literary elements used in creative nonfiction

• characters Every story has characters, but in nonfiction, these

  characters are real people.
• detail provides pieces of information.
• dialogue is literary and theatrical

  form consisting of a written or spoken

  conversational exchange between two or

  more people.
• diction is the writer’s choice of words.
• figurative language is a type of

  language that varies from the norms and

  literal language.
• flashback is a literary device in which an

  earlier or past event is inserted to the present

  or normal chronological order of a narrative.
• flash forward is a literary device in which the plot goes ahead of

  time.
• foreshadowing is a literary device in which an author hints certain plot

  developments that perhaps will come to be later in the story.
• imagery refers to the “pictures” which we perceive with our mind’s eyes,

  ears, nose, tongue, skin, and through which we experience the “duplicate world” created by the poetic language.
• motif is any element, subject, idea or concept that is constantly present

  through the entire body of the literature.
• narrative nonfiction writing usually follows a time line for narrative that

  is either linear or nonlinear, depending on how the author tells a story.
• order is the arrangement of events in a work of literature.
• importance to rank details from least to most, or from most to least.
• chronological to arrange details in a story or purposes in the order which happened.
• problem solution in order to explain a problem, outline solution, or argue or against a solution.
• cause and effect to show the relationship between events or conditions.
• camparison and contrast to show similarities and differences between two things.
• classifications to break a subject into subgroups or categories.
• plot and plot sequence refers to the series or sequence of events that gives a story its meaning and effect.