Vocab List #1 Short Stories

Question 1

fiction written to meet the taste of a wide popular audience and relying usually on tested formulas for satisfying such taste; helps to take us away and “escape the tedium and stress of [life]” (Arp & Johnson 62)

Answer 1

Commercial Fiction

Question 2

Fiction written with serious artistic intentions, providing an imagined experience yielding authentic insights into some significant aspect of life. Literary fiction “plunges us…more deeply into the real world…” (Arp & Johnson 62).

Answer 2

literary fiction

Question 3

An ending in which the central problem or conflict is left unresolved

Answer 3

Indeterminate Ending

Question 4

That condition of a successful literary work whereby all its elements work together for the achievement of its central purpose. In an artistically unified work nothing is included that is irrelevant to the central purpose, nothing is omitted that is essential to it, and the parts are arranged in the most effective order for the achievement of that purpose

Answer 4

Artistic Unity

Question 5

A situation in which an author gives the plot a twist or turn unjustified by preceded action or by the characters involved

Answer 5

Plot manipulation

Question 6

(“god from the machine”) The resolution of a plot by use of a highly improbable chance or coincidence (so named from the practice of some Greek dramatists of having a god descend from heaven at the last possible minute - in the theater by means of a stage machine - to rescue the protagonist from an impossible situation).

Answer 6

deus ex machina

Question 7

That method of characterization in which the author, by exposition or analysis, tells us directly what a character is like

Answer 7

direct presentation

Question 8

That method of characterization in which the author shows us a character in action, compelling us to infer what the character is like from what is said or done by the character

Answer 8

indirect presentation

Question 9

Stresses that people are entirely free and therefore responsible for what they make of themselves. 2. A philosophical attitude that stresses that life is difficult and without ultimate meaning; yet, humans define themselves by the moral decisions and the courage to act on them.

Answer 9

existentialism

Question 10

A moment or event in which a character achieves a spiritual insight into life or into her or his own circumstances.

Answer 10

epiphany

Question 11

Originally applied to painting, the term is used in various literary forms involving the contrast of light and darkness (shade); the interplay or contrast of dissimilar qualities (as of mood or character)

Answer 11

chiaroscuro

Question 12

A form of fantasy in which fantastic and magical events are woven into mundane and ordinary situations, creating striking and memorable effects unavailable to either realism or fantasy alone.

Answer 12

magical realism

Question 13

Unmerited or contrived tender feeling; that quality in a work that elicits or seeks to elicit tears through an oversimplification or falsification of reality

Answer 13

Sentimentality

Question 14

(L. “in the midst of things) The practice of beginning an epic or other narrative by plunging into a crucial situation that is part of a related chain of events; often, exposition is bypassed and filled in gradually, through dialogue, flashbacks, or description of past events

Answer 14

in media res

Question 15

A characteristic of most successful stories, in which the writer’s aim is to say as much as possible as briefly as possible. The author chooses each word and detail carefully for maximum effectiveness.

Answer 15

compression