Narrative is how a story is told, and it can be conveyed in many ways such as, events, characters and how they behave, dialogue, narration, music.
The three act structure is “a model used in narrative fiction that divides a story into three parts (acts)”. It can be divided into three sections: act 1 - the setup, act 2 - the confrontation and act 3 - the resolution. Most traditional Hollywood films follow this structure.
There are three different, notable types of narrative. The first is linear which is the most common. It follows the structure a then b then c, and is very similar to the three act structure. The second is circular which starts out by following a linear pattern but then is linked back to the beginning, for example the play ‘An Inspector Calls’ (J.B Priestley, 1945). The third is episodic which is where the audience sees snippets/episodes. For example, multiple stories in the same world that crossover and at the end we see how they tie together. An example of this is Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994).
Some key terminology includes:
Chronological flow which is a linear narrative and shows how time is passing. It is what happens 1st for the character then the 2nd thing that happens.
Character motivation which is why the characters do what they do, the characters need believable motivation so that the plot is realistic.
Ellipsis which is the parts of the film that are cut out and the audience can assume what happens. The director can cut the important parts of the plot or they can conceal information.
Cause and effect. An example of this is when someone presses a button (the cause) and then a bomb explodes (the effect).
Flashback, also known as analepsis, and flash forward, also known as prolepsis.
Narrative viewpoint is what the audience knows. There are three types. The first is a restricted viewpoint where the audience only knows as much as the character thy are following knows. The second is unrestricted or omniscient viewpoint, where we see parts of the narrative that the main character does not see. This can create a sense of anticipation. The third is voiceover or narration and it is sometimes used to go from restricted to unrestricted and it opens the world up.
A narrative device is a technique used to tell a story. A title card is used at the beginning of a film and it tells the history or politics of the world that the story is set in, it also gives the audience context and sets the scene. Intertitles come in the middle of a film, and are especially used in silent, old-fashioned films. Chaptering helps to keep the audience on track with what is going on and is “the division of a narrative into distinct labeled units”. Finally, the audience positioning is “how the narrative encourages or discourages audience sympathies and reactions” and it is a deliberate technique to make the audience want to know more.
