Antagonist: The character who causes the conflict or problem for the protagonist (main character).

Character: The people, animals, or other beings in a story.

Conflict: The problem that the protagonist must solve.

Crisis: The most serious conflict in a story.

Dialogue: The conversation between characters.

Fable: A story that has a moral (lesson) and the main characters are usually animals.

Fairytale: A story that has a magical being, object, or happening, and often has at least one royal or wealthy character.

Folktale: A story handed down orally from one generation to the next. The characters usually are common people.

Hyperbole: Exaggeration. Tall tales contain hyperbole.

Improvisation: Making something up without practicing it.

Jack Tale: One of a cycle of tales that feature a boy named Jack. In most Jack Tales, the protagonist goes away from home, has fantastic adventures, and returns home. “Jack and the Bean Tree” is one such tale.

Legend: A story about people, places, or events based on some historical truth, though the story may have grown far beyond the reality of the event or person.

Literary tale: A story written by one author. (When telling them, be sure to credit the original author.)

Myth: A story that tries to explain how things came to be as they are.

Oral: Spoken, not written.

Oral tradition: Stories, lore, and history that is handed down through the generations. Change is inevitable through this process.

Pantomime: Acting out something without using words.

Plot: The basic sequence of action or “skeleton” of a story (without the details that “flesh out” a story).

Pour quoi: A type of myth that tells how or why something is as it is.

Protagonist: The main character, the one whom the audience cares most about. Usually, this is the "good" character, though not always.

Resolution: How the problem is resolved.

Sequence: The order of events in a story. There are many ways to tell a story, from beginning to end being only one.

Setting: The time and place of a story.

Tall tale: A story that may be based on true events or people but is very exaggerated (hyperbolized).

Tone: The "atmosphere" the teller gives to the story as he or she tells it: perhaps haunting, humorous, conversational, formal, or colloquial.

For more information, contact Sharon Kirk Clifton:

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