Narrative structure

What is a narrative?• Narrative is the way the different elements in a story are

organised to make a meaningful story.

• The way the meanings are constructed so the audience understands.

• There is a beginning, middle and end

Open narratives• The documentary ends with unanswered questions leaving the

audience to wonder• No sense of ending • More than one story line happening at a time• Coronation Street

Closed narrative • There are no loose ends• The documentary has a clear conclusion and has answered all

questions• The audience is aware that they are watching a complete

story, so watching with the likely ending in mind. • Small number of central characters• Characters are arranged in a hierarchy of importance • The audience is invited to make verdicts on the characters • Times and events are usually special to this particular story

and not linked to the outside world

Linear Narrative• The documentary follows a timeline of events and the

different pieces of the documentary are shown chronologically • Most simple and commonly used narrative structure, it refers

to a story that is told in the order in which the events happen• These are sometimes referred to as ‘cause and effect’

narratives as the consequences of one event have an effect on something else and things move along in this linear.

Non – Linear narrative • There is no order to what is shown in the documentary • It is out of order: end, middle, beginning

Single strand • This is where the documentary follows one narrative

Multi - strand• Where there is more than one narrative strand being told in

the documentary and they can sometimes overlap• A soap can use multi strand because it can end one story and

begin another without confusing the audience

Circular Narrative • This is where the documentary starts and finishes on the same

point • The audience are taking on a journey arriving back where they

started

Unrestricted Narrative• What the audience are assumed to know • e/g thriller, there will be a crime so they will be expecting it

Restricted Narrative• The information is withheld from the audience