Narrative and Television

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Narrative and Television
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Television narrative

• Television uses a simple narrative style that is
  cohesive and easy to comprehend.
  
• This narrative style has been called Classic
  Hollywood Narrative because it is modeled on the
  same style used in film in the early days of the
  20th Century.

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This narrative pattern is based on the work of
Aristotle.

• A story has a beginning, middle, and end.
• It imitates an action and it is unified.
• It also incites pity and fear and can be
  cathartic.

TV always does the first two sometimes the third
happens, too.
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Narrative in media

• In the early days of media, these elements became
  the basis mass storytelling.
  
• The rise of literacy and the increasing
  efficiency of printing presses (electricity) made
  mass production of stories in media, such as
  popular fiction magazines, profitable.
• Writers needed to produce stories quickly and a
  need for following a science of narrative, a
  set pattern of telling a story, arose.
  
• Almost all of the How-to manuals for writers
  are still based on Aristotles thinking about how
  a story should be told.
  
• Even Freytags Triangle and Todorovs Equilibrium
  model both come from Aristotle!

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Understanding TV Narrative
Television is profit-driven, and its narrative is
episodic.
The Story World of the Series (Plot A)
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The individual episode
Each episode has its own storyline. This is ofte
n called Plot B. In some instances there are mult
iple plots (B, C, D) in each episodeFriends,
Seinfeld, for example.
The Story World establishes a context
in which weekly or daily episodes unfold. The
overall plot of the series moves slowly. This is
considered Plot A.
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Like all stories, TV stories have

• Cause and effect events
• Conflicts
• Characters

Stories in television are driven by
character motive and character
action. This is particularly true because
of the episodic, ongoing development
of characters.
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Dangling Causes

• The Story World

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• Causes lead to effects that become causes for
  other effects. BUT these cause / effect
  relationships may stretch across episodes or even
  seasons! Causes which do not result in an
  immediate effect are called dangling causes.
• Dangling causes are used in many different media
  to sustain viewer/reader interest and to create
  tension.

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Activity

• Todorovs Equilibrium
• Freytags Triangle / Pyramid
• Binary oppositions
• Propps Types
• Watch the video and think about each of these
  elements.