Literary Devices / Elements of Fiction

An author's choice of words to suggest a specfiic mood or tone.

Language that represents one thing as another thing (all literary devices).

The problem that drives the plot of the story forward.

An extreme exaggeration.

Comparing two different things to each other.

The main idea or message of a piece of writing.

The perspective from which the reader views the story.

Giving human characteristics to non-human things.

The author's attitude toward the subject they're writing about.

Using an object to mean something more than its literal meaning.

A reference to a person, event, place, or work of art.

The events and action that make up a story.

The beings through which a reader experiences a story.

Putting two contradictory words together.

A fixed and recurring rhythm.

A word that imitates the sound it represents.

Language that evokes the fives sense: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching.

Where and when a story takes place.

The emotional response an author evokes in the reader.

Words that do not rhyme exactly but come close; approximate rhyme.

Words that are spelled as if they would rhyme but they do not.

The comparison of two unlike things using like or as.

Similar sounds, often at the end of lines in poetry.

The substitution of a less offensive expression in the place of one that might offend.

Repeating consonant sounds at the beginning of words.

The use of hints or clues to suggestion what will happen later in the story