Elements of fiction 1

AP Lit quiz

Parable

A narrative whos sole purpose is to teach a moral/ethical lesson or principle, often using simple, relatable characters and situations.

In these stories, the message is generally implied throughout the text rather than directly stated like in a fable.

Fable

A short story that contains an explicit moral purpose provided by the author. In Fables, characters are usually animals, which are personified with human like traits and often engage in behaviors reflecting human virtues or vices.

Myth

A narrative that was written in the context of a culture’s oral traditions, usually containing religious figures such as gods or heroic figures.
The characters and events symbolize deeper moral or spiritual meanings, conveying complex ideas through a more accessible story form.

This form of writing allows the perpetuation of cultural values and belief systems that were passed down through oral tradition.

Allegory

A narrative in which its formal elements, events, or the timeline of these events consistently point towards either a specific moral or message, or to reflect a real point in time, such as with Marxist literature.

This allows the author to dramatize specific historical events, social issues, or abstract ideas, often revealing deeper insights about society and human nature.

Folktale

Defined as a short story that came from or culminated from years of popular origin/oral tradition. This includes various forms:

-Legend: A traditional narrative passed down through oral tradition to recognize a heroic/remarkable person in history, an important event, or to possibly explain the unexplainable. These tales claim to be true and based in history.

-Fairy Tale: A traditional form of short narrative folklore which features various supernatural elements (e.g. Little Red Riding Hood) in which animals might be shown with human personality traits such as the personalities of the wolves in the Little Red Riding Hood. These writings often include a hero which reaches/achieves a desirable fate, such as destroying an enemy or saving the day.

-Tall Tale: A humorous fictionary depiction of events that features wild and funny exaggerations of events. This form previously assumes that the reader knows that the writing includes embellishments and puffering.

Tale

A brief narrative without a long and complex plot. This form of literature tends towards less-developed plots and characters and linear plotting.

Short Story

A short prose narrative, limiting the number of themes, characters, settings, etc.

Novella

a short novel

Novel

An extended form of prose fiction with complex character development and a complex timeline, including greater depth in its themes, more varied themes, and more characters.

Literary nonfiction

A recounting of real people, events, and places using fictional techniques and possibly using allegories.

Genre

Defined as a means of categorizing forms of classical literature, implying a preexisting understanding between the artist and the reader about the purpose of the work. Example: A horror story is expected to blend formal elements, but is also expected to frighten the reader/viewer of the literature, meaning that you must also tailor each of the literary elements to work together to evoke a feeling of uneasiness.

Canon

When the term is applied to an individual author, it refers to the sum of the total works done by the author.

If it is applied to a general sense, it refers to a specific time that is referred to as very important, or “major”. Example: Canon event in Spider-Verse

Parody

Characterized by a mocking imitation of a literary work or any artistic work by exaggerating possibly critiquable aspects of the work, which is supposed to be for the humourization of these features.

Satire

A literary work that can mock or criticize human misconduct against unethical or wicked habits (e.g. making fun the mentally challenged), stupidities, or other errors. Rather than for the sole purpose of humor, this form of literature aims at improving humanity by criticizing its fallings and possibly building from it.

Motif

A literary element or symbol that recurs a significant amount for the sole purpose of pointing towards a unified whole.

This element/symbol can be an image, situation, idea, theme, or action.

This can also refer to a motif present throughout many other literary works, such as the motif of testing a hero’s wisdom before by asking a riddle.

Archetype

Defined as a recurring symbol found throughout different myths across different cultures, such as character archetypes (such as the Villain) which follows specific personality traits, or a situational archetype, which describes a specific recurring setting or characteristics of a setting that come across many works of literature.

Irony

Verbal Irony: When the writer or speaker says the exact opposite of what he means

Situational irony: Defined as a discrepancy between what the reader expects and the characters expect will happen or considered appropriate until something different happens.

Dramatic Irony: The reader/viewer understands what is happening but the character does not understand, which serves the purpose of making the reader feel uneasy as the reader understands what is happening.

Cosmic Irony: An irony in which the fate of a situation is decided by a god, where the actions and the results do not line up, or a discrepancy between what a reader deserves versus what they get.

Convention

An accepted form of composing literature that is understood by readers and other writers (i.e. conventions of standard english). This may include opening a fairy tale with “once upon a time”.

Dialogue

A direct representation of a conversation between two or more characters in the literary work.

flashback

A way in which the work is structured, where the character’s experiences are out of order for dramatic purposes. Example: the work throws you right into a character defining moment, and pauses, where the character says “yep that’s me, you’re probably wondering how I got into this mess”, or what happens in project Hail Mary.

Foreshadowing

A plot structuring technique in which information is layered such that the viewer can infer what will happen later in the story, where events later on are prepared for. The author may do this intentionally by inserting specific words or phrases to hint at what will happen.

Suspense

Defined by a rollercoaster of anxiety that the work evokes into the reader, in which the suspense comes from the readers’ anticipation of the inevitable fate of the characters in the story.

Epistolary novel

A form of writing defined by the way of letters (notes written or notes taken by the character) that are written by the characters in the setting, leading to more authenticity in the story with the imagined sense that the author may have discovered these letters.

Didactic Fiction

A form of writing in which the author intends on teaching a moral lesson or creating a model for proper behavior, in which the events seem manipulated to convey this moral lesson.

Bildungsroman

Defined as a novel for growth and development of a child who struggles towards maturity with many struggles along the way, possibly forming a worldview or philosophy of life in the process.