GEC13

• ESSAY


  a form of prose writing, not primarily narrative, in which the writer shares his thoughts and ideas, his feelings and emotions, and his observations on some phrases of life that caught his interest.
• FORMAL ESSAY


  deals with serious and important topics like philosophy, theology, science and politics. It has an authoritative and scholarly style and shows the writer’s masterful grasp of the topic.
• informal essay


  covers the light, ordinary, even common place subjects through a bubbling, casual, conversational, friendly, often humorous but equally insightful, stance as the formal essay
• Novel


  an extended short story because of its length. This is a long narrative divided into chapters.
• Novelette

  A work of prose fiction of intermediate length, longer than a short story and shorter than a novel.
• Short Story


  is a relatively brief fictional narrative in prose. It may range in length from the short story of 500wordsup to the long-short story of 12,000 to 15,000 words.
• Short-short story


  A brief short story, usually between 500 and 2,000wordsin length, with a ‘twist’ or surprise ending. Its best practitioner was O. Henry
• Parable


  A short, fictitious narrative which points out an oral or spiritual truth.
• Fable


  A brief tale, either in prose or verse, told to point amoral. The characters are most frequently animals, but need not be restricted since people and inanimate objects as well are sometimes the central figures
• Myth


  differ from legends in that they have less of historical background and more of the supernatural;
• Legend


  is distinguished from a myth, it has more of historical truth and perhaps less of the supernatural.
• Subject


  It is what the story is all about which is particular or specific, therefore only one.
• Theme


  a story’s central idea. Is a message about life or human that writer wants convey
• Mood


  The atmosphere or emotional effect generated by the words, images, situations in a literary work (the emotional ambience of the work), for example, melancholy, joyous, tense, oppressive and so on.
• Plot


  This is the framework of the story. It is said that a story will not stand unless there is a _.
• Exposition

  It is the introductory material that creates the tone, gives the setting, introduces the characters, and supplies other facts necessary to understanding a work of literature.
• Rising action


  It is the second section of the typical plot, in which the main character begins to grapple with the story’s main conflict; contains several events usually are arranged in an order of increasing importance.
• Climax


  It is a rhetorical term for a rising order of importance in the ideas expressed. It is the point of highest interest, where the reader makes the greatest emotional response.
• Falling action


  It is part of the plot after the climax, containing events caused by the climax and contributing to the resolution.
• Denouement or resolution


  It is the final unraveling of a plot; the solution of a mystery; an explanation or outcome.
• Flashback

  • Characters or narrator brings back the past because it is related to the present situation in the story.
• Foreshadowing


  It tells what will happen next in the story.
• En Medias Res


  The story starts in the middle of the story. It only shows portion of the middle part then it will commence to the exposition.
• Stream of Consciousness


  This is also referred as “flow of consciousness” because the narration is based on the continuous flow of ideas of the narrator.
• Setting


  The physical, and sometimes spiritual, background against which the action of a narrative takes place.
• Point of View


  A term used in the analysis and criticism of fiction to describe the way in which the reader is presented with the materials of the story or viewed from another angle, the vantage point from which the author presents the actions of the story.
• First Person

  • the writer uses the pronoun “I”. He/she could be a participant or a character in his own work; the narrator may be the protagonist, an observer, a minor character, or the writer himself/herself.
• Third Person


  the writer-narrator is a character in the story. He/she narrates the based on what he observed / his opinion.
• Omniscient


  the writer-narrator sees all; he can see into the minds of characters and even report everyone’s innermost thoughts.
• Irony


  is a literary term referring to how a person, situation, statements, or circumstance is not as it would actually seem. Many times it the exact opposite of what it appears to be.
• Verbal irony


  is when an author says one thing and means something else.
• Dramatic irony


  is when an audience perceives something that a character in the literature does not know.
• Situational irony


  is a discrepancy between the expected result and actual result.
• Character


  is the representation of a human being; persons involved in a conflict.
• protagonist


  is considered to be the main character or lead figure in a novel, play, story, or poem. It may also be referred to as the “hero” of a work.
• antagonist


  is a character in a story or poem who deceives, frustrates, or works again the main character, or protagonist, in some way.
• antihero


  is a protagonist who has opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero.
• flat character


  a character who is the same sort of person at the end of a story as s/he was at the beginning.
• type character


  a stereotype character: one whose nature is familiar from prototypes in previous fiction. He/She has only one outstanding trait or feature, or at the most a few distinguishing marks.
• dynamic character


  is a character who, during the course of a story, undergoes a permanent change in some aspect of his/her personally or outlook.