Narrative is the structure of events — the architecture of the story, comparable to the design of a building. Story is the sequence of events, the order in which the narrative occurs — the tour through the building. Plot is the sum of the events, told not necessarily in sequential order, but generally consistent with the story and often considered synonymous with the narrative — the building itself.
But these similar and even overlapping components of composition are further affected by the narrative mode — the techniques the author employs to tell the story.
Among these strategies are narrative point of view and narrative voice. A first-person narrator relates the story by using the pronoun I or, rarely, if two or more narrators are telling the story simultaneously, we.
But the story remains the story — even if it is told backwards. Every story features characters that do something, and the total of these actions constitutes the plot. Plot consists of things that happen, i. These may be sorted into two different orders, the chronological sequence in time, and the order in which the author chooses to relate them, which is the narrative.
The events are what the characters do. They do these things because they are in interaction with each other. The interactions are linked to motivations. Essentially, the ensuing relationships can be boiled down to three different categories:.
All of these may be ascribed to the same work. They are different expressions of the same material. The logline and the synopsis describe the story without telling it, in a sentence or a couple of paragraphs respectively. The treatment is a summary of the plot, including some of the most important events, but not all of them. Such a brief version of the story describes the same story as the full or finished version, but since this short version does not include the same amount of events, it is not the same narrative.
Both synopsis and treatment and in extreme cases perhaps even the logline may point out how the narrative works, especially if it is not chronological, but neither actually contains the narrative of the story because neither includes a description of each and every event.
The step outline describes all the events of the story in narrative order, as a sort of shortened meta-version of the story itself. While a logline, a synopsis, a treatment, a step outline, and the finished work may all refer to the same story, only the step outline and the finished work can express the same narrative of that story because they contain the same events without leaving any out.
And as liars know, leaving out bits of information can change the narrative. An author has choices. Many, many choices. As we have seen above, an author has to decide on the narrative to be able to relate the story she has chosen to tell. People will pay for a story, but people will die for a narrative. Here is why this matters in the context of business strategy. When you have a narrative, and hopefully a strong one: Your brand becomes magnetic.
Your employees know exactly what to do and stay. Your team collaborates at their best. Your investors believe in the long term success of your company. You look and sound very different from your competitors. Your customers see why it is urgent that they adopt your product. For me, story and narrative will never be the same thing again. This resolution comes in the form of climax which may bring the story to an end whether it is happy or sad.
But while narratives are mostly reconstruction of the past, story can be totally fictional as are prevalent in different cultures. Coming from Engineering cum Human Resource Development background, has over 10 years experience in content developmet and management.
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