Literature Keystone

A narrative device, often used at the beginning of a work that provides necessary background information about the characters and their circumstances.

• Exposition

• Rising Action

• Inciting Incident

• World-building

The part of a literary plot that is characterized by diminishing tensions and the resolution of the plot’s conflicts and complications.

• Falling Action

• Rising Action

• Resolution

• Exposition

Any story that is the product of imagination rather than a documentation of fact. Characters and events in such narratives may be based in real life, but their ultimate form and configuration is a creation of the author.

• Fiction

• Novel

• Nonfiction

• Memoir

The “personal” point of view relates events as they are perceived by a single character. The narrating character may offer opinions about the action and characters that differ from those of the author.

• First Person

• Third Person

• Second Person

• Omniscient

An organizational device used in literature to present action that occurred before current (present) time of the story. Often introduced as the dreams or recollections of one or more characters.

• Flashback

• Foreshadowing

• Plot Point

• Conflict

An organizational device used in literature to create expectation or to set up an explanation of later developments.

• Foreshadowing

• Flashback

• Linear

• Cause & Effect

An exaggeration or overstatement (e.g., I had to wait forever.)

• Hyperbole

• Personification

• Metaphor

• Paradox

Descriptive or figurative language in a literary work; the use of language to create sensory impressions.

• Imagery

• Figurative Language

• Irony

• Graphs & Charts

The comparison of two unlike things in which no words of comparison (like or as) are used (e.g., The speech gave me food for thought.)

• Metaphor

• Simile

• Hyperbole

• Paradox

The prevailing emotions or atmosphere of a work derived from literary devices such as dialogue and literary elements such as setting. Not always what might be expected based on its subject matter.

• Mood

• Tone

• Author's Intended Theme

• Atmosphere