Week 6 Narrative and Structure

This week’s lecture is on Narrative and Structure. The first principle that I am going to look at is “Stories”. This doesn’t just cover fiction, but any set of causally linked events, of any genre or media, fiction or non-fiction. Humanity as a whole is a social species, and we have always enjoyed stories, whether they be told in cave (or other) paintings, verbally, in books or in films. We are generally more likely to remember things if we associate them with stories rather than just lists given to us. The most important thing when making stories for any purpose – but especially for art and illustration – is communication. There will be an intention to your work, maybe to enlighten, maybe to entertain, but whatever it is it must be communicated effectively to the target audience, in order that they will get the intended message and pass on your story.

Linking on from Stories, is Developing Narrative. All stories have a narrative in some form or another, but at a most basic level, a narrative consists of the conflict between protagonist and antagonist. These roles do not necessarily have to be filled by people or even individual entities (though they almost always are). The protagonist will be the main character, who has some sort of objective, whereas the antagonist will be someone (or maybe something) attempting to hinder the progress of the protagonist, and from their interaction, the conflict is born. This is really what all narrative boils down to.

There are many things that can set one story apart from another, but purely in terms of narrative, something that can make a story much more interesting is in telling it a different way. A good example would be the film Memento (trailer below), which mixes a non-linear narrative with in which the protagonist has a disorder that means that he can only store his memories for 6 minutes, after which time everything from the last 6 minutes disappears. The film is told in a way that mirrors his disorder, as the storyline is split up into 3 smaller narratives which it alternates between in short 5-10 minute sections, 1 starting from the most recent events and working backwards, 1 starting from a few days earlier and working forwards, and 1 starting somewhere in the middle of the two and also working forwards. These segments eventually meet for an exciting climax in which we as the audience have finally seen the protagonist’s entire journey leading up to the end, but are still left confused as we try to piece together the events. Alternatives to traditional narrative can be very interesting, and is definitely something worth exploring in the future.