Nod my Head - A Writing Guide for Wattpad Writers

(25) Glossery Of Writing Terms

Active Voice: when the subject of the sentence performs the action, rather than being acted upon.
Antagonist: the villain of the story; the opposition to the hero.
Anti-hero: a dark hero who is riddled with flaws instead of the positive, noble traits we come to expect from heroes.
Archetype: a recurring type of character in fiction found across multiple cultures.
Assonance: using words that have the same or very similar vowel sounds near one another.
Backstory: the details and background about a character's past.
Beat: the thoughts and actions of a character which comprise a scene. Often used between lines of dialogue for dramatic pause and to increase the emotion/tension of a scene.
Cardboard Character: a character who hasn't been developed to feel realistic or like a unique individual.
Character Arc: the character's inner journey throughout the story, and how they transform in some way by the end. Can either be a positive change or a negative change.
Character Trait: characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes that create a character's personality. Can either be positive or negative (Example: childish, devious, lazy, needy, confident, creative, nurturing).
Character Quirk: an interesting behavior, habit, hobby, or mannerism.
Characterization: the act of creating the specifics of a character such as traits, quirks, backstory, goal, etc.
Cliché: something that has been overused. In fiction this can mean a phrase, plot, character type, or dialogue.
Climax: the height of the story's action before the ending. The final conflict where it is decided whether or not the hero will win and achieve his goal.
Conflict: any opposition that keeps a character from getting what they want. The main conflict of a story is that between the hero and villain.
Complication: a situation or detail of a character that complicates the main thread of a plot. A complication builds up and develops the primary or central conflict in a literary work.
Convention: a traditional or common style often used in literature, theater, or art to create a particular effect.
Connotation: in a literary work, an idea or quality that a word makes you think about in addition to its dictionary definition; an implication that goes beyond the actual meaning of a word.
Deep Point of View: a style of writing that strives to bring the reader deep into the hero's head by eliminating evidence of the author's hand such as speech tags, words like felt, and thought, and using more of the hero's voice in the writing.
Denotation: the precise/actual meaning of a word outside of the feelings it evokes; the dictionary meaning of a word or phrase. In fiction writing, writers will play off a word's denotative meaning against its connotations or implied associational implications.
Dénouement: the ending of a story where any loose ends are tied and all questions are answered.
Dialogue: a written composition in which two or more characters are represented as conversing; the conversations between characters in a literary work, typically enclosed within "quotation marks".
Dialogue Tags: the verb after a line of dialogue that signals how it is being spoken and who is speaking (said, replied, asked, etc.)
Diction: the choice of words, especially with regard to correctness, clearness, or effectiveness, in a literary work. Writers will use words to reveal character, imply attitudes, convey action, demonstrate themes, and indicate values.
Dramatic Irony: dramatic irony, which often shows itself as some type of miscommunication, occurs when the reader becomes aware of something important of which the characters in the story are not aware.
Epilogue: a section after the main ending of the story that reveals what happened to the characters afterward.
External Conflict: the struggle between the hero and an outside force such as nature or the villain.
Exposition: this also refers to the first stage of a plot, in which necessary background information is provided.
Fable: a narration intended to enforce a useful truth. Fables frequently involve animals that speak and act like human beings.
Falling Action: when the story begins to slow down after its climax as it heads into the ending.
First Person: when the character uses "I" to tell the story.
Figurative Language: language that does not mean exactly what it states but instead requires the reader to make his or her own association from the comparison.
Flashback: when a past event is brought up in the current time of the story.
Flat Character: an uncomplicated character in a story who is illustrated by very few traits. (Also see cardboard character)
Foil: a character in a story whose purpose is to bring out certain characteristics in either the main character or in other characters. Thus, the foil character will contrast with and parallel those characters.
Foreshadowing: to give a suggestion of something that will happen in the story.
High Concept: a story with a unique or fresh premise that grabs attention and appeals to a large audience.
Hyperbole: a figure of speech that describes something as better or worse than it actually is by way of extreme exaggeration.
Hook: the first sentence of your novel, designed to grab the reader's attention and arouse curiosity.
Info Dump: when the writer reveals a large amount of information or backstory all at once instead of spreading it out.
Imagery: descriptive, visual writing that often uses figurative language such as similes or metaphors.
