CHARACTERS: The people who are involved in what happens in a story. Characters may be flat (simple, one-dimensional, static) or round (complex, dynamic, detailed). The main character can usually be labeled the protagonist or hero; he or she is often in conflict with the antagonist or villain.

DICTION: A writer’s choice of language, including word phrases, and sentence structure. Diction is an important element of style. The same idea will leave a different impression on the reader when it is narrated in street slang, in the precise language of an old schoolteacher, or in the professional jargon of a social worker.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: Words and descriptions, including metaphor, simile, and personification, that differ from purely denotative, or literal, meanings to suggest comparisons between two or more terms or things.

NARRATOR: The dramatic voice of the person telling a story. A narrator can be reliable or unreliable and omniscient (first person all knowing), limited omniscient (first person partly knowing) or objective (third person).

PLOT: The sequence of events in a story and their relation to one another.

POINT OF VIEW: The perspective of the narrator or protagonist of a story.

SETTING: The physical details of the place, the time, and the social context that influence the actions of the characters. Often setting also evokes a mood or atmosphere, foreshadowing event to come.

STYLE: The distinctive and recognizable way an author uses language to create a work of literature. This can involve the writer’s diction, sentence length and syntax, tone, use of figures of speech, irony and theme.

SYNTAX: A reference to the order of the words in writing of any kind. Syntax usually implies a word order that results in meaningful verbal patterns in the author’s choice of words, phrases, and sentence structure.

THEME: A generalization about the meaning of a story.

TONE: The way authors convey their unstated attitudes toward their subjects as revealed in style. Tone can be described as serious or comic, ironic or naïve, angry or funny, or any other emotional states that human beings can experience and find words to express.

VOICE: A term referring to the specific manner chosen by the author to create a story or poem. Voice encompasses elements of style such as tone and diction. It is usually difficult to get a sense of the original author’s voice in a text that has been translated from a foreign language into English.