Keystone Literature

A story, actual, or fictional, expressed orally or in text.

• drama

• satire

• poetry

• narrative

An implied or indirect reference in literature to a familiar person, place, or event. (a)  

• Allusion

• Metaphor

• Alliteration

• Author's Purpose

A person, animal or inanimate object portrayed in a literary work. (a)  

• Character

• Setting

• Theme

• Plot

The method an author uses to reveal characters and their various traits and personalities (e.g., direct, indirect).

• Characterization

• Plot

• Conflict

• Cultural Significance

The turning point in a narrative; the moment when the conflict is at its most intense.

• Climax

• Rising Action

• Inciting Incident

• Exposition

In its widest sense, _____ is simply conversation between characters or speakers in a literary work; in its most restricted sense, it refers specifically to the speech of characters in a drama.

• Dialogue

• Dialect

• Diatribe

• Diaphragm

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