A writing and editing glossary

The words editors use for how a story is built. Once you can name what your manuscript is doing, you can decide whether you meant it.

Antagonist

An antagonist is the character, group or force that opposes the protagonist and stands between them and what they want.

Beat

In writing, a beat is the smallest unit of change in a story, such as one action, reaction or shift in intention; the word also names a small action used in place of a dialogue tag, and a short pause in a screenplay.

Character arc

A character arc is the internal change a story forces on a character, the movement from what they believe at the start to what events have made them believe by the end.

Chekhov's gun

Chekhov's gun is the principle that a detail the story draws attention to should matter later, and that anything which never matters should be removed.

Close third person

Close third person is third-person narration that stays inside one character's head, so the reader sees, knows and judges only what that character does, while the pronouns stay 'he', 'she' or 'they'.

Deus ex machina

A deus ex machina is an ending or rescue produced by something outside the story's established logic: a power, character or coincidence that nothing preceding it has earned.

Dialogue tag

A dialogue tag is the short attribution attached to a line of speech, such as 'she said' or 'he asked', whose only job is to tell the reader who is talking.

Dramatic irony

Dramatic irony is the state in which the reader or audience knows something a character does not, so that every ordinary line the character speaks carries a second meaning.

Epistolary

An epistolary work is one told through documents the characters themselves produce (letters, diaries, reports, emails, transcripts, messages) rather than through a narrator describing events.

Filter words

Filter words are verbs of perception and thought (saw, heard, felt, noticed, realised, wondered) that place the character between the reader and the thing being perceived, adding a layer the sentence usually does not need.

Flashback

A flashback is a scene set earlier than the story's present, dropped into the forward narrative to dramatise something that has already happened.

Foil

A foil is a character placed beside another to make that character clearer by contrast, either by being their opposite or by being an exaggerated version of them.

Free indirect discourse

Free indirect discourse is a third-person narration technique in which the narrator's voice takes on the vocabulary, judgements and rhythms of a character's thoughts, without quotation marks and without a tag such as 'she thought'.

Freewriting

Freewriting is writing continuously for a fixed stretch without stopping to correct, judge or delete, used to break a stall and find material the planning mind would have refused.

Habitual detail

Habitual detail is narration of what used to happen, the thing that happened every day rather than once, which lets a long stretch of time carry the specificity and pace of a scene.

Head-hopping

Head-hopping is an unsignalled switch from one character's interior viewpoint to another's inside a single scene, which breaks the reader's sense of whose story the moment belongs to.

Hidden verbs

A hidden verb is an action turned into a noun and propped up by a weaker verb, as in 'carry out a review' instead of 'review', which makes the sentence longer and slower.

Hook

A hook is the opening passage that gives a reader a reason to continue: a question raised, a character worth watching, or a situation that has just changed.

In medias res

In medias res means opening a story in the middle of the action already underway, rather than at the chronological beginning, and supplying the earlier events later.

Inciting incident

The inciting incident is the event that disrupts a character's ordinary situation and sets the story's central problem in motion, the point at which going back to normal stops being an option.

Info dump

An info dump is a passage that stops the story to deliver background (history, mechanics, lore or biography) in a block, before the reader has any reason to want it.

Interiority

Interiority is a character's inner life rendered on the page: not only their thoughts, but their thinking about those thoughts, as they sort and judge their own impressions of what is happening.

Logline

A logline is a single sentence stating what a story is about, covering who wants what, what stands in the way and what makes it urgent, used to pitch a script or to test whether the story holds together.

Mirror words

Mirror words are unintentional repetitions of a word or its root close enough together that a reader notices the writing instead of the scene, the accidental echo a line edit exists to catch.

Motivated exposition

Motivated exposition is background information delivered at a moment when a character has a genuine reason to say, think or discover it, so the reader absorbs it as a by-product of the scene rather than as an announcement.

Narrative distance

Narrative distance is how far the narration sits from a character's consciousness, from a wide, cool overview down to the character's own unspoken words, and it can change from one sentence to the next.

Oblique dialogue

Oblique dialogue is speech that comes at its subject sideways: a character answers something other than what was asked, so what they really want shows under the exchange instead of in it.

Omniscient narrator

An omniscient narrator is an all-knowing narrator who can report any character's thoughts and any part of the story world, rather than being confined to a single character's perception.

On-the-nose dialogue

On-the-nose dialogue is speech in which characters state precisely what they feel, want or already know, so the line carries no subtext and the reader has nothing left to infer.

