Glossary for creative writers

In the active voice, the subject always ‘does’ the action of the sentence

A part of a play – how playwrights, traditionally, break up the action of the work

Someone who helps writers sell their work to publishers, to then be made into books

A symbolic fictional narrative that conveys a meaning not explicitly set forth in the narrative

The repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighbouring words or syllables (such as wild and  woolly,  threatening  throngs)

The person, group, force, or idea that opposes the interests of the protagonist (hero)

The central character in a story who does not have traditionally heroic qualities

A perfect or typical specimen or example

The repetition of vowel sounds in words that are close to each other in a sentence

A paragraph providing a quick and concise overview of the author and their writing

A story that tells what has led up to the main story or plot

Someone who reads a book manuscript with an eye towards providing feedback to the author

The life story of a person written by someone else

A short description of a book or film. (On hardback books, found on the front flap of the jacket; on paperback books found on the back cover)

A line under the title of a newspaper or magazine article giving the author’s name

The group of authors or works that a consensus of academics, historians and teachers recognise as worthy of study

Any of the separate parts into which a book or other piece of text is divided

A person in a novel, film or play

The changes a character goes through over the course of a story

The description of a character’s physical traits (how a character looks), point of view, personality, private thoughts, and actions

Light commercial fiction originally addressed to British women readers of the late 1990s and early 2000s

An overused expression that either has a general meaning or has lost it’s meaning over time

The most exciting and important part of a story, play, or movie that occurs usually at or near the end

The struggle between two opposing forces or ideas

Makes sure a piece of writing is accurate, clear and correct before the text is laid out on the page by the designer (formerly a typesetter)

A genre of writing that uses elements of creative writing to present a factual, true story (also termed narrative nonfiction)

A fictional narrative where a crime is committed, followed by an investigation conducted by a professional or amateur sleuth

The outcome, solution, unravelling, or clarification of a plot in a drama or story

A conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or film

The words that frame dialogue in a piece of writing, most commonly ‘said’

The framework that gives structure to a story, including exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution

Imagined worlds or societies where life is extremely bad because of deprivation or oppression or terror

Text appearing after the main body of the book

Final chapter at the end of the story, which often reveals what happened next or the fates of certain characters

Reveals background information about a main character, setting, event or other element of the narrative

The action that occurs immediately after the big climax has taken place and the action shifts towards resolution instead of escalation

Literature created from the imagination – non-factual

A completed manuscript that has not been edited

Uses the pronouns I, me, we and us, in order to tell a story from the narrator’s perspective

Takes the reader out of the present story and into an earlier time period

An extremely short story, generally no more than a few hundred words, also micro fiction

A character whose purpose is to accentuate or draw attention to the qualities of another character

Hints or clues to the reader about what will happen later on in the text

Text material appearing in a book before the main story

The classification and organisation of literary works into the following categories: poetry, drama, prose, fiction, and nonfiction

Someone who writes a book or article, etc. for another person to publish under his or her own name

The sole protagonist of a story; they are the main character and often have admirable qualities

A fictional plot that takes place in the setting of particular real historical events

Vivid description that appeals to a readers’ senses to create an image or idea in their head

An episode, plot point or event that hooks the reader into the story

Including a lot of unnecessary information in one big clump, detracting from the main action

Beginning a story ‘in the middle of things’

A person or character’s inner voice

Recording personal insights, reflections and questions on assigned or personal topics

A handwritten or typed document, especially a writer’s first version of a book before it is published

The author writing about his or her memories, usually going back to childhood

Describing something by saying it is something else, usually unrelated

An extremely short story, generally no more than a few hundred words, also flash fiction

The feeling that the writer is trying to evoke in their reader, such as anxiety or joy

An idea that is used many times in a piece of writing or music

National Novel Writing Month (November each year). Begun in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days.

A type of writing that is told in great detail and focuses solely on the practice of telling stories

The narrator tells the story from one character’s perspective at a time

The all-knowing voice in a story, with a greater insight into the narrative’s events than that of any individual character

A piece of long narrative in literary prose

A narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories

The naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz, hiss)

A map of the piece of writing you are working on

The rhythm of the entire story and how the chain of events fall into place

A piece of writing, music, etc., that imitates the style of someone or something else in an amusing way

A style of writing where what would be the object of a sentence becomes the subject of the sentence

The series of events in a story

The chronological order of events in a story

A moment in a story that impacts the character or the direction of the story in some way

Showing the reader exactly what it is like to be somewhere

The perspective from which a story is told

The pages of a book, such as the title page and contents, before the main text

Carefully checking for errors in a text before it is published, and after it is laid out in book format

A writing style that doesn’t follow a structure of rhyming or meter but a structure arranged into sentences and paragraphs

The main character in a story

A company that will take your manuscript and prepare it for publishing, and publish your work

An event that creates a fresh complication for the protagonist

The section of the plot leading up to the climax

Involves plots centred on love and adventure

A genre of fiction literature whose content is imaginative, but based in science

A roadmap that tells a reader how the audience will see and hear the events unfolding on screen or stage

The next instalment of a story

The time, place, and environment in which narrative events unfold

A piece of prose fiction that can typically be read in a single sitting

Language that describes something by comparing it to something else, with the words like or as

The person, place, thing, or idea that is doing or being

The implicit meaning of a text, not being stated directly

A thing that stands for or represents something else

An overview of the storyline or main points and other defining factors

The arrangement or order of words, determined by both the writer’s style and grammar rules

A universal idea, lesson, or message explored throughout a work of literature

Writing from the third-person point of view, or outsider looking in, and using pronouns like he, she, it, or they

The mood or attitude created by the way that the author says something in a piece of writing

The protagonist of a story, in which, despite their virtuous character, they meet defeat or an untimely end

Time-tested methods of employing figurative language to enrich a written work

Any narrator who misleads readers, either deliberately or unwittingly

The mixture of tone, word choice, point of view, syntax, punctuation, and rhythm that make up sentences and paragraphs

The current project you’re writing

The process of creating a fictional world within your novel that is entirely different to our own

A usually temporary condition in which a writer finds it impossible to proceed with the writing of a novel, play, or other work

Literature designed and written for Young Adults (age 12-18)