Dashes

Dashes are used with spaces either side – like this – for parenthetic remarks (not to be confused with hyphens that are used to join words e.g. Jane Smith-Jones). Dashes can add drama, interrupt the flow of a piece or perhaps show incompleteness.

Dialogue

The part of literary works written as conversation.  The verbal exchanges between characters. Dialogue makes the characters realistic to the reader or audience by revealing firsthand their thoughts, responses, and emotional states.

Direct Speech

Direct speech and indirect speech are often used in newspaper and magazine articles to add realism to the story and to make the reader identify with the people in it, perhaps to gain sympathy or add personal feelings to the events.  It can capture their personality effectively.

Epistolary

Taking the form of letters or exchange of letters. Epistolary novels can create verisimilitude, personalise the text and lend the story a certain degree of genuineness. 

Prose

Prose refers to anything that is written that isn’t verse.

Protagonist

The principal character in a work of literature.

Setting

The time, place, physical details, and circumstances in which a situation occurs. Settings include the background, atmosphere or environment in which characters live and move, and usually include physical characteristics of the surroundings. Settings enable the reader to envision how a story unfolds by relating necessary physical details of a piece of literature. A setting may be simple or elaborate, used to create ambiance, lend credibility or realism, emphasize or accentuate, organise, or even distract the reader. A setting may have a symbolic significance, which means it is used to represent something – usually a set of ideas, attitudes or values.