Literary Terms for Short Story Writing

Plot

•This is what happens in the story.

Conflict

•External conflict – a character struggles against another person, group of people or force of nature (tornado or a bear).

•Internal conflict – a struggle that takes place in the character’s mind, like when a character must make a decision.

Complications

•A series of events that make it very hard for the character to get what he/she wants.

Climax

•The story’s most emotional or suspenseful moment. The point at which the conflict is decided one way or another.

Resolution

•The last part of the story. The conflict is resolved and the loose ends of the story are tied up. This is how the story ends.

Subplots

•Plots that are part of the larger story but are not as important.

Parallel episodes

•The storyteller repeats the main outline of an episode several times.

Characterization

•This is the way a writer reveals a character.

Direct Characterization

•The author directly states what the character is like.

Indirect Characterization

•Describes the appearance of the character

•Shows the character in action•Allows us to hear the character speak•Reveals the character’s thoughts and

feelings•Shows how others react to the character

Motivation

•Motivation is what makes characters behave the way they do.

Foreshadow

•This makes us feel suspense. The storyteller gives us clues that hint at future events.

Setting

•This is where and when the story takes place.

•The customs of the story must fit the time and place.

•The setting can play a key role in creating tone and mood (atmosphere).

Simile

•Figurative language that compares two unlike things and uses “like” or “as.”▫The perfume smelled like a spring day.

Metaphor

•Figurative language that compares two unlike things directly without using a specific word of comparison.▫The crowd was a storm.

Personification

•Figurative language that speaks of a nonhuman or inanimate thing as if it has human like qualities.▫The frog cried.

Symbols

•People, places, events, or things that have meaning themselves but also stand for something beyond themselves.

Dialect

•A way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular place or group of people.

Mood

•The writer produces mood by creating images and using sounds that convey a particular feeling.

Tone

•The attitude a writer takes toward his/her subject, characters, and audience.

Theme•The author’s message in a story. The

author reveals something about life and people.

•The stories that have a meaning beyond the people and events on their pages-- a meaning that we can use—are the ones that change our lives. This deeper meaning is called THEME.

Style

•The way a writer uses language.▫Punctuation▫Allusion▫dialect

Irony

•Verbal irony – we say just the opposite of what we mean.

•Situational irony – what happens is different from what we expect.

•Dramatic irony – we know something a character doesn’t know.