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literary terms
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| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| short story | brief work of fiction |
| characters | people or animals who take part in action |
| characterization | a writer uses what the character does or says |
| taits | a character's qualities, attitudes and values. |
| motives | the reasons for a characters actions |
| setting | the time and place of the story's action |
| mood | the story's atmosphere |
| plot | a sequence of events in the story |
| conflict | struggle between opposing forces |
| internal conflict | takes place in the mind of a character |
| external conflict | takes place between a character and an outside force |
| theme | the message of the story |
| plot structure | the way in which story events are organized |
| exposition | introduces the character and their situation |
| inciting event | reveals the central conflict in the story |
| rising action | leading to the climax |
| climax | the point of the greatest intensity in a story |
| falling action | sets up story's ending |
| resolution | shows how the conflict is resolved |
| POV | the representative from which a story is told |
| first person POV | uses pronoun such as I, me and my |
| third person POV | tells story from the perspective of a narrator outside of the story |
| third person omniscient | narrator knows everything |
| limited third person | reveals thoughts and feelings of a single character |
| chronological order | chain of events in the story |
| flashback | shows events from before the present of the story |
| dialogue | characters words are uttered |
| direct characterization | narrator makes a direct statement |
| indirect characterization | writer shows what characters like by providing details |