Dramatic Techniques

2. A scene that takes place before a story begins. Flashbacks interrupt the chronological order of the main narrative to take a reader back in time to the past events in a character's life.
4. personae The characters of a play, novel, or narrative.
6. adversary of the hero or protagonist of a drama or other literary work.
7. A dramatic work in which the central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstances, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion.
9. The turning point of the action in the plot of a play and the point of greatest tension in the work.
11. Foil A secondary character whose situation often parallels that of the main character to provide contrast.
14. The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.
15. A set of clothes or outfit that depict certain time periods, situations, characters or events.
16. An indication of what will happen, a prediction.

1. There is no drama without conflict. The conflict between opposing forces in a play can be external (between characters) or internal (within a character) and is usually resolved by the end of the play.
3. Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, but not "heard" by the other characters on stage during a play.
4. Irony A turn of events that the character did not expect but the audience knows because their knowledge of events is more complete.
5. A major division in a play. An act can be subdivided into scenes.
8. The conversation of characters in a literary work.
10. A person who is opposed to, struggles against, or competes with another; opponent; adversary.
12. relief Comic relief does not relate to the genre of comedy. Comic relief serves a specific purpose: it gives the spectator a moment of “relief ” with a light-hearted scene, after a succession of intensely tragic dramatic moments.
13. An expression designed to call something to mind without explicitly mentioning it.