Story structure

No, no, no.

I think, especially if you're trying to learn story structure and how to structure a compelling story, die hard.

That is like a perfectly structured

story.

We're pre-programmed to be like, okay.

You might be familiar with the image of Freytag's Pyramid, which is this dramatic structure of exposition, rising action, climax, denouement, resolution.

And there was...

I forget who put this forward, but there was this sort of feminist theory, I think it was in the 60s, where they were like, this storytelling method is actually oppressive because it simulates the male climax.

It loses momentum.

I understand it, but as far as story structure goes, it doesn't feel as satisfying as a bigger thing.

I understand it based on the rules we're being told, which is like, well, she hasn't made the wish yet.

She never even cared.

The novella asks a question that still resonates today.

What happens when we try to suppress the darker parts of ourselves? And crucially for your exam, it does this through incredibly rich language, a clever narrative structure, and a cast of characters who each represent different aspects of Victorian society.

Now let's get into the core concepts, and I want to start with the big one.

Duality.

You can discuss how Stevenson uses Jekyll's own voice to deliver this revelation, which makes it feel authoritative and confessional.

And you can link it to the Victorian context, the idea that every respectable Victorian gentleman had a hidden private self.

Now let's talk about the narrative structure, because this is something that many candidates overlook, and it's where you can really pick up marks for assessment objective two.

That's the AO that rewards your analysis of the writer's methods.

So you can think about...

God, this is maybe getting a little bit too technical for a Sunday morning on the radio, but there's things like Freytag's Pyramid.

So you have your kind of...

Exposition, so setting out the story, and then there's a... sort of a rising action as as things kick off through the story so you're going through the woods it's all getting a little bit tense it reaches a climax um where everything kicks off into turning point in the story and then you have this sort of falling action as everything's resolved and then you have your your kind of your new normal so it's the same story but and it's a different it's a different narrative theory applied to it but but it's another narrative thing you can look at and it starts to allow you to introduce different um different components of that story to build the story up So when I'm when I'm looking at when I'm looking at how to tell a story on behalf of a client, I'm looking at what what is going to be the best narrative arc to apply to to this this particular story that you want to tell in your business.

So then we apply...

So we've got...

So in there, you've got Freytag's Pyramid in there.

You've also got Todorov's Theory in there, by the way.

Right? So all of that is a, a story process.

It's a story structure, and it's a story.

Right, so this someone who's thinking about creating a wedding business is that now you have a wedding business.

Right.

So if you've ever read The Name of the Rose or Foucault's Pendulum, the famous novels, those are both by Eco.

Now, Eco is important because he actually wrote a famous essay in the '60s called Narrative Structure in Ian Fleming.

And what he did there was he actually raised Ian Fleming's, uh, fictional literature out of the status of pulp fiction and gave it a little more academic credence, give him so- he gave him some, you know, academic acumen that he did not previously have.

So, uh, uh, uh, I think that Eco's place as a Bondologist is interesting because, so he's not just a writer, he's also...