elements of style

Character development: How a character changes throughout the story 

Characterization: The qualities or characteristics of a character

Conflict: person vs person/nature, society/self

Dialogue: Lines spoken or internal thoughts

Foreshadowing: Hints dropped about what's going to happen later 

Form: Whether something is poetry, prose, drama, a short story, a sonnet, etc.

Hyperbole: exaggerated statements

Imagery: Scenes set or items shown with descriptive words 

Irony: An occurrence that's the opposite of what's expected 

Juxtaposition: Putting two elements together to compare or contrast them 

Mood: The atmosphere of a work, the attitude of the narrator 

Pacing: How quickly the narration unfolds 

Point of view: The narrator's perspective; first person (I) or third person (he or she) 

Structure: How a story is told (beginning, action, climax, denouement) or how a piece is organized (introduction, main body, conclusion vs. reverse-pyramid journalistic style) 

Symbolism: Using an element of the story to represent something else 

Theme: A message delivered by or shown in a work; its central topic or big idea

Tone: The writer's attitude toward the subject or manner with choosing vocabulary and presenting information, such as informal or formal

Line-by-Line Elements

Ambiguity: the quality of being open to more than one interpretation; inexactness

Alliteration: Close repetition of consonants, used for effect

Assonance: Close repetition of vowels, used for effect

Allusion: A reference to another work or character

Colloquialisms: Informal words, such as slang and regional or dated words 

Diction: The correctness of the overall grammar (big picture) or how characters speak, such as with an accent or with poor grammar

Jargon: Terms specific to a certain field

Metaphor: A means to compare two elements (Can also be big-picture if an entire story or scene is laid out to show a parallel with something else) 

Repetition: Using the same words or phrases in a short amount of time for emphasis 

Rhetorical Question: A question that is not requiring an answer

Rhyme: When the same sounds appear in two or more words

Rhythm: having a musicality to the writing such as by using stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry or sentence variety or repetition in a paragraph

Sentence variety: Variation in the structure and length of consecutive sentences. Short and long sentences

Syntax: The arrangement of words in a sentence

Elements of style: the characteristics of the language used in the written work, and stylistics is their study. How an author uses them is what makes one writer's work distinct from another, from Henry James to Mark Twain to Virginia Woolf. An author's way of using the elements creates their distinct writing voice.