Horror Fiction Unit Notes

Horror Fiction Unit Notes

RL.8.6: Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense.

Craft Moves Writers Use to Create Suspense

  1. Characterization

  2. Word choice for tone and mood

  3. Dramatic Irony

Key Vocabulary

Suspense: Uncertainty or anxiety that the reader feels about what will happen later in the story.

Foreshadowing: Hints or clues to suggest events will occur later in the plot.

Foreboding: A Feeling that something bad is going to happen.

Point of View

  • First Person: narrator “I”

  • Second Person: “You” ~ instructions

  • Third Person: narrator outside action of story

  • Omniscient: all knowing narrator

  • Third Person Limited: narrator outside of story knows thoughts feelings of only one character

Irony: An outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been expected.

3 Types:

  1. Dramatic: When the audience/reader is aware of what is going on but the character(s) in the story are not.

  2. Situational: Actions have an effect that is opposite from what was intended, so that the outcome is contrary to what was expected.

  3. Verbal: When a person says or writes one thing and means another.

Tone

Word choice used to show Speaker’s (or narrator’s) attitude

Mood

Emotional effect that the text creates for the audience/atmosphere through word choice


facade- face of a building or an appearance that hides something

congenial - pleasant personality

rapacious - aggressively greedy or grasping

tantalizing -something that provokes interest or desire; tempting, teasing

emanate-come forth

credulity-believing too soon in something

fate - development of events beyond a person’s control

grimace- ugly, twisted expression on a person’s face

peril- danger

surveying-to examine or look at comprehensively; to inspect

acute-  sharp or severe in effect; intense

vexed- irritated, annoyed

sagacity- acuteness of mental discernment and soundness of judgment

refrained- to abstain from an impulse to say or do something

wary-  watchful; being on one's guard against danger

suavity-  a suave or smoothly agreeable quality

audacity-  boldness or daring, especially with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions

vehemently-  strongly emotional; intense or passionate

gesticulations-  an animated or excited gesture

derision-  ridicule; mockery; an object of ridicule