Passive protagonist

A passive protagonist is a main character who mostly reacts to events instead of pursuing a goal, so the plot happens to them rather than because of them.

Polyphony

Polyphony is a quality in fiction where several characters' viewpoints carry genuine, independent authority, so the novel stages a real argument between them rather than settling it on the author's behalf.

Purple prose

Purple prose is writing whose ornament exceeds what the moment can carry: elaborate diction, piled-up adjectives and strained metaphor that draw attention to the writing instead of the thing being written about.

Scene and sequel

Scene and sequel is a two-part pattern for structuring narrative: a scene in which a character pursues a goal and is thwarted, followed by a sequel in which they react, weigh their options and choose the next goal.

Scene goal

A scene goal is the specific thing the viewpoint character is trying to achieve within a single scene, which turns that scene into a question the reader wants answered before the scene ends.

Setup and payoff

A setup is a detail, skill or promise planted early so that a later moment can spend it, and the payoff is that later moment, the return on something the reader was shown in advance.

Show, don't tell

Show, don't tell is the principle that a reader should be given the concrete evidence (action, behaviour, detail) from which they draw the conclusion themselves, rather than being handed the conclusion directly.

Slugline

A slugline, or slug line, is the all-caps scene heading in a screenplay that tells the reader whether a scene is inside or outside, where it takes place and at what time of day.

Stakes

Stakes are what a character stands to gain or lose if a scene or a story goes against them, which is the reason a reader has any investment in the outcome.

Subtext

Subtext is the meaning a scene carries underneath its surface: what the characters actually want and feel, running beneath what they are ostensibly discussing.

Suspense

Suspense is sustained uncertainty about an outcome the reader wants, held open long enough that waiting for it becomes the experience of reading.

Throughline

A throughline is the single continuous thread, usually a character's want, that runs from a story's first page to its last and gives every scene something to be measured against.

Trope

A trope is a recognisable storytelling convention that lets a writer use the audience's familiarity as shorthand, rather than building the same understanding from scratch.

Unreliable narrator

An unreliable narrator is one whose account the reader has reason to doubt, because the narrator is mistaken, self-deceived, deliberately lying, or limited in a way the story quietly signals.

Voice-over

Voice-over is spoken narration heard over the picture rather than from someone visibly speaking on screen, used to supply a perspective the image cannot.

Want versus need

A character's want is the conscious goal they pursue and could state aloud, while their need is the unacknowledged lack the story forces them to confront, and the two are usually in conflict.

Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is the construction of a story's setting and the rules that govern it (geography, history, economics, magic, technology, manners), of which only a fraction should ever reach the page.

Yearning

Yearning is a deep, lasting longing for something out of reach; in fiction, it is the human lack beneath a character's specific goals that those goals are attempts to satisfy.

The names for what a sentence is doing, from its parts and shapes to the figures writers have used for two thousand years. Spot the move and you can repeat it on purpose.

Absolute phrase

An absolute phrase is a noun paired with a participle or other modifier ('his hands still shaking') that qualifies the entire sentence it attaches to rather than any single word in it.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of the same starting sound, usually a consonant, in words placed close together, so the ear hears them as belonging together.

Anacoluthon

Anacoluthon is a break in the grammar of a sentence, where one construction is abandoned partway through and a different one takes over, leaving the first part unfinished.

Anadiplosis

Anadiplosis repeats the last word or phrase of one clause at the start of the next, so each step of a sentence begins where the previous one ended.

Anaphora

Anaphora is the repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences, so each new statement lands on a rhythm the reader already expects.

Anastrophe

Anastrophe is the deliberate inversion of normal English word order, moving an object, complement or modifier ahead of where it usually goes to throw emphasis onto it.

Anthimeria

Anthimeria is the use of a word as a different part of speech from its usual one, most often a noun used as a verb, as in 'she elbowed through the crowd'.

Antithesis

Antithesis places two contrasting ideas in parallel grammatical form, so the balance of the sentence sharpens the opposition between them.

Apostrophe

Apostrophe, as a figure of speech, is a direct address to someone absent or dead, or to an object or an idea, spoken as though it could hear and answer.

Appositive phrase

An appositive phrase is a noun phrase set beside another noun to rename or expand it, as in 'her brother, a locksmith with steady hands', adding identification or detail without a verb of its own.

Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of the same vowel sound in nearby words whose consonants differ, producing an echo that is heard rather than seen.

