All stories operate on two levels, the action level and the narrative level.
The action level describes what happens, while the narrative level describes how it happens.
The narrative provides the structure to a story, the framework that allows the action to take place.
The structure of storytelling was set out by Aristotle, who stated that a drama should have a beginning, a middle and an end. It should be constructed according to a unity of time, place and action, with the various characters and plot elements intertwined to create a unified story.
In schools, children are taught about a five stage ‘story hill’ with an introduction or set up, a rising crisis, a turning point, the climax and the ending.
A similar structure can be seen in films, where in order to keep the audience’s attention, the screenplay uses a time based grid to change the pace and focus of a film.
Typically there is a first act that sets up the main characters, before an incident happens that disrupts their world and launches the second act. Partway through the second act something major happens to change the tone and nature of the film. This mid-point climax re-energises the narrative. At the end of the second act, a significant event signals the drawing in of all the plot strands and the third act brings the climax of the film.
Of course, it’s more complex than this. Each act is made up of scenes, each of which needs their own structure to help drive the narrative forward.
Traditional stories relied on a dramatic triangle involving a victim, a persecutor and a rescuer in a tight and closed narrative. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. How the story ends may not be clear at the start, but the drama is always resolved.
More contemporary stories allow for a non-dramatic journey where the audience is encouraged to make its own mind up as to the meaning of the story and the ending may be ambiguous.
In the interactive world, immersive role playing games allow the viewer to become active participants in the story. Role playing games have evolved stoytelling from a liner narrative with a single ending, to a tree structure with multiple endings, and now a web-like structure where there is no first or last page and everything relates to everything else. The illusion of freedom is complete, even if it takes place within the limitations of the imagined world.
How then to make narrative sense of this?
To paraphrase screenwriter Robert McKee, the secret of a successful narrative is to use these principles, not to write the story, but to understand why these structures resonate with the audience and to understand how to use them at the macro and micro level to tell your story.
