Elements of Fiction - Plot Notes

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, plot components, and diagram details from the Elements of Fiction lecture notes.

Plot

The flow of events that make up a story; it encompasses everything that happens during a story, including only the most important and significant events.

5 parts of a plot

Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution.

Exposition components

Setting, character, and conflict.

Setting

Where and when a story takes place, encompassing time, place, climate/weather, and lifestyle.

Characters

People, animals, robots, or entities in a story that have dialogue and participate in the action.

Protagonist

The main character or clear center of a story.

Antagonist

The opponent or enemy of the main character.

Conflict

A fight or struggle between opposing forces around which fictional stories are built.

Two types of conflict

Internal (conflict with oneself) and External (conflict with nature, society, or another character).

Point of view

The lens or perspective from which a story is told.

First-person point of view

A story told by the main character using the pronoun 'I'.

Third-person point of view

A story told by a narrator who sees the action, using pronouns such as 'he', 'she', or 'they'.

Theme

The primary belief or message about human nature, life, or the universe that the author wants the reader to comprehend.

Verbs

Action words in a sentence that describe what the subject is doing (e.g., 'Diego caught the baseball', where 'caught' is the verb).

Subject

The noun or pronoun that performs the action in a sentence (e.g., 'Phil' in 'Phil played the piano').

Object

The part of a sentence that receives the action of the verb (e.g., 'baseball' in 'Diego caught the baseball').

Active voice

A sentence structure where the subject performs the action (e.g., 'Phil played the piano' or 'They take the children to the movie').

Passive voice

A sentence structure where the subject receives the action, formed using a 'be' verb plus a past participle (e.g., 'The piano was played by Phil' or 'The children are taken to the movie').

2 person

Uses “you, your, yours”