Fiction lit terms Flashcards
The opponent of the protagonist in a work of literature.
Antagonist
The turning point in a narrative, the point of maximum dramatic attention.
Climax
Antagonism between characters, ideas, or lines of action. Someone typically wants something but there is a complication. Conflict is essential to traditional plot.
Conflict
A character’s sudden awareness or understanding. A light bulb moment.
Epiphany
An explanation of the history or “backstory” leading up to the present moment in the narrative.
Exposition
The sudden shift of past events in the middle of a description of current action.
Flashback
A caricature, a character lacking complexity or incapable of generating surprise. A hero who is only good or villain who is only bad.
Flat character
Words, gestures and other actions that hint at future events.
Foreshadowing
The voice and implied speaker of a fictional work or poem, to be distinguished from the actual living author.
Narrator
The perspective, or angle or vision, from which the story is narrated. First person: a story told through the pronoun I. Second: a story told through the pronoun you. Third: a story told through the pronoun him/her. This point of view can either be limited (limited to one character’s perspective) or omniscient (all knowing)
Point of view
The sequence of major events in a story, usually in a cause-effect relation. Plot and character are intimately related, since characters carry out the plot’s action.
Plot
