16 Terms
Contributors in Fiction
Fiction
Instruction manuals
Literature; Fiction
Unnecessary description of how futurist technology works. Best dumped entirely, because they usually signify that the author's so proud of his device he can't risk describing its operations. "Bob ...
Lock in
Literature; Fiction
A character is locked in to a situation when he cannot escape from its conflict, usually because the stakes are high enough, and the consequences of non-participation so onerous, that trying and ...
Laputa
Literature; Fiction
Named after Gulliver's floating aerial island, this is a fictional construction introduced without foundation. Readers will initially delight in Laputas but, the longer they float along without ...
Microwaving the soufflé
Literature; Fiction
A tendency to rush past important setup material in the author's haste to get to the payoff. Generally leaves the reader feeling frustrated on two counts: (1) the setup, being rushed, is ...
Laughtrack
Literature; Fiction
Emotional countersinking, where the characters' give cues that tell the reader how to react. They laugh at their own jokes, cry crocodile tears at their own pain, and, by feeling everything ...
McGuffin
Literature; Fiction
An external constraint (object, fact, person) whose sole dramatic purpose is to force a character or characters into actions which serve the author's dramatic theme.
Scene outline
Literature; Fiction
A blow-by-blow description of the onstage events. It covers everything the action outline covered, but also (1) segregates background information from the narrative flow, (2) identifies point-of-view ...