Inciting Incident: the event that is the cause of the story. Without this event, no story would follow. (Ex. Katniss' sister getting chosen at the reaping is the inciting incident of The Hunger Games).
Internal Conflict: the struggle of the hero against his own self.
Manuscript: a term used to refer to an unpublished novel. Minor Character: characters who appear in the story but don't play a large or significant role.
Mood: a conscious state of mind or predominant emotion.
Motif: the reoccurring aspect (object, issue) in a story; can also be two binary elements in a piece of writing (e.g., bad versus good). A recurring salient thematic element, especially a dominant idea or central theme.
Mood: the emotion a scene evokes in the reader.
Narrative: the written events of the story, as told by the viewpoint character in either first or third person.
Narrator: the person telling the story, either in first or third person.
Omniscient Point of View: a point of view where the narrator is god-like in that he knows the thoughts, feelings, secrets, backstories, etc. of all other characters and reveals them to
the reader.
Onomatopoeia: words that imitate, sound like, or evoke their own meaning; the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz or hiss).
Parable: a short story that teaches a moral or spiritual lesson, especially one of the stories told by Jesus Christ and recorded in the Bible.
Pantsing: the act of writing a novel without any planning.
Passive Voice: when the subject of a sentence is acted upon, rather than performing the action.
Plot: the events that unfold in a story as the hero overcomes obstacles to try to achieve his goal, and how he changes along the way.
Plot Device: an object or character that moves the plot forward. Can sometimes be created in a way that feels too deliberate and unrealistic.
Plot Hole: an inconsistency, contradiction, or issue with the plot that makes it illogical or unbelievable.
Plot Point: a significant event that moves the story forward.
Point of View (POV): the angle from which a story is told or narrated. Point of view can be first person, objective, limited omniscient, or omniscient.
Prologue: events that take place before the main story, but have a significant connection to or impact upon the main story so that it is important for the reader to know them.
Point of View (POV): the perspective of a certain character who is telling the story.
Prose: ordinary, written language without rhyme or meter (Ex. What you're reading right now is prose).
Protagonist: the principal or main character in a literary work.
Purple Prose: writing that tries too hard to be descriptive, and in doing so overloads the reader (Also called flowery prose).
Rising Action: the events of the story leading up to the climax.
Supporting Character/s: characters who appear in the story but don't play a large or significant role (Also called Secondary Character/s).
Scene: a single event that takes place in a single setting in a set amount of time. A story is made up of many scenes.
Scene Break: the writer's way of signaling a change in scene to the reader by leaving a blank line between the scenes or three asterisks centered in the page. The break signals a passage in time and/or a change in setting.
Simile: a comparison of two different things using the words like or as.
Setting: the place where the story and scenes occur.
Stakes: the consequences or reward for the hero's success or failure of their goal.
Subplot: a subordinate plot in fiction that coexists with the main plot.
Subtext: the underlying meaning in writing or dialogue that is hinted at but not plainly expressed.
Suspension of Disbelief: the willingness of the reader to set aside their judgement and believe the story they are being told.
Syntax: the way in which linguistic elements (as words) are put together to form constituents (such as phrases or clauses) in a sentence or line of verse or dialogue. The organization of these words and phrases creates prose, verse, and dialogue.
Synopsis: a summary of the novel's events, including its ending.
Theme: the idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalization.
Tone: a particular pitch or change of pitch constituting an element in the intonation of a phrase or sentence; the style or manner of expression in speaking or writing.
Three Act Structure: the most common structure for plotting a story, with Act I representing the beginning, Act II the middle, and Act III the end.
Three Dimensional Character: a character who is realistic and has dimension like a real person.
Trope: another term for a cliché.
Twist: an unexpected revelation or turn of events in a story.
Two Dimensional Character: a character who is flat and doesn't feel real, and seems only to exist in the confines of the page.
Tragic Figure: a protagonist whose story comes to an unhappy end due to his or her own behavior and character flaws.
Voice: the expression of the writing through the narrator, revealing their thoughts, opinions, and attitudes.
World Building: the act of creating a world so that it resembles our own with details such as culture, government, geography, politics, religion, etc.
Writing Style: the ways in which an author chooses to write words for his or her readers, including how he or she arranges sentences, paragraphs, dialogue, and verse. Style also refers to how the author develops ideas and actions with description, imagery, and other literary techniques.