The shape of Story
The narrative arc
Plot, Setting, Characters, Conflict and Theme
"The purpose of a story arc is to move a character or a situation from one state to another; in other words, to effect change. This change or transformation often takes the form of either tragic fall from grace or a reversal of that pattern."
-Wikipedia
Three, Six or 20?
Happy ending, unhappy ending or tragedy.
- Foster-Harris
How many basic story lines are there?
Overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy and rebirth.
The author Ronald Tobias, the researchers point out, came up with 20 “master plots”, including “underdog”, “metamorphosis”, “ascension” and “descension”
The arc of Cinderella
Rise
Fall
Rise
Once upon a time...
The beginning
Think of a Movie, the establishing shots of a Movie tells us something about the genre, the setting, the characters.
Examples:
Exposition
Beginning
Exposition
The part in a book, play or a movie
when the theme and the main characters are introduced.
Middle
End
Exposition
We find out that there is a hero who lives in a world where there are monsters. The world and its rules are described and we learn things about our hero. He is afraid of water.
Beginning
Middle
End
Inciting
incident
Rising action
Crisis
Climax
The middle of the story builds up the tension until a climax is reached.
Inciting
incident
The hero hears that there is a monster that attacks a village.
Rising action
He gets a horse and supplies and rides to the village to help.
Crisis
He finds the monster but
"oh no" it lives in a lake!
Climax
He overcomes his fear, fights the monster
and kills it.
Beginning
Middle
End
Resolution
The end
Resolution
or "denouement"
Upplösning
avslöjande
The hero gets rewarded and never fears water again.
That brings us to the End...
And they all live happily ever after...
OR?
Plot = Action, the quest for satisfaction
Setting = The where and the when
Characters = Carry out the action
Conflict = A struggle or crisis in the plot
Theme = The main idea, the central belief
How to summarize a story
Project Gutenberg
Text 1: Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Character building
Chapter 1
Text 2: The last of The Mohicans
by J. Fennimore Cooper
Setting
Page: 1-5
Text 3: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Plot
Paragraph 1-14
Instructions: Form pairs, read the texts and discuss the literary devices as laid out per book. Summarize the text to each other and use the guidelines laid out in the Youtube-video.
The shape of Story The narrative arc Plot, Setting, Characters, Conflict and Theme
deck
By besskirsi
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