While at Spalding University, I became fascinated with literary formalism. I enjoyed how it helped me analyze and evaluate a novel’s many features. My study and practice of literary techniques was amplified by my study of formalism and narratology.
After months of reading and discussions with my mentors, I complete my critical thesis on narrative, focusing on the structural qualities of a short story or novel. I am well aware of the changes in literature’s critical movements, and to focus only on the text is myopic. However, this journey has taught me so much more about literary techniques and why they are used.
There are many terms used to describe these qualities. When used in conjunction with good instruction and books on craft, the study of narratology can open up new dimensions of artistic endeavor. I’ve listed some of the major terms below and encourage every writer to at least become familiar with narratology.
Definitions
Sjuzet: Russian Formalists. “The events as they are told by a narrator who may not tell in the order of the happening.” (Keen, 74). Sjuzet are the words on the page placed there by the author, narrated by a specific narrator. This is how the reader learns of the events.
Fabula: Russian Formalists. “The events of a story as they occur (in a restored chronology)” (Keen, 74). The fabula is an umbrella term for the story all of the action and stasis, placed in chronological order after reading.
Story: “The events of a narrative as “they happened” in the imaginative chronological ordering of fictive time.” (Keen, 75). The events of a Story are reconstructed by the reader and placed into chronological order.
Discourse: “The words of the narrative in the order in which they appear in the text.” (Keen, 75) Simply, the words on the page, starting from page one all the way to the end. This is not the plot.
Discourse Level: “The textual level.” (Keen, 75) “A realm of narrated words-in-order.” (Keen, 109) Also, this can refer to the positioning of the words on the page. We usually use in text citations to point out the discourse level.
Plot: Through the discourse, a reader assembles narrated events (action), reconstituted, and “complete with causal relations and consequences (and a clear sense of what does not happen).” (Keen, 76). The significance of plot resides in the reader and their reaction with the discourse.
Mimesis: (Aristotle) Showing or imitation.
Diegesis: (Aristotle) Telling or narrating.
Story World: “Imaginative zone, projections of the text, which a reader constructs out of the information presented in the discourse.” (Keen, 75)
Story Level: “A realm of imagined agents and actions” (Keen, 109). “Projections of the text, which a reader constructs out of the information presented in the discourse.” (Keen, 75)
Story Time: “Time that transpires in the imaginary world projected by the text.” (Keen, 92). Dependent upon the length of the story, which can be a day or take place over generations.
Discourse Time: “Refers to the time implied by the quantity of discourse, in its linear arrangement of elements in the text (it is therefore sometimes called text time).” (Keen, 92). This is the number of pages, lines and words “given to the representation of narrative contents.” (Keen, 92).
Ellipses: A gap in story time and discourse time; “breaks in the temporal continuity” (Genette, 51). Typically, this occurs through authorial intrusion.
Analepses: “The narrated retrospective sections that fill in (temporal gaps), after the event, an earlier gap in the narrative.” (Genette, 51). Narrative back flash and allusions to past events, while the narrator is in present story time.
Prolepses: Anticipatory device, such as foreshadowing. According to Genette, “The ‘first-person’ narrative lends itself better than any other to anticipation, by the very fact of its avowedly retrospective character, which authorizes the narrator to allude to the future and in particular to the present situation.” (Genette, 67). The use of prolepses in other points-of-view is limited due to narrative suspense.
Anachronies: “The various types of discordance between the two orderings of story and narrative (discourse).” (Genette, 36). A combination of analepses and prolepses, which “includes a whole range of devices from flashbacks to flash-forwards and extreme disordering that resists reconstitution into a straight-ahead plot.” (Keen, 101)
Achrony: Events with no attribution of time, date, or age. “Events that cannot be placed in relation to the plot’s fundamental chronology.” (Keen, 102)
Duration: “The relationship between story time elapsed and discourse time expended.” (Keen, 92). This points out the amount of pages spent on particular events, some events taking a paragraph, while others consume whole chapters or more.
References
Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. Heath, Malcom. London: Penguin, 1996. Print.
Genette, G. Trans. Lewin, J. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. New York: Cornell
Press. 1983. Print.
Keen, Suzanne. Narrative Form. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. Print
Michael Leo Premo 
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