A composition in prose or verse presenting, in pantomime and dialogue, a narrative involving conflict between a character or characters and some external or internal force.
What is Drama?
100
The general locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which the action of a fictional or dramatic work occurs.
What is Setting?
100
Suggesting, hinting, indicating, or showing what will occur later in a narrative. Foreshadowing often provides hints about what will happen next. For instance, a movie director might show a clip in which two parents discuss their son's leukemia.
What is Foreshadowing?
100
Any representation of an individual being presented in a dramatic or narrative work through extended dramatic or verbal representation.
What is Character?
100
The way a story gets told and who tells it. It is the method of narration that determines the position, or angle of vision, from which the story unfolds.
What is Point of View?
200
In literature, a feeling, emotional state, or disposition of mind--especially the predominating atmosphere or tone of a literary work.
What is Mood?
200
The structure and relationship of actions and events in a work of fiction.
What is Plot?
200
A monologue spoken by an actor at a point in the play when the character believes himself to be alone. The technique frequently reveals a character's innermost thoughts, including his feelings, state of mind, motives or intentions.
What is a soliloquy?
200
A central idea or statement that unifies and controls an entire literary work.
What is Theme?
200
An author or poet's use of description, dialogue, dialect, and action to create in the reader an emotional or intellectual reaction to a character or to make the character more vivid and realistic.
What is Characterization?
300
A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification.
What is allusion?
300
A line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable.
What is Iambic Pentameter?
300
The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
What is Irony?
300
The comparison of one thing to another without the use of "like" or "as."
What is Metaphor?
300
A joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words that sound alike but have different meanings.
What is a pun?
400
When an author uses particular words to affect the mood or tone of a written work.
What is Word Choice?
400
Comic episodes in a dramatic or literary work that offset more serious sections.
In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character (usually the protagonist) in order to highlight particular qualities of the other character.
What is a foil?
400
The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
What is satire?
500
A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification.
What is allusion?
500
A minor or subordinate secondary plot, often involving a struggle, which takes place simultaneously with a larger plot, usually involving the protagonist.
What is a Subplot?
500
A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning, or when it comes to literature, one could say it's "reading between the lines."
What is inference?
500
The opposition between two characters (such as a protagonist and an antagonist), between two large groups of people, or between the protagonist and a larger problem such as forces of nature, ideas, public mores, and so on.
What is Conflict?
500
The lines spoken by a character or characters in a play, essay, story, or novel, especially a conversation between two characters, or a literary work that takes the form of such a discussion.