~~ A Vocabulary for Fiction and Beyond ~~

Plot

Exposition
Complication
Conflict
Dilemma
Crisis
Climax
Resolution
Epiphany

Character

Major / Minor
Protagonist / Antagonist
Round / Flat
Dynamic / Static
"Character Motivation"
"Character determines fate"

Point of View

Narrator
Omniscient narrator
Limited omniscient narrator
Objective "camera eye" narrator
First Person narrator
Reliable / Unreliable narrator

Setting

Realistic
Symbolic

Ambiguity

When we engage in interpretation--figuring out what different elements in a story "mean"--we're responding to a work's "ambiguity." Defined simply, this means the work is open to several simultaneous interpretations. Language, especially when manipulated artistically, can communicate more than one meaning--it invites interpretation. Readers can enjoy interpreting literature, and stories, in ways the find individually satisfying.

Theme

The McGraw-Hill Book of Fiction (Robert Di Yanni and Kraft Rompf, Eds. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995) defines theme as "an idea or point formulated as a generalization. The theme of a fable is its moral; the theme of a parable is its teaching; the theme of a short story is its implied view of life and conduct. Unlike the fable and parable, however, most fiction is not designed primarily to teach or preach. Its theme, thus is more obliquely presented. In fact, theme in fiction is barely presented at all; it is abstracted from the details of character and action that compose the story."

The kind of literary works that have the most merit themeatically generally go beyond what's explecte dor predictable; the ideas they explore are not trite cliches. They are more likdely to be fresh ways of looking at old problems, or fresh interpretations of common experience. A work's theme is often related to what's happening in the larger culture; the author is giving voice to the spirit of the age. Authors may agree or disagree with cultural trends--maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously--but they can't escape the fact that their work is situated in a particular time and place. Enduring literary works can bring the truths inherent in that time and place and communicate them in ways that reach audiences beyond their immediate ones. They are able to express truths that are "timeless" and "universal," able to interest people across cultures and across the centuries. Theme is very involved here; it's the agent of that transmission. The more provocative the theme of the work, the more we have to think about it, the more likely it will be to last.

Symbol

Language can also communicate on more than one level of meaning. Any person, object, image, word, or situation represented in literature may be capable of evoking a range of additional meaning, beyond its original, literal one. Symbols in literature evoke complex ideas without explicitly (tiresomely?) explaining them.

Irony

Defined simply, irony is the perception of a clash between appearance and reality, between what "seems" and what "is." When something strikes you as ironic, it's usually because the truth turns out to be quite different from what you might have expected.

Paradox

Paradox involves two statements or conditions which seem incongruous and nonsensical on the surface--however, when you study beneath the surface, they turn out to make perfect sense.