A story can be presented in several parts. Although this is
often done for marketing purposes, it is also a literary device used to create
specific narrative structures. Some common forms are:
Serial or Episodic Stories
Serial stories are divided into a number of smaller episodes
that form a single plot. This structure is rather uncommon in literature but is
often used in television and subscription publications.
Duology,
Trilogy, Tetralogy, etc.
Several individual stories may be connected through common
characters, geography and history and can be perceived as a single work
composed of a set of stories.
Frame Stories
Segmented stories can be knit together by a frame story, a main
story that serves as a framework for a set of shorter stories.
Extradiegetic Narrative
An extradiegetic narrative is a story that frames the primary
story.
Frame Narrative
A frame narrative is a story within a story. In stories such as
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales different individuals narrate the events of a story
in each frame. Unlike an omniscient narrative, the teller of the story is an
actual character with particular traits, prejudices, and motives. This
structure can also resemble the psychoanalytic process of uncovering the
unconscious behind various obfuscating narratives put in place by the conscious
mind.
The following terms are commonly used to identify different
types of split stories:
Sequel: a story set in the
same fictional universe but later in time. It usually continues the original
storyline.
Prequel: a story that
happens in the same universe as some previous story. It is provided to explain
the original story context. Interquel: a story chronologically set during the
interval between two previous stories.
Midquel: a story set in the
same time and universe as a previous story. In episodic media such TV series
and serialized publications stories are composed of episodes, short segments of
a main story connected to a story arc, a frame narrative or a side story.
Filler: an episode that has
no connection to the ongoing storylines. Fillers are used to give background
information about the characters or present the back-story.
Temporal Order
Fabula refers to the chronological sequence of events in a
narrative. Simple narratives follow the chronology of history but this is not
always the most effective manner to present events when the narrator wishes to
provoke high emotional response through suspense. For example, anticipation can
be created by presenting certain events in an inverted order.
A couple of ways for changing the fabula of a story are:
Analepsis (flashback)
presents events previous to the current time frame.
Prolepsis (flash-forward)
presents events that will occur in the future. A classic example of prolepsis
is prophecy.
In medias res refers to a
story that begins 'in the middle of things' rather than at the chronological
origin of the story. This reordering of events engages the reader immediately
in the action of the story. |