Glossary

A shared vocabulary for the table.

Writers get better feedback when everyone has words for what the page is doing: genre, style, form, voice, claim, scene, revision, and more.

Terms

Definitions for craft and conversation.

Language that names ideas, qualities, or categories rather than tangible things. Useful when earned by examples.

The real or imagined readers whose needs, knowledge, values, and expectations shape the piece.

A small unit of action, exchange, thought, or shift inside a scene.

The debatable point a piece asks readers to consider or accept.

Specific sensory or factual material that lets readers see, hear, test, or believe the writing.

Word choice, including formality, precision, sound, connotation, and register.

The container or shape of a piece: sonnet, list, scene, profile, essay, letter, chapter, report.

A type of writing with recognizable reader expectations, conventions, pleasures, and limits.

The opening of a news story or article that gives readers the most important reason to keep reading.

Revision focused on sentence clarity, rhythm, word choice, transitions, and emphasis.

A repeated image, phrase, object, or idea that gathers meaning across a piece.

The version of the speaker or narrator created on the page.

The angle of perception through which readers receive the material.

The level of formality or social tone: conversational, scholarly, plain, ceremonial, technical, intimate.

Re-seeing the draft at the level of purpose, meaning, structure, development, and language.

The guide, convention, register, or voice system controlling how the prose behaves.

The rules an outlet, contest, grantmaker, or group gives for length, format, eligibility, rights, and deadlines.

The larger human question or pressure a piece keeps returning to.

The central arguable idea of an academic or analytical piece.

The recognizable sound of a mind on the page: rhythm, stance, distance, humor, precision, heat, restraint.