- Exposition / Protasis – A comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory.
- Inciting Incident – An episode, plot point or event that hooks the reader into the story. This particular moment is when an event thrusts the protagonist into the main action of the story.
- Rising Action / epistasis – Rising action in a plot is a series of relevant incidents that create suspense, interest, and tension in a narrative. In literary works, a rising action includes all decisions, characters’ flaws, and background circumstances that together create turns and twists leading to a climax.
- Climax – The most intense, exciting, or important point of something; the culmination.
- Reversal – A change to an opposite direction, position, or course of action.
- Hamartia – A fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine.
- Hubris – Excessive pride or self-confidence.
- Falling Action / catastasis – The parts of a story after the climax and before the very end. An example of falling action is act four in a five-act play.
- Catastrophe – Something very unfortunate or unsuccessful.
- Denouement – The final part of a play, film, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved.
- Recognition / anagnorisis – The startling discovery that produces a change from ignorance to knowledge.
- Catharsis – The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.
Raise your voice, open your mind, unlock your imagination