Narrative Devices & Literary Forms

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Abstractions about storytelling technique and literary form, including narrative devices like analepsis and frame tales, character types such as dynamic characters and Mary Sues, and fixed poetic forms like the villanelle.

15 abstractions in this family — domain-specific abstractions that sit near one another in structural-signature space (k-means over structural-signature embeddings). Each is shown with its short description.

• Analepsis (Flashback) — A flashback, more formally known as analepsis, is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story.
• Aptronym (Charactonym) — An aptronym, aptonym, or euonym is a personal name aptly or peculiarly suited to its owner (e.g. their occupation).
• Collaborative poetry — Collaborative or collective poetry is an alternative and creative technique for writing poetry by more than one person.
• Dynamic Character — Dynamic characters are those that change over the course of the story, while static characters remain the same throughout.
• Enfilade (architecture) — In architecture, an enfilade is a series of rooms formally aligned with each other.
• Epic Laws of Folk Narrative — The epic laws of folk narrative are Axel Olrik's proposed recurring compositional principles governing repetition, contrast, character grouping, plot concentration, and closure in traditional narratives.
• Frame tale — A frame story (also known as a frame tale, framing device, frame narrative, sandwich narrative, nested narrative, or intercalation) is the literary technique and narrative structure in which an opening narrative introduces either a more emphasized second narrative or a set of shorter tales.
• Knight-Errant — A knight-errant (or knight errant ) is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature.
• Mary Sue — The Mary Sue is a type of fictional character, usually a young woman, who is perceived as unrealistically free of weaknesses or character flaws, or as serving a wish-fulfillment role for the author.
• Narrative Poetry — Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often using the voices of both a narrator and characters; the entire story is usually written in metered verse.
• Narrative point of view — Narrative point of view, perspective, or voice: the choice of grammatical person used by the narrator to establish whether or not the narrator and the audience are participants in the story; also, this includes the scope of the information or knowledge that the narrator presents.
• Pascal's Mugging — In philosophy, Pascal's mugging is a thought experiment demonstrating a problem in expected utility maximization.
• Serial (literature) — In literature, a serial is a printing or publishing format by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in smaller, sequential installments.
• Subtext — In any communication, in any medium or format, "subtext" is the underlying or implicit meaning that, while not explicitly stated, is understood by an audience.
• Villanelle — A villanelle, also known as villanesque, is a nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain.