Glossary

A

• Alpha readerThe first person to read a draft, often while it is still rough or being written, giving big-picture reactions rather than polish. Alpha readers come before beta readers, who read a complete, revised draft.
• ARC (advance reader copy)→A free, early edition of a book that a publisher or author sends to reviewers, booksellers, librarians and readers before publication, to get reviews and word of mouth going.

B

• Beta reader→A reader who goes through a complete, revised draft before publication and reports how it reads: where they were hooked, lost, bored or unconvinced.
• Bildungsroman→A novel that follows one young protagonist from childhood or youth into adulthood, tracing the experiences that form who they become.
• BlurbThe short sales copy on a book's back cover or retailer page that introduces the premise, the hook and the stakes without giving away the ending. "Blurb" can also mean a short endorsement quote from another author.
• Book dedication→A line or two at the front of a book that offers it to a person, a group or a cause, usually on its own page after the copyright page.

C

• Chekhov's gun→The principle that every detail a story draws attention to must pay off: a gun hung on the wall in the first act should be fired before the end.
• Comp titles→Recent books similar to yours that you name in a query letter or book proposal to show agents and editors where your book sits and who will buy it.
• Copy editing→The edit that makes a finished draft correct and consistent: grammar, spelling, punctuation, usage, house style and continuity, done after line editing and before proofreading.
• Critique partnerA fellow writer who swaps chapters or manuscripts with you for detailed craft feedback, usually over many projects. Unlike beta readers, critique partners read as writers and comment on technique as well as experience.

D

• Denouement→The final part of a plot, after the climax, where the remaining threads are tied off and the story shows the new normal its characters are left with.
• Developmental editing→The big-picture edit of a draft: premise, structure, plot, character, pacing and point of view (or a nonfiction book's argument), done before any work on sentences.
• Dialogue tagsThe short attributions that tell the reader who is speaking, such as "she said" or "he asked". Plain "said" stays nearly invisible; showy alternatives draw attention. Action beats (a character doing something beside the line) can replace tags entirely.

E

• Em dash and en dashThe em dash (—) marks a break in a sentence, like this — and is about the width of an M. The en dash (–) joins ranges and connections, as in 1990–1999 or New York–London. A hyphen (-) joins words.
• Epigraph→A short quotation, verse or phrase set at the start of a book, chapter or poem to hint at its theme or mood before the text begins.
• EpilogueA closing section after the main story ends, often set later in time, that shows what became of the characters or the world. Where the denouement wraps up the plot, an epilogue steps beyond it.
• Epistolary novel→A novel told through documents its characters write, usually letters but also diaries, emails and reports, with no narrator standing outside them.
• EPUB→The open ebook format: a zip of HTML, CSS and images whose text reflows to fit any screen, so the reader picks the type size instead of the author.
• Ethos, pathos and logos→Aristotle's three means of persuasion: the speaker's character (ethos), the emotions the audience feels (pathos) and the reasoning of the argument itself (logos).

F

• Filter wordsVerbs such as saw, heard, felt, noticed and realized that put the viewpoint character between the reader and the event. "She heard the door slam" becomes "The door slammed." Cutting them makes prose more immediate without changing what happens.
• Flash fiction→A complete story in very few words, usually under 1,000, with a character, a change and an ending, and most of its world left for the reader to infer.
• Foil character→A character whose contrast with another, usually the protagonist, brings out that character's traits, often by facing the same situation and choosing differently.
• ForewordAn introduction to a book written by someone other than the author, usually a person whose name lends the book credibility. It is often confused with forward. A preface, by contrast, is written by the author.
• Foreword vs preface (vs introduction)→A foreword is written by someone other than the author, a preface is the author's account of how and why the book was written, and an introduction sets up the subject itself.
• Frame story→An outer story that introduces and surrounds one or more inner stories, usually by showing who tells them, to whom and why.
• Front matter (books)The pages before the main text of a book: title page, copyright page, dedication, epigraph, table of contents, foreword, preface. Back matter comes after the text: acknowledgments, appendices, notes, about the author.

G

• Galley proof→A copy of a book's typeset text, on paper or as a PDF, sent to the author, editor and proofreader to check for errors before the book is printed.

H

• HEA and HFNRomance shorthand for the ending: HEA means "happily ever after", a permanent commitment; HFN means "happy for now", an optimistic ending without a lifelong promise. Readers of the genre expect one or the other.
• Head-hoppingSwitching from one character's thoughts to another's within the same scene without a clear break. Readers lose track of whose experience they are sharing. Most editors advise one viewpoint per scene, with a scene break before the camera moves.
• Hybrid publishing→A publishing model in which the author pays some or all of the production costs, and a selective publisher edits, distributes and releases the book under its own imprint for a higher royalty.

I

• ImprintA brand name under which a publisher releases books, often aimed at one genre or audience. A large publisher may run dozens of imprints. The imprint's name appears on the spine and title page.
• IMRaD format→The standard structure of a research paper: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion, each section answering one question about the study.
• In medias res→Opening a story partway through its events, after the trouble has started, and filling in what came before through dialogue, memory or flashback.
• Inciting incident→The event early in a story that upsets the protagonist's ordinary life and starts the main conflict, forcing a response the rest of the plot follows.
• Info dumpA block of background (history, world rules, backstory) delivered all at once, usually before the reader has a reason to care. The fix is to spread it out, reveal it through action and dialogue, and cut what the scene does not need.
• Inverted pyramid→A news-writing structure that puts the most important facts in the first sentence and orders the rest by falling importance, so a story can be cut from the bottom.

