Types Of Narrative

Types Of Narrative

According the the Oxford dictionary,  a narrative is simply 'the act, process, or skill of telling a story'. This means, really, most images have a narrative of some sort. Every image, in my eyes, tells a story whether it be descriptive or not, deep or humorous, vague or in depth. The narrative may require the viewer to read between the lines, or it may be written out loud and clear for all to understand.

Narratives come in many different forms. The most common of these forms are linear narratives.

The Linear Narrative

• Start, middle and end
• Follows a straight line - chronological order
• We believe that a linear narrative can be ongoing - meaning there will be an end but it just hasn’t happened yet. For example - soap operas, or if you want do be a little deep; your life.
• Often presented in a logical manner; coherent and easy to understand 
• Linear narratives are often traditional; we’re brought up with it.

We discovered that we have been brought up with the concept of linear narratives since we were children. An example of this is story books. Take Goldilocks for example;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oaw-d3r_gIc

1. Goldilocks enters the house of the three bears
2. She proceeds to eat the porridge, one by one
3. She tries the chairs and then breaks one
4. She then tries the beds, one by one
5. Then she gets caught by the bears and runs home, never to be seen again and never returns to the bear’s house

Rineke Dijkstra took photos of a young woman named Almerisa, starting from when she was only six years old. She then proceeded to take photos of the same woman to complete a series as she grows up, capturing her going through life; teenage years, adult life, pregnancy and her with her newborn. It’s important to note that these images do skip some time in between; the photographer clearly couldn’t be there 24/7. However, the images are linear as they show a progression in time from start to finish.

If you think about your favourite TV series, it’s likely it has a linear narrative, from soap operas to fictional dramas. The first episode usually establishes the scene, characters and location. This is the start, preparing you for the main body of the series where you would find the main plots. Without this first episode you’d be rather confused as to what’s going on. Then, it will end at some point with a final episode, concluding the narrative.

For example, take Merlin.  Merlin goes to Camelot and the main characters are introduced, setting up the rest of the episodes. Then there are 5 series which is the main body, but is also linear; you have to watch the previous episodes for the rest to fully make sense. Then there’s the final episode which concludes the entire series by a main character dying, making it feel as if the narrative has come to an end.

Tutorials also follow this same narrative path. These often start from nothing and end up with a final product, with the in between steps in the middle, helping you create the final thing. This can be from home DIY, to computer building and reparation, and even makeup. While this may not be what you think of when you hear ‘narrative’, we believe that it’s reliance on being in order certainly gives most tutorials the right to fall under ‘linear narrative’.

Advantages and Disadvantages

 

Help to build tension within a narrative; it’s far more gradual than a non linear narrative	It can be uninteresting in the beginning as setting up the scene or starting a story can be a little slow; the drama is in the middle or main body. This is why some high drama films and books often start from an exciting part of the plot.
They’re easy to understand; as we touched on before, we’ve been familiar with this format of narrative since we couldn’t even read ourselves	They can be a little basic, and therefore become boring, and the narrative could be lost. Often, as there is a slow build up you may have already lost interest by the time the drama occurs.
They’re simple, meaning they’re often easier to create. If you’re not feeling overly inspired this can be a good way to tell your story	They can be predictable; this narrative structure has been used so often that we become aware of the conventions of the genre following that structure. For example, some superhero films can be predictable as they all follow the same conventions to keep their audience feeling familiar with character types and events.
It can often feel more genuine, as that’s probably how you’d tell a story in person, whether it be about your day or something that happened in the news. This can often be seen in documentary type media. The news also develops stories as the progress, making it feel more authentic.	Limited and constraining for the creator. Following a linear narrative means that you have to keep on track with a timeline, whereas a non-linear can go back and forth, explaining certain aspects and give the audience something different.

Non Linear

• Linear- progressing from one stage to another (being sequential) 
• Narrative- A spoken or written account of connected events (a story) 
• Non Linear Narratives therefore are stories than don’t run in a sequential or chronological order.
  
  
  

We are more familiar with Non Linear Narratives in film, where the story will go back in time to continue the story or explain something that happened prior to the time the film was set. 

• Pulp Fiction
• Dunkirk
• Orange Is The New Black
• Memento
• The Grudge
• Toy Story 2
• Mulholland Drive
  

You could say that many photographic series are non linear in terms of narrative structure because the photographer doesn’t always position each print in chronological order of when the image is made. Often a photo series will hold a narrative, but each image representing a scene or an emotion doesn’t always sit in order of this narrative, but will sit in terms of how well an image will sit next to another in terms of colour or composition.

Cindy Sherman is most famously known for her large photo series called “Untitled film stills”. The work, originally published between 1977 and 1980 depicts 70 images; all framing Sherman dressed as various fictional feminine characters as if they were stills from film of the 20th Century.

Advantages and Disadvantages of a Non-Linear Narrative:

Advantages:

• You can provide a more interesting narrative by not keeping it in chronological order.
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• The changing in chronology may help the audience understand the plot better if they are shown a time in the past or the future to the event currently screening.
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• It can change the perspective of the character’s role in the narrative. A flashback in a film may show a story of a character that alters the way the audience feels about them.

Disadvantages:

• It can seem disorganised or messy and it can be complicated for the viewer. 
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• Using an non linear structure can give the story away to quickly. You may see the outcome of someone’s death before you’ve even seen them die for example Criminal Minds. This may ruin any anticipation in the story that a linear narrative would offer.

Decentered Narratives

• remove or displace the subject from the focal point
• Example - Woody Allen films
• Man Ray - Takes you away from the focus of the subject by turning it into something else

Advantages:

• there's no clear narrative, meaning it's open to a lot of interpretation. The interpretation will differ from person to person.

Disadvantages:

• Can be confusing to the viewer
• Chaotic 
• Perhaps frustrating to the viewer?

Circular Narrative

• Begins and ends at the same point

A good photographic example of a circular narrative would be Duane Michals' 'Chance meeting' 

The image has a very rounded off feeling to it. While the shots aren't exactly the same, they are most certainly similar, and they're framed in exactly the same place; note the marks on the wall that allows us to know this.

Often circular narratives link in with Todorov's 5 stages of a story theory;

1. equilibrium
2. disruption
3. recognition
4. attempt to resolve
5. new equilibrium 

This is more common in film and TV using this narrative structure but could well be used photographically too.

Other examples include the films 'Lost' and 'Alice in Wonderland'

Advantages:

• Can offer the viewer satisfaction, with a lot of photographic circular narratives you can enter the story at any point and it will still make sense. 

User Defined Narratives

• Where the viewer end up choosing the narrative in a controlled manner

For example, open video games. This can be such as Sims or GTA 5 where you control the characters and what they do and how the narrative shifts. The many options are already placed into the game by developers, however the viewer chooses which route to go through.

Another example is choose your own path books. They're often phrased as 'go to page --- if you want to ---' and then gives you another choice. Then, you'll go to your page of choice to continue the story in the way that you prefer.