Unit 74 Creative Writing, Narrative structures

There are dozens if not possibly hundreds of different narrative styles to consider when writing a story, do you want it to be the view of a single character, is that character going to be in the story at all or just a disembodied voice narrating the whole story, is the story going be told from the views of multiple characters ect. The list below details and explains some of the different forms of narrative structure and some examples.

Single Strand
- A Single Strand story is one which follows a single set storyline/plot throughout the medium
There are many different examples of a single strand narrative, in fact most films are of this form in a basic degree, as an example however i shall use Olympus Has Fallen a 2013 film which revolves around an attack on the white house and president of the united states and how the main character army ranger Mike Banning resolves the situation by killing all of the terrorists that attacked the white house and saving the president.

Multi-Strand
- A Multi-Strand story is a story that follows the view points of more than one characters in the story, they can switch between the 2 (or more) characters and these different view points can intertwine or intersect during the story.
An example of this would be True Blood which often has several if not all of the characters running off on some form of quest/investigation/drama, which is either directly tied to the main plot or indirectly tied to an integral character in said plot. These characters often have limited contact with each other or when they do don't bother to mention the events that they are involved in which could ultimately improve their chances of success, this often leads to situations where a character is in trouble (often in mortal danger) only to then be saved by a character whose relatively meaningless quest or plot point for revenge (which no member of the audience has been remotely interested in up until this point!) become useful and integrally helpful in the success of the story and by coincidence alone said said main character.

Closed
- A closed narrative structure is a story which at the end is resolved or at least most of the main plot point, questions or issues set up during the story have been resolved.
An example of this narrative structure would be any of the stand alone episodes of the Star Trek series, for this example I'll use the Deep Space Nine episode Destiny. This stand alone episode involves the main cast having to work with a trio of Cardassian scientists on the first joint science venture between the Bajorans and the Cardassians since the end of the occupation, during the beginning of the the episode one character tells another of an ancient Bajoran prophecy about how 3 serpents (then interpreted to be the Cardassian scientists) will cause the wormhole (a central piece of the Bajorans religion) to be destroyed. Several other issues are brought up during the episode including, an attraction between one of the scientists and a married member of the main cast, the issues of mixing personal beliefs with the duties of being a soldier and the mistrust between the Bajoran cast and their former Cardassian oppressors. By the end of the episode it is discovered that the prophecy actually meant that the Cardassians would help save the wormhole from destruction and warned instead of another threat, the issues of mixing personal beliefs and duty are resolved between a member of the crew and the main character whom is her CO and an unwilling head of her religion, and the attraction of the scientist and the crew member is also resolved, this is a good example of a closed narrative.

Open
- An open story narrative is most apparent in TV shows, specifically soap operas as they have no apparent begging or end the story, have a wide variety of characters that number in the dozens and often several plots running at ones concurrently with each other.

A good example of this would be Coronation Street, which has been running since December 1960 and since that time going through hundreds of both stories and characters, a common plot of the show is to bring a much loved character whom may have left the show years or in some cases decades ago back for either a short story, cameo or as a permanent member of the cast.

Linear
- A linear story is one that is told from one point of the story to the other (usually the beginning to end) in chronological order. This is the most common form of narrative structure, a good example of this would be Little Red Riding Hood which progresses in a linear format from the point that the central character Red Riding Hood sets off to her grandmothers cottage in the woods, to the moment the Woodcutter cuts open the wolf to save the aforementioned grandmother.

Non-Linear
- A None-Linear narrative is the exact opposite of a linear narrative, it is a story that progresses from point A to B but without necessarily following the plot in chronological order, or it could be a story that jumps from several different point without being in any particular order at all. A good example of this would be any episode of Doctor Who, more specifically of the 2005 revived series and even then episodes that feature the Doctor and River Song, the doctors wife. Her story is told backwards as the first time the doctor meets her is the last time she sees him, as she dies however she then meets him getting progressively closer and closer to the day that she first met him as the story goes on, this allows her to come back several times and be featured in many episodes that deal with paradoxes and does not take away from the emotional impact of her death in her first appearance. This is one of the only examples of this kind of story being successfully pulled off.

Enigma
- An Enigma narrative is a story which has an underlying question to the plot, a question that may or may not be answered at the end of the story.
An example of this would be, V for Vendetta. this film asks many questions throughout the film by the characters but the biggest enigma is the titular character himself, V. nothing is really known of the character other than he despises the current government and what they did to him and thousands of others. The main questions about him are, why was he imprisoned at Larkhill, and of course who he was. One of the other questions the film asks is how could a nation known for its multi-cultured heritage become a totalitarian nation akin to 20th century Nazi Germany.

Climax
- A Climax is the culminating point of the whole story, the point where everything that has happened previously in the plot has come into play and the the highest point of tension, simply put it's where the action starts.
An example would be in the film The Immortals, where the main character has been trying to stop Hyperion from releasing the Titans and stopping a new war among the gods. Throughout the film the Olympians have spent the whole time talking about how interfering with the humans as a god is expressly forbidden and punishable by death, but as soon as Hyperion releases the titans Zeus and the remaining gods travel to earth and fight and mostly massacre the titans, ending with Zeus burying a large number of the Titans them under the rubble of Mt Tartarus.

Anti-Climax
- An Anti-Climax is the exact opposite of a climax, it is essentially the build-up to the finale of the story which after everything the solution or ending is something trivial.
A good example of this is War of the Worlds, where after the inhabitants of earth have spent the entire film fighting for their lives and whole armies have been destroyed trying to fight back with our mightiest and advanced weapons, the Martian invaders are killed by the simplest of organisms... bacteria (is some depictions they are killed by the common cold)