Little Literary List

I love prose and poetry. When I say prose, I actually intend it to mean fiction that is not written as poetry.

What defines a short story, novel or other form of prose? I find it safest to stick to word length, but know I'm in the danger zone no matter what I say. Short short stories are usually 1000 words or less. Short stories are up to 20,000 words. Novellas are from 20,000 words to about 50,000 words. Novels would tend to be longer than 50,000 words. There are no official word lengths though.

I've seen collections of stories that have been called novels. Joy Luck Club comes to mind. I completely disagree with this definition. I believe that would be more of a marketing ploy, because short story collections never sell as well as novels. (While I'm ranting, "trilogies" are always three books, unless you're in marketing.)

Anyone can enjoy literature. Deeper levels of enjoyment can be experienced by understanding the medium which brings us the tale. Here's a little list of literary terms that an avid reader would do good to understand.

- A -

act

allegory

alliteration

allusion

ambiguity

analogy

antagonist

anthropomorphism

anticlimax

antihero

antithesis

apostrophe

archetype

aside

assonance





- B -

ballad

bathos

black humor

blank verse





- C -

caesura

canon

catharsis

character

characterization

climax

coherence

comedy

coming of age

conceit

conflict

connotation

consonance

context

couplet

creative license

crisis





- D -

dark humor

denotation

denouement

device

dialogue

diction

didactic

drama

dramatic irony

dramatic monologue

dystopia





- E -

editorialize

elegy

epic

epigram

euphemism

euphuism

existential

exposition





- F -

falling action

farce

figurative language

figure of speech

flashback

foil

foreshadowing

frame

free verse





- G -

genre

gothic





- H -

hero

heroic couplet

hubris

humanism

hyperbole





- I -

iambic pentameter

imagery

indeterminacy

irony





- L -

lampoon

literary elements

literary techniques

literary terms

lyric





- M -

magical realism

melodrama

metaphor

meter

metonymy

mock epic

modernism

mood

motif

myth





- N -

narration

narrative

narrative poem

narrator

novel

novella





- O -

ode

onomatopoeia

oxymoron





- P -

parable

paradox

parallel character

parallelism

parody

pastoral

pathetic fallacy

pathos

persona

personification

plot

point of view

post-modernism

prequel

prosody

protagonist

pseudonym

pun





- R -

red herring

repetition

resolution

rhetorical question

rhyme

rhyme scheme

rhythm

rising action

romance

romanticism





- S -

sarcasm

satire

sestina

setting

simile

short short story

short story

slant rhyme

sonnet

speaker

stock character

stream of consciousness

style

subplot

subtext

symbolism





- T -

theme

tone

tragedy

tragicomedy

tragic figure

tragic flaw

tragic hero

travesty





- U -

understatement

unity

unreliable narrator

utopia





- V -

verbal irony

verisimilitude