Literature

Literature

Of or pertaining to the art of writing in any form or style, most especially published works.

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Literature > Fiction

local dexterity

Literature; Fiction

An authorial facility with the micro-units of fiction — lines, images, paragraphs, even scenes — so that they are a pleasure to read and are vivid to the reader. Example of ...

lock in

Literature; Fiction

A character is locked in to a situation when he cannot escape from its conflict, usually because the stakes are high enough, and the consequences of non-participation so onerous, ...

maid-and-butler dialog

Literature; Fiction

A dialog in which (probably ficelle) characters tell one another things they should already know, so that the reader can overhear them (“So sad that Madame had her cardiac arrest ...

melodrama

Literature; Fiction

"Melodrama comes in two varieties. * ''Melodramatic settings'' are when the environment too-visibly reflects, often in a pushbutton fashion, the characters’ emotional state ...

microwaving the soufflé

Literature; Fiction

A tendency to rush past important setup material in the author’s haste to get to the payoff. Generally leaves the reader feeling frustrated on two counts: (1) the setup, being ...

milepost character

Literature; Fiction

A character who is absolutely unchanging throughout a story. A focus character’s different perspectives on him or him show us, in emotional parallax, how the focus character has ...

mime conversation

Literature; Fiction

A dialog supposedly loaded with portentous significance to all participants – contorted facial expressions, heavy word emphasis, significant looks – completely opaque to readers ...