Writing Your Best Story. Tips & Tricks

writer's glossary

I'm sure each of us sooner or later comes across all these words when we start writing stories. Here are all the necessary terms you need to know as a story creator + some curious ones that will help you make sense of the writing process ❤️

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Antihero -- a main character who lacks conventional heroic qualities such as idealism, courage, and morality. These individuals often possess dark personality traits such as disagreeableness, dishonesty, and aggressiveness.

MC -- Main Character. The lead of the story.

Sidekick -- sidekicks, by definition, are almost always with the main character, which allows the conflict to be ongoing. A person who helps and spends a lot of time with someone who is usually more important, powerful, etc.

Protagonist -- the character whom the story is about and who is most directly affected by the antagonist.

This character may be the narrator/POV character (such as Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen), or the protagonist may be a character who is viewed by someone else (as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, who tells us about the protagonist Jay Gatsby)

Antagonist -- a person (or force) standing in opposition to the protagonist.

Deuteragonist -- a secondary protagonist and the driver of a subplot. Can be a sidekick.

Love Interest -- a principle secondary character for whom the protagonist has romantic interest (and/or the romantic subplot itself).

Impact Character -- a character who is a strong catalyst for change in the protagonist, causing inner conflict and helping put the plot into motion.

Archetype -- a "type" of character, which is commonly repeated across literature. Examples: The Mentor, the Magician, etc.

MARY SUE (female), MARTY-STU (male) -- a term for a character who is able to do everything, with unrealistic abilities.

Character Arc -- the personal/inner transformation the protagonist undergoes over the course of the story.

Usually, the character learns something through the main conflict in order to become a better person by the story's end.

Unreliable Narrator -- the narrator's unreliability might be obvious to the reader throughout, it might be revealed gradually, or it might come as a revelation that provides a major plot twist.

Common examples are Vladimir Nabakov's Humbert Humbert from Lolita and Alex from A Clockwork Orange. An Unreliable Narrator might mislead the reader on purpose, or simply misinterpret the events of the story 'by mistake'.

Omniscient Narrator --  an "all-knowing" narrator (sometimes the author, sometimes the fictional protagonist), who tells the reader things, which the characters have no way of learning.

POV -- point of view.

First Person -- point of view in which readers "see" through the eyes of the main character. It uses pronouns such as "I" and "me."

Third Person -- point of view in which the narrator exists outside the events of the story, describing the actions of the characters, and referring to their names or by the third-person pronouns he, she, or they.

Third-person narration can be: omniscient, limited (when the protagonist is not the MC, and objective (aka unreliable narrator).

MS -- "Manuscript." A yet unpublished work, whether written or typed.