A Story (Structure) Reboot: A thread summarizing Narratology for #storytelling and #writing.
Part 5: Narrative Discourse and Picking A Story
Why is it you can take the same storyworld from any series and make an infinite amount of stories from them? Answer: Narrative Discourse!
We are now approaching the Syuzhet of the Fabula & Syuzhet model of storytelling, and THIS is how we get the multitude of stories from a single storyworld.
Discourse is made of Metanarrative (Theme), Focalization (POV), Macrostructure (Plot), and Microstructure (Presentation).
Metanarrative, in this case, is *how* the story is expressed. It has five dimensions: 1. Literal vs. Representational 2. Determinism vs. Free Will 3. Idealism vs. Cynicism 4. Emplotment Shape 5. Strict Adaptation vs. Loose Adaptation
I’ll explain all these shortly.
First, there’s the issue of the Literal vs. Representational, which often employs the Four Master Tropes: Metaphor (something represents something else), Metonymy (represents an abstract idea), Synecdoche (represents a larger whole), Irony (represents its opposite).
Next is Argumentation, Free Will (characters control their destinies) vs. Determinism (the situation controls the characters).
In classic terms, it’s plot vs. characters, but a little more nuanced: to what extent? Can characters adapt to the changes? Can they change the system?
Then there’s idealism vs. cynicism. Does the story believe the world is progressing fine as it is? That the best days are just ahead? That we’re all screwed and we should turn back? Or that we can face the future only if we work hard?
This is where Dark/WAFF Fics are born.
Emplotment is the shape of the story. It comes in four basic shapes, depending on how it starts and how it ends, and always shifts. To save tweet space, I’ll define them as positives (+) and negatives (-)
Classic Comedy: -+-+
Tragedy: +-+-
Satire Comedy: +-+
Ironic Tragedy: -+-
Lastly, there are liberties with Adaptation, which especially applies if you’re adapting real events or another series with an established storyworld. It runs a sliding scale from a strict adaptation to a few minor changes to barely any resemblance to the original at all.
How you combine these five dimensions of metanarrative will determine the shape and tone of your final story, regardless of the shape and tone of the original storyworld.
Next is your genre, which in this case can be categorized by goals, not just content.
I’ve already covered this extensively, but here’s a quick rundown: 1. Internal Genres: Genres where the goal is entirely within the mind of the protagonist. These include Morality (morality vs. immorality), Status (personal success vs. failure), and Worldview (ideal vs. cynical).
2. Social Genres: Wherein the goal is on an interpersonal/social level. These include Performance (recognition/honor vs. humiliation), Romance/Friendship (love vs. hate), and Societal Drama (empowerment and well-being vs. impotence).
3. Socio-External Genres: Wherein genres mix external and social stakes. These include War (victory, honor, and meaning vs. defeat, dishonor, and meaninglessness), Western/Folk (freedom and autonomy vs. subjugation), and Thriller (life vs. death or damnation by a powerful foe).
4. Purely External Genres: Wherein the genres are all basically life-or-death stakes. These include Action (vs. an opponent, time, nature, or a system), Horror (vs. a supernatural, natural, or psychological opponent), and Crime (vs. opposing sides of the law and justice).
Above that are the genres of setting and style.
Setting genres alter when, where, and the level of realism, giving us Science Fiction, Fantasy, Punk, Magical Realism, and Historical.
Style genres alter the medium and presentation, giving us Absurdism, Animation, Musicals, etc.
With metanarrative and genre in hand, we now have a theme. From this, we can pick out events and modify them as needed to fit our theme. Now it’s time for the telling itself, and what goes into Focalization.
First, the Narrative Instance: WHO is telling the story, WHEN, and WHY?
When a story is being told, we must never forget that it is being told TO someone. Remember the Author-to-Audience pipeline.
The Instance is made of three factors: 1. Perspective: Omniscient or limited narration? And do we tell the audience everything? Or leave them in suspense?
2. Temporality: Is this story set in the past (“I wrote a letter..”), present (“I am writing a letter.”), or future (“I will write a letter.”)? 3. Voice: Is the implied narrator a character within the story, a character relaying the story, or an external narrator?
Next is the issue of Time: 1. Order: Are events shown in linear order? Are there flashbacks/flashforwards? Or are the events shuffled? 2. Duration: Are certain events sped up into summary, or slowed down for detail? 3. Frequency: Do we revisit the same events? And do they change?
Narrative Levels are the stories within stories of the author-to-audience pipeline.
Extradiegetic Narration is when the story is told from outside the storyworld.
Intradiegetic is told from the inside, i.e. characters.
Metadiegetic is for stories within stories, i.e. recounts.
There is also metalepsis, how narrators relay information, from least to most obstructive: 1. Narration: Telling the story. 2. Direction: Elaborating on how it’s organized. 3. Communication: Addressing the audience. 4. Testimony: Sharing reaction. 5. Ideology: Feelings/opinions.
