Once upon a time ...

Once upon a time a long time ago, the first story happened. Was it spoken? Was it drawn on the wall of a cave? Was it danced? Was it sang? Did it have rhythm? Was it memorable? Who was the witness and who was the storyteller? Only God knows and that’s only if there’s a God.

Millions of years later, not only were humans still sharing stories, some of these humans got curious about why we are drawn to stories, what deeper meanings lie in the forms we use to tell them, and how we could define the parts of these stories.

You want to know what’s wrong with these narratologists? They’re putting clashing definitions on what we call stories. Each of them is interested in some sub-genre of narrative study, and it shows. For the life of me, I can’t get the definitions straight. So, let’s check our handy-dandy notebook and see what we’ve got. Ah, yes.

“The narrative paradigm is a worldview of human communication,” says Walter Fisher.

“Narrative is the process of grammatical structuration within language and an object of rigorous, even scientific analysis,” says Martin McQuillan.

“Narrative is the representation of an event or a series of events,” says Hannah Porter Abbott.

It gets worse as far as clashing definitions, but the above are some of the clearest I’ve got in my notes so far. I keep trying to simplify every piece I read, but the more definitions I underline during my reading sessions, the more confused my annotations get. Is there an end to the definitions? Is there going to be a matching quiz with the definitions on one side and the terms on the other? I’m going to need some flashcards. This community of narratologists isn’t even a community – it’s just a grouping of academics looking to distinguish their own ideas about what narrative is and how we can tear it apart and put it back together. Just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it makes the study of this field confusing.

Are we viewing stories—sorry, narrative—as behavior models? A way to pass down practical wisdom? A way to relay events that have happened? Something to enjoy before bed for no reason but amusement?

Narrative, as it’s been explained to me so far, is the structure of communication that parallels the cognitive processes in our human brains. It’s the way we construct a telling of anything – poems, plays, fictions, life stories, etc. And the study of it is complex and varied; each author that I’ve read so far has made it very clear to the reader what his or her premise is in the field, and that’s because the field is so varied across the board. They each create their own ways to study narrative and therefore throw definitions out like candy at a parade.

Well. I’m done. Maybe I’d understand the field better if it were laid out in narrative form.  

edit: That being said, this link was one of the most helpful things I've read so far.