characters into the rising action of the story.
What is an initial incident?
Involves a psychological struggle that takes place within a character, caused by their own emotions, fears, conflicting desires, or mental illnesses.
What is an internal conflict?
A turning point in the story that includes any big emotional or physical moment that the story has been building toward from the beginning.
What is the climax?
Everything that happens as a result of the climax, including wrapping-up of plot points, questions being answered, and character development.
What is the falling action?
Completes the story and leaves the reader with questions, answers, frustration, or satisfaction.
What is the resolution?
A type of conflict that places characters at odds with forces outside themselves.
What is an external conflict?
The suspense builds, the conflict becomes more complicated, and there will be multiple events in this part of the plot diagram.
What is rising action?
Takes place when the opposite of what is expected actually happens in a story.
What is situational irony?
When the audience knows something the characters don’t — so the characters might get an unexpected outcome, but for the audience,it’s not unexpected at all.
What is dramatic irony?
These are words and phrases that characters from different regions and countries use in dialogue. For example, "Hey, ya"ll!"
What is dialect?
When a speaker speaks something contradictory to what he intends to say.
What is verbal irony?
Describes the character through their physical description, line of work, or passions and pursuits.
What is direct characterization?
An uneasy feeling that a reader gets when they don't know what is going to happen next.
What is suspense?
Describes a character through their speech, thoughts, effect on others, actions, and looks.
STEAL
What is indirect characterization?
Embodies the overall feeling or atmosphere of the work.
What is the mood?
The location and time frame in which the action of a narrative takes place.
What is the setting?
A reference, typically brief, to a person, place, thing, event, or other literary work with which the reader is presumably familiar.
What is an allusion?
A single perspective, a personal one – where the narrator uses words like “I” and “me” and “my”. The world the writer has created is seen through the eyes of a single character, who narrates the story.
What is first-person point of view?
A literary technique of writing a narrative in third person, in which the narrator knows the feelings, thoughts,and actions of every character in the story. They are NOT part of the action.
What is third-person omniscient?
Allows the reader to be inside the central character's head. Everything in the story unfolds from that character’s point of view. The narrator will use he, she, they, them, it pronouns.
What is third-person limited?
This type of narrator isn’t completely credible, often because they are naive, misguided, or even intentionally deceptive.
What is an unreliable narrator?
A character that does not undergo an important change over the course of the story. They stay the exact same!
What is a static character?
A character who undergoes some important change throughout the story.
What is a dynamic character?
A literary device designed to illustrate or reveal information, traits, values, or motivations of one character through the comparison and contrast of another character.
What is a foil character?