Asyndeton

Asyndeton is the omission of the conjunctions that would normally join items in a series, so the elements are set down one after another with only commas between them.

Auxiliary verb

An auxiliary verb is a helping verb placed in front of a main verb to build a tense, a voice, a question or a negative: the 'had' in 'had waited', the 'was' in 'was taken'.

Bound modifier

A bound modifier is a word, phrase or clause that cannot be moved or removed without changing what the sentence means, because it identifies which thing is being talked about rather than adding detail about it.

Chiasmus

Chiasmus is a sentence pattern in which the second of two parallel phrases repeats the elements of the first in reverse order, giving an A-B, B-A shape.

Cleft sentence

A cleft sentence breaks a simple statement into two clauses in order to emphasise one part of it, turning 'the second key worked' into 'it was the second key that worked'.

Complex sentence

A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause ('although the key was bent, the lock turned'), so the two halves are deliberately unequal in weight.

Compound sentence

A compound sentence joins two or more independent clauses of equal weight, linked by a coordinating conjunction, a semicolon or a colon: 'the lock turned and the door swung in'.

Compound-complex sentence

A compound-complex sentence contains at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause, so it both ranks one idea below another and sets two main ideas side by side.

Consonance

Consonance is the repetition of the same consonant sound in nearby words, usually in the middle or at the end of the words rather than at the start.

Correlative conjunction

A correlative conjunction is a pair of linking words that work together to join two matched elements, such as 'either… or', 'neither… nor', 'both… and' and 'not only… but also'.

Cumulative sentence

A cumulative sentence begins with a short main clause and then adds a series of modifying phrases that go back over it in closer and closer detail, so the sentence deepens rather than moves on.

Dangling modifier

A dangling modifier is a modifying phrase whose implied subject is not the subject of the clause it attaches to, so the sentence describes the wrong thing, as in 'walking to the station, the rain started'.

Dependent clause

A dependent clause has its own subject and verb but is introduced by a word such as 'because', 'although' or 'who' that stops it standing alone, so it must attach to an independent clause to make a sentence.

Ditransitive verb

A ditransitive verb takes two objects: a direct object (the thing given, sent or told) and an indirect object (the person who receives it), as in 'he handed her the key'.

Ellipsis

Ellipsis, as a figure of speech, is the deliberate omission of a word or phrase that the reader can recover from the surrounding sentence, so it is understood without being repeated.

Epistrophe

Epistrophe is the repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive clauses or sentences, so each statement comes to rest on the same note.

Free modifier

A free modifier is a phrase or clause, set off by commas, that adds detail to a sentence and can be taken out, and usually moved, without breaking the sentence or changing what it claims.

Gerund phrase

A gerund phrase is a verb in its -ing form acting as a noun, together with anything it governs, as in 'rowing against the current', so the whole phrase can serve as the subject or the object of a sentence.

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration used for emphasis or effect, stated in terms nobody is expected to take literally, as in 'the form had been on his desk since the Bronze Age'.

Imperative mood

The imperative mood is the verb form used to give a command, an instruction or a request, with the subject 'you' understood rather than stated: 'shut the door', 'hold the line'.

Independent clause

An independent clause is a group of words with its own subject and verb that could stand alone as a sentence, such as 'the lock turned'.

Infinitive phrase

An infinitive phrase is the plain form of a verb introduced by 'to', plus any objects or modifiers that go with it ('to reach the summit before dark'), used as a noun, as an adjective, or most often as a statement of purpose.

Initial modifier

An initial modifier is a free modifier placed at the front of a sentence, before the subject and verb, so that the reader is given a condition, a time or a gesture before learning who the sentence is about.

Intransitive verb

An intransitive verb is complete without a direct object: the action does not pass on to anything, so the sentence needs only a subject, as in 'the engine stalled'.

Irony

Irony is a gap the audience is meant to see: between what someone says and what they mean, between what a situation promises and what it delivers, or between what a character knows and what we know.

Linking verb

A linking verb connects the subject of a sentence to a word that renames or describes it rather than expressing an action: 'the room was cold', 'the offer seemed generous'.

Litotes

Litotes is understatement that affirms something by denying its opposite ('not bad', 'no small achievement'), so the reader arrives at the positive meaning by way of the negative.

Loose sentence

A loose sentence puts its main clause first and then adds phrases or clauses after it, so the sentence is already complete well before the full stop.

