Narrative Theory

A narrative is generally described as a story or plot where the story will describe what happens in the text, but the plot will physically show the audience what is happening in the text. A narrative can be broken down into three different sections which can be remembered as 'Inferred Events', 'Explicitly Shown Events' and 'Non-diegetic Material'. Below I have created a diagram to illustrate these different sections, but also to explain what they all mean. Here is my diagram:

In the diagram above you can identify how these three sections have been split up to demonstrate how a narrative in a certain text is presented. The best way to describe this diagram would be through the use of an example, so as an example, I could say that someone in a film could be playing a spy and is pretending to blend in at a school to hide the fact that they are undercover. In relation to the 'Inferred Events' this means that the audience will not see the spy being born or growing up as a child and will instead just infer and know that the spy has done other things in their life other than just being at the point they are now at, hence the name 'Inferred'. 'Explicitly Shown Events' is what the audience will actually see happening - in relation to the spy film I am using as an example, the audience would watch the spy doing his daily tasks or would see him doing his job he has been made to do by being undercover. Lastly, the non-diegetic material in the spy film will just be any music or sound played on top of the video which the spy themselves is unable to hear, but it creates tension and surprise for the audience. 

Terms 

The words 'Narrative', 'Diegesis' and 'Verisimilitude' are important terms that people do not often know the meaning to. Which is why I am going to explain each of these terms to help you understand what they mean. Firstly, I have already mentioned what a Narrative is - it is a structure of a story which explains what is happening in the story. Diegesis is the fictional space and time implied by the narrative, it is the world in which the story takes place. Finally, Verisimilitude is the quality of something appearing to be real or true - to keep audiences engaged in stories, the story must appear to be real to the audience as they watch it (the diegetic effect), so the story must therefor have verisimilitude which follows the rules of continuity, temporal and spacial coherence (time and space).

To explain 'Diegesis' in more detail I have provided an example to help you in understanding what it really is. In the TV show 'Doctor Who', the main protagonist called 'The Doctor' is able to travel in space and time in the time travelling machine he owns called the 'TARDIS' which presents that this TV show has its own diegesis which allows the audience to believe that The Doctor is actually able to travel to different planets and the TARDIS really is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Following on from that, in a music video you will not need a fictional world for an artist to be playing live because of there being two different diegesis in the music video.

To explain 'Verisimlitude' in more detail, I have again provided another example to help you in understanding this specific term. The example I am using is a film called 'That Thing You Do' which was directed by Tom Hanks in 1998. This film is about a band called 'The Wonders' who are ironically one hit wonders and throughout this film we can see that space of temporal and spacial coherence has been created.

Here is the trailer for 'That Thing You Do' to help you understand a bit more about this film: 

 

Below I have created a short list which presents different features that have occurred in this film to help create a space of temporal and spacial coherence. Here is the list I have generated:

Below, I have created a slideshow to present all the different theorists and their theories in relation to narrative. Here is my slideshow: