Literary device category
Narrative Techniques
Narrative techniques shape how a story is told, including its perspective, sequence, characterization, and delivery of information.
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- AnecdoteLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesAn anecdote is a brief, self-contained narrative included to illustrate a point, reveal character, or make an argument concrete. Identify both the small story and the larger idea it serves.
- Authorial IntrusionLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesAuthorial intrusion makes the commenting storytelling voice conspicuous instead of letting events appear to unfold without interruption. Identify the interruption and distinguish the textual narrator from assumptions about the real author's personal beliefs.
- CharacterizationLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesCharacterization is how a text builds a reader's understanding of a character. Writers may state traits directly or let readers infer them from speech, choices, thoughts, appearance, and other characters' responses.
- Deus ex MachinaLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesA deus ex machina resolves a difficult plot problem through a solution introduced from outside the established causal setup or without adequate preparation. Test whether earlier events made the solution reasonably available rather than calling every surprise ending contrived.
- DoppelgangerLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesA doppelganger mirrors or duplicates another character closely enough to make identity and difference central. Compare the pair's resemblance and divergence, then explain what the doubling reveals rather than assuming the double is automatically evil.
- FlashbackLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesA flashback interrupts the current narrative time to present an earlier event as a scene or sustained recollection. Determine when the main action is occurring, then identify the backward shift and what new context it provides.
- FoilLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesA foil is a character whose similarities and differences make another character's traits easier to see. Identify the specific points of contrast and explain what those contrasts reveal rather than merely listing two different personalities.
- ForeshadowingLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesForeshadowing plants an earlier detail that gains significance when a later event occurs. A prediction is strongest when readers can look back and see that the clue prepared the outcome without fully giving it away.
- Frame StoryLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesA frame story creates an outer narrative situation in which one or more inner stories are told. The frame can explain who tells those stories, why they are told, and how readers should understand them.
- Free Indirect DiscourseLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesFree indirect discourse lets third-person narration take on a character's way of thinking without writing She thought or placing the thought in quotation marks. The sentence remains narration, but its diction or judgment feels partly like the character's own voice.
- In Medias ResLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesA story that begins in medias res drops readers into an event already underway. Earlier causes may be explained later, sometimes through flashback, but the opening position—not a later backward shift—defines the technique.
- Point of ViewLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesPoint of view determines who tells a story and what that narrator can know or reveal. Track pronouns, access to characters' thoughts, and limits on information before deciding whether narration is first person, second person, third-person limited, or omniscient.
- Stream of ConsciousnessLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesStream of consciousness follows the movement of a character's mind as perceptions trigger memories, feelings, and associations. Track the associative transitions and reduced narrator explanation rather than assuming that any difficult or unpunctuated prose belongs to the technique.
- SuspenseLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesSuspense is the tension readers feel while waiting for an uncertain, consequential outcome. Writers build it by controlling time and information—delaying an answer, narrowing options, setting a deadline, or letting readers perceive danger before a character does.
- Unreliable NarratorLiterary Device · Narrative TechniquesAn unreliable narrator gives readers reasons to question the version of events being presented. Readers compare the narrator's claims with contradictions, omissions, other perspectives, or evidence in the story.