Short Story Flashcards

Flashcards covering key vocabulary from lecture notes on short stories.

Plot

Events that form a significant pattern of action with a beginning, a middle, and an end, usually to overcome a conflict.

Initial Situation

The beginning of the story, where characters, setting, and initial conflicts are established.

Exposition

The beginning of a story that introduces characters, setting, and initial conflicts, setting the scene.

Incentive Moment

The event that thrusts itself into the tension of the characters' situation and triggers the action of the story.

Rising Action

A series of separate events in the plot building from one situation to the next.

Climax

The critical point at which the central character is about to win or lose all; the turning point of the story.

Falling Action

The events that occur after the climax that tie up loose ends and fulfill the protagonist's fortunes.

Resolution

The events that occur after the climax that tie up loose ends and fulfill the protagonist's fortunes.

Denouement

The events that occur after the climax that tie up loose ends and fulfill the protagonist's fortunes.

Epilogue

The part that tells the reader what happens to the characters well after the story is finished.

Suspense

A plot technique that involves dilemma, catching the character in a bad situation.

Flashback

A plot technique where the author interrupts the story to reveal biographical data or psychological reasons for a character's actions.

Telescoping

A plot technique where the author chooses significant events and suggests others without much description, for economy.

Foreshadowing

A plot technique where the outcome of a conflict is hinted at before the climax and resolution.

Conflict

Problems that need to be solved, driving the narrative forward.

Internal Conflict

A struggle within one's self.

External Conflict

A struggle with a force outside one's self.

Setting

The physical location and time of a story.

Atmospheric Setting

The mood created by the words and tone of description.

Mood

The feeling the reader gets while reading the story.

Theme

A recurring social or psychological issue, like aging, violence, alienation, or maturity.

Symbolism

An object, event, or character that represents an abstract idea.

Point of View

The angle from which the story is told.

Irony

The use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.

Fiction

A narrative in prose that shows an imaginative recreation and reconstruction of life.

Characterization

The method used by the writer to reveal the personality of the character/s.

Protagonist

The main character in a story.

Antagonist

A character or force in conflict with the main character

Dynamic Character

The character that exhibits noticeable development.

Static Character

The character who exhibits no changes and development.

Round Character

The character that displays different/multiple personalities throughout the story.

Flat Character

The character that reveals conventional traits, who remains the same throughout the story.

Linear Plot

Plot moves with the natural sequence of events where actions are arranged sequentially.

Circular Plot

A kind of plot where linear development of the story merges with an interruption in the chronological order to show an event that happened in the past.

En Medias Res

A kind of plot where the story commences in the middle part of the action.

Flashback (literary device)

The writer’s use of interruption of the chronological sequence of a story to go back to related incidents which occurred prior to the beginning of the story.

Foreshadowing (literary device)

The writer’s use of hints or clues to indicate events that will occur later in the story.

First-Person Point of View

A character-narrator who tells the story in the “I” voice, expressing his own views.

Third-Person Omniscient Point of View

A narrator that tells the story from an all-knowing point of view. He sees the mind of all the characters.

Third-Person Limited Point of View

Narrator that tells only what he can see or hear “inside the world” of the story. This narrator is otherwise known as “camera technique narrator” as he does not reveal what the characters are thinking and feeling.

Third-Person Editorial Point of View

Narrator that comments on the action by telling the readers its significance or evaluating the behavior of the characters.