General Terms
A piece of fiction that traditionally has a protagonist, antagonist, rising action, climax, and resolution, the protagonist facing the one major conflict, and often changing the by the story's end; it is also usually under 10,000 words long.
What is a short story?
The main character of the story, the character most engaged in the story's plot and conflict.
What is a protagonist?
The POV that uses the "I" pronoun where the narrator is the central character in the narrative.
What is first person?
The event that begins the plot and/or conflict.
What is the inciting incident?
The particular way an individual writer writes a story.
What is style?
A plot structure where a character has to go through dramatic conflict and changes in order to achieve a goal.
What is the hero's journey?
The adversary of the protagonist.
What is an antagonist?
The POV that uses the "we" pronoun where the narrator is more than one person and the central character in the narrative.
What is first person plural?
How the story ends, or how the protagonist has dealt with the conflict.
What is the resolution?
Literal, believable, non-magical, and non-absurd actions and occurrences.
What is realism?
Fiction that employs a specific type of setting or characters and is heavily focused on plot and familiar conventions.
What is genre fiction?
A character that experiences change.
What is a dynamic character?
The POV that uses the "you" pronoun where the narrator is making the reader the central character in the story.
What is second person?
The highest or most intense point in the story.
A style of writing where characters treat extraordinary events or details as common day.
What is magical realism?
Fiction that does not does not depend only on plot for the story to succeed, using language, form, characterization, and experimental methods as well.
What is literary fiction?
A character that possesses enough details to seem real or interesting.
What is a round character?
The POV that uses the "I" pronoun where the narrator is a central character in the narrative but is telling someone else's story.
What is first person peripheral?
The plot that works against the protagonist; what the antagonist is perpetrating.
What is conflict?
The use of details and imagery to tell a story instead of direct revelation by the narrator.
What is showing vs. telling?
The diagram that outlines a basic plot structure involving rising action, climax, and resolution.
What is Freitag's Triangle?
A character that does not possess enough details to seem real or interesting.
What is a flat character?
The POV where the narrator is not a central character in the narrative, tells the story about the protagonist, and has access to only the protagonist thoughts and memories; it uses "he", "she", "they", or "it" pronouns.
What is third person limited?
The build-up of facts and details, preparing the reader for the climax.
What is rising action?
What is voice?