Contemporary

• Fiction is subjective and evocative, it is "made up," and indirect in its communication.
• Conflict is a clash of actions, ideas, desires, or will
• Protagonist is a central character in a conflict, sympathetic or unsympathetic
• Antagonist is any force against protagonist
• Mystery is an unusual set of circumstances for which the reader craves an explanation
• Dilemma is a position in which he or she must choose between two courses of action, both undesirable
• Ending illustrates is it logical within the story’s own terms and does it afford a full, believable revelation?
• Surprise Ending is a sudden, unexpected turn or twist, and furnishes meaningful illumination, not just a reversal of expectation
• Happy Ending is more common in commercial fiction.
• Unhappy Ending is more common in literary fiction because it more closely mirrors real life and forces readers to contemplate the complexities of life.
• Indeterminate Ending has no definitive conclusion is reached, but need not be in terms of a resolved conflict.
• Plot Manipulation is unjustified turn in the plot by the situation or the characters.
• Deus ex machina means in Latin for “god from a machine”—the protagonist is rescued at the last moment from some impossible situation by a god descending from heaven.
• Chance is the occurrence of an event that has no apparent cause in previous events or in predisposition of character.
• Coincidence is the chance occurrence of two events that may have a peculiar correspondence. Consider the function of plot in trying to understand the relationship of each incident to the larger meaning of the story. 
• Direct Presentation means readers are told straight out what the characters are like, or they have another character in the story describe them. Little emotional impact
• Indirect Presentation means the author shows us the characters through their actions; we determine what they are like by what they say or do. In good fiction, characters are dramatized.
• Flat Characters usually have only one or two predominant traits; they can be summed up in a sentence or two.
• Round Characters is complex and many-sided; they have the three-dimensional quality of real people.
• Stock Characters is type of flat character; stereotyped figures who have recurred so often in fiction that we recognize them at once: silent sheriff, mad scientist, brilliant detective.
• Static Character does not change during the story.
• Dynamic Character means (developing) undergoes distinct change of character, personality, or outlook. Usually experiences an epiphany which is a moment of spiritual insight into life or into the character’s own circumstance. This epiphany usually defines the moment of the dynamic character’s change.
• Omniscient means the story is told in first person by a narrator whose knowledge and prerogatives are unlimited.
• Third Person Limited is from the viewpoint of one character in the story. No knowledge of what other characters are thinking or feeling.
• First Person means the author disappears into one of the characters, who tells the story in the first person. This may be either a minor or major character, protagonist, or observer, and it will make a considerable difference whether the protagonist tells the story or someone else tells it. Shares the limitations of the third-person limited point of view.
• Objective Point of View means (dramatic POV) the narrator disappears into a kind of roving sound camera. This camera can go anywhere but can record only what is seen and heard. It cannot comment, interpret, or enter a character’s mind.O
• Symbol is something that means more than what it suggests on the surface. It may be an object, person, situation, action or other elements
• Allegory is a story that has a second meaning beneath the surface adding significance.
• Fantasy is nonrealistic story and transcends the bounds of known reality.
• Humor appears in the many serious works, usually conveyed through irony
• Irony is a technique used to convey a truth about human experience by exposing some incongruity of a character’s behavior or a society’s traditions. Irony helps to critique the world in which we live by laughing at the many varieties of human eccentricity and folly
• Style is the author’s type of diction (choice of words), syntax (arrangement of words), and other linguistic features of a work.
• Theme is the central and dominating idea (or ideas) in a literary work. The term also indicates a message or moral implicit in any work of art.
• Contemporary Literature is the literature of the contemporary period not only refers to a quality/style of writing but also to poetry and prose, which includes works of fiction such as: novels, novellas, essays, and dramatic works.
• Poetry is a type of literature based on the interplay of words and rhythm. It often employs rhyme and meter (a set of rules governing the number and arrangement of syllables in each line). In poetry, words are strung together to form sounds, images, and ideas that might be too complex or abstract to describe directly.
• The opposite of poetry is “prose” – that is, normal text that runs without line breaks or rhythm. 
• Poetic Line is the words that form a single line of poetry.
• Stanza is a section of a poem named for the number of lines it contains.
• Enjambment is when there is no written or natural pause at the end of a poetic line, so that the word-flow carries over to the next line
• Placement is the way words and poetic lines are placed on the page of a poem.