J

• Juxtaposition→Placing two things side by side, such as images, characters, scenes or ideas, so the reader compares them and sees a contrast or likeness neither shows alone.

L

• Line editing→The sentence-by-sentence edit of a draft's prose: word choice, rhythm, clarity, repetition and voice, done after the structural edit and before the copy edit.
• LoglineA one- or two-sentence summary of a story that names the protagonist, the goal, the obstacle and the stakes. Screenwriters use loglines to pitch; novelists use them for query letters and to test whether a premise is clear.

M

• MacGuffin→The object, secret or goal everyone in a story is chasing, which matters for the chase it starts rather than for what it actually is.
• Manuscript→An author's text before it is published: the document a writer revises, sends to agents and editors, and hands over to be edited and typeset.
• MC (main character)Shorthand for the main character, the person whose goals and choices drive the story. Writers use MC in critique groups and online communities; it usually means the protagonist, though a story can have more than one.
• MidpointThe turning point near the middle of a story where the stakes change: a revelation, a false victory or a false defeat. It often shifts the protagonist from reacting to acting and keeps the long second act from sagging.
• Motif→A recurring image, object, sound, phrase or situation in a story that gathers meaning each time it returns and points the reader toward the theme.

N

• Novella→A work of prose fiction longer than a short story and shorter than a novel, usually 17,500 to 40,000 words, built around one main conflict.
• Nut graf→The paragraph in a news or feature story, usually the second to fourth, that tells readers what the story is about and why it matters now.

P

• Pantser and plotterTwo approaches to drafting. A plotter outlines the story before writing; a pantser writes "by the seat of the pants" and discovers the story on the page. Many writers mix the two, sometimes called plantsers.
• Pinch pointA scene, usually one in each half of the second act, that reminds the reader of the antagonist's power and raises the pressure on the protagonist. Pinch points keep the opposing force present between the major plot turns.
• POV (point of view)The perspective a story is told from. First person uses "I", second person "you", third person "he" or "she". Third-person limited stays inside one character's head per scene; omniscient can move between minds and know what no character knows.
• PrefaceA short introduction written by the author that explains how or why the book came to be: its origins, purpose or method. It precedes the main text; an introduction, by contrast, prepares the reader for the content itself.
• PrologueAn opening section set apart from the main story, often in another time or point of view, that gives context the first chapter cannot. Many agents are wary of prologues that only deliver backstory; a strong one raises a question.
• Prologue vs epilogue→A prologue is a short section before chapter one, set apart from the main story in time or viewpoint; an epilogue is a short section after the last chapter that shows what came after.
• Purple prose→Writing so ornate that the language draws more attention than the story: stacked adjectives, strained metaphors and grand words for plain things.

R

• Readability→How easily a reader can get through a text and keep its meaning, driven by sentence length, word familiarity and structure.
• Red herring→A misleading clue, suspect or detail planted to pull the reader toward the wrong answer, so the real solution surprises and still plays fair.
• Rhetorical devices→Deliberate patterns of wording, such as repetition, contrast, comparison and the rhetorical question, that make an argument easier to follow, remember and believe.

S

• Show, don't tell→The advice to let readers experience a story through action, dialogue and concrete detail instead of stating what they should think or feel.
• Slush pileThe stack of unsolicited submissions (query letters, manuscripts) waiting for an agent or editor to read. Agents find many debut authors there. A query that follows the agent's guidelines is the way to stand out of it.
• Style guide→A document of rules for spelling, punctuation, preferred terms and tone, kept so that everything a team writes reads as if one careful person wrote it.
• Style sheetA running list an editor keeps for one manuscript: spellings of names and places, hyphenation choices, number style, capitalization and timeline facts. It keeps a book consistent across hundreds of pages and through every round of edits.

T

• Tone of voice→The personality that comes through in writing: the word choices, sentence rhythm and level of formality that make a text sound like one particular person.
• Trim sizeThe final page dimensions of a printed book after trimming. Common sizes for US trade paperbacks include 5.5 × 8.5 inches and 6 × 9 inches. Trim size affects page count, margins, cost and the reader's sense of the genre.
• Trope→A pattern that recurs across many stories, such as enemies to lovers or the chosen one; in rhetoric, a figure of speech such as metaphor.

U

• Unreliable narrator→A narrator whose account the reader can't take at face value, because they lie, leave things out, misunderstand what they see or judge it wrongly.

V

• Vanity pressA company that charges authors to publish their books, usually with little editing, distribution or marketing, and earns its money from authors rather than readers. Traditional publishers pay authors; a press asking you for money is a warning sign.
• Vignette→A short piece of writing that captures one moment, person, place or mood in close detail, with little or no plot.

W

• WIP (work in progress)Writers' shorthand for the project currently being written, as in "my WIP is a fantasy novel". It signals an unfinished draft rather than a manuscript ready for submission.