Researching Narrative (Plot)

I decided to research into narrative theory for fictional stories to benefit my knowledge, hoping to help construct my short film more successfully. I found general guidelines regarding the structure and content of fictional stories whilst researching, one of the most popular and accepted guidelines were established by Arthur Quiller-Couch, known as the seven basic plots, however were further developed by Christopher Booker in his book 'The Seven Basic Plots; Why We Tell Stories'.These theorists and authors suggested that nearly all fictional stories can fit in to these seven basic plots:

• Overcoming the Monster
• Rags to Riches
• The Quest
• Voyage and Return
• Comedy
• Tragedy
• Rebirth

For the reason that my short film is a documentation of a character, I decided not to base my storyline on a particular one of the seven basic plots, instead my plot would simply hint at two of the seven, comedy and tragedy. These two basic plots would be suitable for my short film as the meaning and experience I want to convey in my short film would fit in to both comedy and tragedy.

Investigating structure
Gustav Freytag considered that narrative could be divided a story into five part chronological structure. These different segments where the following:

• Exposition
• Rising Action
• Climax
• Falling Action
• Denouement

Having researched,  I decided to deliberately not follow Freytag's suggested narrative plot structure. Instead I would simply display the exposition of my character and some minor rising action. I decided to do this as it would help me achieve the dull and mundane exposure I am trying to display. By not having a climax, it could reflect the lack of ambition and how unexciting this kind of existence is, which is one of my main targets I am hoping to achieve in the end product.

Climax

"The point of climax is the turning point of the story, where the main character makes the single big decision that defines the outcome of the story and who he is as a person. The dramatic phase that Freytag called the "climax" is the third of the five phases and occupies the middle of the story. Thus "the climax" may refer to the point of climax or to the third phase of the drama."

Extract taken from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_(narrative)