Metaphor

A metaphor describes one thing as if it were another, without 'like' or 'as', so the qualities of the second are transferred to the first and the comparison is asserted rather than offered.

Metonymy

Metonymy names something by way of a thing closely associated with it rather than by its own name: 'the crown' for the monarchy, 'the bench' for the judges, so the association does the work of the definition.

Mid-sentence modifier

A mid-sentence modifier is a free modifier dropped into the middle of a sentence, usually between the subject and its verb, so the main statement is held open while the extra detail is delivered.

Oxymoron

An oxymoron places two contradictory words side by side in one phrase ('a cheerful funeral', 'deafening silence'), so the contradiction itself carries the meaning.

Paradox

A paradox is a statement that appears to contradict itself but reveals a genuine truth when examined: 'the more carefully she explained, the less anyone believed her'.

Parallelism

Parallelism is the use of the same grammatical form for two or more elements that belong together, so the structure of the sentence shows the reader that the ideas are of equal kind and weight.

Parenthesis

Parenthesis is the insertion of an aside into a sentence that is grammatically complete without it, set off by commas, dashes or brackets, so the reader hears a second thought cutting across the first.

Participial phrase

A participial phrase is a verb in its -ing or -ed form used as an adjective, together with anything it governs, as in 'holding the letter at arm's length', describing a noun somewhere else in the sentence.

Periodic sentence

A periodic sentence holds back its main clause, or the completion of it, until the final words, so the meaning only resolves at the full stop.

Personification

Personification attributes human actions, feelings or intentions to an object, an animal, a place or an abstract idea: 'the house had given up years ago'.

Polyptoton

Polyptoton is the repetition of a word's root in a different grammatical form within the same passage, as in 'the judged were judging', so the echo is heard as deliberate.

Polysyndeton

Polysyndeton is the deliberate repetition of a conjunction between every item in a series, where ordinary usage would place one only before the last.

Prepositional phrase

A prepositional phrase is a preposition together with the noun it governs and that noun's modifiers ('under the stairs', 'after the war', 'with both hands'), working as a single unit that locates, times or qualifies something else in the sentence.

Relative clause

A relative clause is a dependent clause introduced by a relative pronoun (who, whom, whose, which or that) that modifies a noun, either to identify which one is meant or to add detail about one already identified.

Simile

A simile compares two unlike things using 'like' or 'as', so the comparison is offered openly and the reader holds both images at once.

Subjunctive mood

The subjunctive mood is the verb form used for situations that are wished for, demanded, or contrary to fact rather than stated as real: 'if I were you', 'she insisted that he be told'.

Symploce

Symploce is the repetition of the same words at both the start and the end of successive clauses or sentences, so that only the middle changes.

Synecdoche

Synecdoche uses a part of something to stand for the whole, or occasionally the whole to stand for a part: 'all hands on deck', 'wheels' for a car, 'Washington' for the government.

Terminal modifier

A terminal modifier is a free modifier placed at the end of a sentence, after the main clause has finished, so the reader takes the complete statement first and the added detail afterwards.

Transitive verb

A transitive verb takes a direct object: it needs something to act on, so the sentence names both the doer and the thing done to, as in 'she closed the file'.

What each stage of editing actually is, what it doesn't cover and the order the stages go in, so you can buy the one you need.

Comp titles

Comp titles (comparable titles) are the recently published books a writer names to show where their own book sits in the market: who already buys this kind of story, and which shelf it belongs on.

Copy edit

A copy edit is a correctness pass over a manuscript: grammar, punctuation, spelling, usage, consistency and basic continuity, applied against a chosen style guide and recorded on a style sheet.

Developmental edit

A developmental edit is the first and deepest stage of editing, working on a manuscript's structure, plot, character, pacing, point of view and theme before any attention goes to individual sentences.

Line edit

A line edit is a sentence-by-sentence pass through the prose itself (rhythm, word choice, clarity, voice and the shape of paragraphs) aimed at how the writing reads rather than whether it is correct.

Manuscript assessment

A manuscript assessment is a read-through of a complete draft that produces a written editorial report on what is and is not working, without any markup of the text itself.

Proofread

A proofread is the final check before publication, catching typographical and layout errors in the typeset pages rather than improving the writing.

Query letter

A query letter is the one-page pitch a writer sends to a literary agent or acquiring editor to ask whether they want to read the manuscript.

Style sheet

A style sheet is the working document an editor builds during a copy edit, recording every spelling, name, hyphenation, capitalisation and continuity decision made about that specific manuscript.