Metalepsis segues into the next feature, the Mood: how the information is presented.
How much metalepsis is used is the level of Transparency.
Next, Distance: Are the events told in nothing but factual statements, or shown in elaborate detail? Also known as Showing vs. Telling.
And finally, Relevancy: does the event have anything to do with the telling? Has six levels, ranging from directly tied to the story, to thematically tied to the story, to not part of it at all: 1. Explicit 2. Predictive 3. Thematic 4. Persuasive 5. Distractive 6. Obstructive
Explicit events are directly tied to the story.
Predictives set up Explicit events, but could be excised.
Thematics tie into the theme.
Persuasives are kinda related to the theme.
Distractives have little to do with the telling.
Obstructives don’t have ANYTHING to do with it.
And lastly, there’s Trans-textuality: things like paratext (titles and chapter names), intertext (references, allusions, and downright copying), hypo/hypertext (modifying other works, often for parodies), metatext (commentary), and architext (genre and subgenre of media).
Now you should have an overview of Narrative Discourse: change just a few of these, and you can radically alter the same story in a million different ways!
Next time, we’ll look at how to put this to use by covering Macrostructure and Microstructure.
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A Story (Structure) Reboot: A thread summarizing Narratology for #storytelling and #writing.
Part 6: Macrostructure and Microstructure
We’re now approaching the end of our Narratology journey together with Macro and Microstructure, which ought to feel familiar…
Macrostructure is the arrangement of events, while Microstructure is how those events are portrayed.
If you’re even remotely familiar with the various plot structures at your disposal, then you should have a basic overview of Macrostructure.
Only we’re gonna dive deeper!
The standard format most writers use is the Act Structure system.
Acts are made of Sequences.
Sequences are made of Scenes.
Scenes are made of Beats.
Typically, every Act ends in a major Kernel Scene, while Sequences end in Minor Kernels, and Scenes may be Kernels or Satellites.
A Story (Structure) Reboot: A thread summarizing Narratology for #storytelling and #writing.
Part 4: All about Event Shapes
Today’s thread will focus on the shaping of Kernel Events (events that disrupt the status quo) and Satellite Events (reactions to the change).
First, a basic overview of the typical event shape: 1. All events begin with an Abstract (why should the audience want to see this) and Orientation (where, when, who). 2. A Complication of the orientation. 3. A Reaction. 4. A Resolution and Coda (the scene-ending beat).
To go back to the phrase, “Stories are just ‘ands,’ ‘buts,’ and ‘therefores’”:
-The Orientation is your “And”
-The Complication is your “But”
-And the Reaction is your “Therefore.”
Or, think of the Complication is like an in-scene Kernel, and the other parts as Satellites.
A Story (Structure) Reboot: A thread summarizing Narratology for #storytelling and #writing.
Part 3: Building Characters, Casts, and Events
We’re now approaching all the standard stuff most fiction writers get taught, only now, it’ll be through the lens of narratology.
For designing characters, we have the old standby Characterization (the surface) vs. Deep Character (the real personality).
Appearance and surface behavior can vary wildly, but it should stay consistent, they should be motivated to behave that way, and be (somewhat) realistic.
For Deep Character, there are two dimensions: Personality and Values.
For Personality, there are dozens of models to choose from: OCEAN, Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, Archetypes, and they can be mixed.
Thanks to focalization, you only need to modify a few traits to make a character.
A Story (Structure) Reboot: A thread summarizing Narratology for #storytelling and #writing.
Part 2: Reviving the Dualist Form of Story Structure
From our last part, I said we were taught stories as a singular whole of “plot + theme + characters + setting + text.”
Forget that.
Under this system, you got a singular entity made of a few basic parts, and if you change one, it usually means changing the others; especially the plot. It’s why many of us have to rewrite and revise our stories so many times, while others can create a series that writes itself.
(Re-)Introducing the Dualist Form of Story Structure:
The Fabula and the Syuzhet!
Or, the Storyworld and the Discourse!
Storyworld = Settings, Characters, and ALL possible Events.
Discourse = SELECTED Events, how it’s organized, how it’s told, and in what way.
A Story (Structure) Reboot: A thread summarizing Narratology for #storytelling and #writing.
Part 1: Relearning The Basics of Creative Writing and Storytelling
This all started after I watched a bunch of slice-of-life anime, what many western writers would call “plotless,” and yet still tells a compelling story.
What we they learning about storytelling that was different from the rest of us?
With that, I searched for an answer why…
I had known from studying writing the Japanese rhetorical art of kishoutenketsu:
Ki = Setup
Shou = Elaboration
Ten = Complication
Ketsu = Result
Basically, (A + B) x C = D.
But western storytelling paradigms could hardly explain why it worked, making poor examples using it.