Narrative story types

Narrative story types

Narrative is all about how a story is presented to the audience, and when we think about narrative we must think of the plot and the story. Story is the chronological order of all event, plot is the way we put it together for the audience. So it’s the same story but the events are presented differently.

Linear- A linear narrative is a story that will go in a chronological order and will jump from one point to another without including/using any type of flashback or future events within the story.

Non-linear- A non-linear is a story type that will use flashbacks and future events within the story however the audience viewing this can be very confused and will find it difficult to understand the story. For example

Circular- Circular is when the film starts off at the end and finishes at the end of the film.

Episodic narrative- when a film shows someone’s life and puts it into chapters

Single strand- A single strand is when the story priorities one main characters story and only focuses on that character instead of sharing the other characters, this style will usually has a narrator to the story. For example “Dead Pool” only focuses on the main characters life and talks to the audience narrating the story.

Multi strand- Multi strand is when a film/television has more than two different stories within the film/television and all link to the end, for example the game “ Halo 5 guardians” as it shows a bunch of different stories of how the workers and old family and friends that all link to the ending. The audience would then seek out the different stories and will eventually pick up how they link to one another.

Realist- A realistic narrative is a story which contains a real feeling to it, and is known for giving a realistic effect on the audience and makes the story seem believable, this story style would be based in the real world. For example the film “Marley and Me” has a realist effect to the film. Realist films seem to be about real social problems.

Anti-realist- Anti realist can be an advert that has fictional characters that don’t appear in reality to advertise a product, For example the M&M advert shows humans interacting with the M&M sweet that has come to life.

Open ended- An open ending is a story that doesn’t have a forsaken ending and will leave the ending open, an open ending would normally be in chronological order and would normally be multi stranded, an example of this would be “Coronation Street”, it could also be presented in real time, however these shows don’t usually back up the story with music.

Closed- Closed narrative has a story that usually have a very tight reading, the film would normally last about 2 hours but would have a compressed story fitting many years into just two hours, the film would also contain music which will bonds with the scene, and would end the film with “The End”. An example of this would be “Forest Gump” that compresses a guy’s whole life into about 2 hours.

Single episode- a single episode is one film with no continuation to that episode, and just creates a new story line every time. For example “The polar express” presents only one episode and doesn’t really continue from when the last episode finished off as no more films were created.

Series- An advert can have a series of ads to promote a product or brand or service and continues to create more, for example the Specsavers advert features different people who need glasses in the new adverts.

Serial- A serial is a continuing plot that follows the story from one episode to another and link’s them all together, For example  “EastEnders”, This story continues season after season, episode after episode and stick’s to the plot of the television show.

Circular- Circular is when the film starts off at the end and finishes at the end of the film.

Episodic narrative- when a film shows someone’s life and puts it into chapters

Flashback narrative- Flashbacks are used in films to give an in depth story of a characters past and helps recreate an event which happened previously, flashbacks can also be confusing to the audience.