Creative Writing in the EFL Classroom/Basic Literary Terms

Important Terms

Flashbacks: In fiction, a flashback refers to a way of representing an incident or scene that took place before the opening scene.

Dialog Tag: A dialog tag describes what a character has said. For example:

Mark said, "I'm going to bed."
Cindy said,"So am I."

He said and She said are dialog tags.

Internal dialog: A character's internal dialog is when he or she speaks to himself/herself. For example:

What do we do now? Karen wondered.

Characters: people or human beings

Voices: In a short story or novel, a voice is an answer to the question: Who is telling the story?

Rhyme: Similarity between syllable sounds at the end of two or more lines. For example, a couplet is a pair of lines rhyming consecutively.

Meter: a rhythm of accented and unaccented syllables which are organized into patterns, called feet. The most common meters are (1) Iambic (a foot consisting of an unaccented and accented syllable, e.g. 'To be or not to be by Shakespeare' --- Come live with me and be my love by Marlowe), (2)Trochaic --- a foot consisting of an accented and unaccented syllable.