Narrative Theory

Definition:
A narrated account; an account, report, or story, as of events, experiences, etc. It is the structure of a story.

Tim O'Sulivan(1998) argues that all media texts tell us some kind of story.

Media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves - not usually our own personal stories, but the story of us as a culture or set of cultures. Narrative theory sets out to show that what we experience when we 'read' a story is to understand a particular set of conventions, and that it is important to be aware of how these conventions are put together.

There are a few important words that are often referred to within narrative theory:

1. Diegesis - The fictional space and time implied by the narrative (the world in which the story takes place).

2. Verisimilitude - The quality of appearing to be real or true. For a story to engage us it must appear to be real to us as we watch it. A narrative therefore must have verisimilitude(realistic connotations) following the rules of continuity, temporal and spacial coherence. 
3. Action code - Proposed by Ronald Barthes, a symbolic/iconographic images that communicate events from the narrative.
4.Enigma code - Also proposed by Barthes - Questions raised by a narrative that the audience yearn to answer.  
This presentation outlines the major narrative theorists and their ideas:

Narrative theory from JadeMelady