According to the Yorba Academy of the Arts Middle School, plot is the "structured format" through which the conflict of a piece of fiction is expressed. In other words, the plot is the central struggle of the novel, play or short story. The literary element of plot is composed of five steps in sequence: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. Writers use a number of other literary elements to develop their plots. For instance, the Online Writing Lab at Roane State Community College lists foreshadowing, or the hinting at forthcoming events in the novel, and suspense, or "a sense of worry established by the author," as two literary elements related to plot.
The theme is the main idea of a literary work. According to Yorba Academy of the Arts Middle School, a theme "may be stated or implied." A theme is different from a work's subject or content because, as the academy states, a theme "involves a statement or opinion about the topic." Some works have more than one theme. According to Brooklyn College English Professor Lila Melani, theme is also used to refer to elements of a work that are often repeated, like the color green or a fear of darkness.
The terms character and characterization in literature class mean more than just a mere identification of characters and their actions throughout a piece of fiction. Instead, writers use certain literary elements to design characters that readers find believable and that supplement and unify a story's plot and theme. Characters in literature classes are often identified as round or flat and dynamic or static. Round characters have both positive and negative qualities. They are believable and cannot easily be described by a stereotype like "the evil villain" or "the damsel in distress." Flat characters, on the other hand, may be characterized by a single emotion or quality. Dynamic characters, who are usually round characters, are those who change based on the events in the novel, short story or play. Static characters, however, do not experience a significant change throughout the story.
Many literary elements have to do with the kind of language that used in a story, play or poem. For instance, imagery or sensory language is the kind of descriptive language that evokes an image or appeals to the senses. Other literary elements have to do with the sounds of the words themselves. Onomatopoeia, for instance, is a word that expresses a sound, like "bang" or "crunch." Alliteration refers to the repetition of a consonant sound throughout a work, while assonance refers to a repeated vowel sound. Some poems or plays may have lines of rhyming words that follow a pattern, or rhyme scheme, while other works may have lines that contain patterns of syllables, referred to as meter within literary circles.