NARRATIVE - ONLY TROUBLE IS INTERESTING?

This session focused on the idea of conflict in narratives, and if they're necessary or not. 

First, we went over the pre-set essay questions we can choose from. They are as follows:

• Analyse your chosen narrative with close reference to the Hero's Journey, or another appropriate story template

• Make a proppean analysis of an animated fairytale, and explain animation's particular suitability for telling fantastical tales

• Stories have been described as an engine for social change. Analyse your narrative with reference to it's social or moral purpose, and the techniques used to convey this.

• "Only available to animation". To what extent does this Paul Wells quote apply to your chosen film? Explain how the medium and materials enter, shape and define the narrative.

• Animation is a uniquely visual medium. Analyse your chosen narrative as a successful example of visual storytelling.

I'll return to the questions at the end of the post. For now, let's focus on the main focus of the lecture: conflict vs non-conflict plots.

Conflicts in stories tend to arise from the characters, and usually specifically suit that character. The Iceberg Theory, relating to the depth of the character being found from what you can't see (like the ice underneath the water), also helps in finding the right foil for the character.

"Find a character like yourself, who will want something or not want something with all his heart" ~ Ray Bradbury

The size of the want doesn't matter, but the difficulty of achieving it is. And that's where conflict is important.

"We enjoy seeing fictional characters suffer... these basic stories... acknowledge our basic anxieties" ~ Scarlett Thomas

Plots use pathos (influencing the audience's emotions) to carry wider meanings and messages.

CONFLICT

Conflict is important to stories to bring in some interesting elements to them. No-one would want to watch a film about somebody who just goes about their life with nothing interesting or extraordinary happening. Introduce someone who challenged them to a fight one day, then you have a more engaging and interesting story.

"Stories happen because someone wants something and has trouble getting it" ~ David Mamet

We were shown a short film by Canadian filmmaker Norman McLaren, which uses pixilation animation to show the conflict of two neighbours over a flower that each claims grew in their own garden.

(Neighbours by Norman McLaren)

Generally, there are two types of story:

• A man goes on a journey
  
  or
• A stranger comes to town

And within those, there are four mythoi (genres, essentially)

• Comedy
• Romance
• Tragedy
• Satire

(Kurt Vonnegut Jr, an American writer, demonstrating story archetypes to an audience using line graphs)

Within stories, there are also acts and sequences. Most stories follow a 3-act structure;

• Act 1 lasts about 25% of the story, and encapsulates the exposition and inciting incident. Typical films have this act last 20 to 30 minutes, and end once the protagonist sets off on their journey.
• Act 2 lasts about 50% of the film, showing various trials and tribulations that the protagonist goes through. We typically learn about the other characters as well, and learn more details about the plot too.
• Act 3 is the final 25% of the film, and starts just before the climax. This act is what everything's lead up to, and shows a final conflict of some kind, and a resolution.

But all these factors are for western story structures. There's another type of narrative, the eastern variation.

NON-CONFLICT

Eastern narratives tend to follow a different guideline to western ones; where western focuses on some kind of conflict and the characters having an ultimately self-driven goal, eastern stories don't have those. They eliminate worldly desires, and tend to focus on some kind of moral or just representing the everyday.

This doesn't mean conflict can't be a part of the story; it just means that it isn't there by default. The stories can be simple, like man vs nature, or complex with man vs man. The ending is typically an emphasis of the final theme.

A key term in eastern narratives is kishotenketsu. Kishotenketsu is a four part structure typical of Japanese storytelling. The four parts are:

1. KI - The introduction
2. SHO - Elaboration
3. TEN - The twist (mostly represented by an unexpected change)
4. KETSU - Emphasis

In this structure, the twist (ten) doesn't necessarily have it be related to the rest of the story.

It's important to note that these terms aren't necessarily interchangable with western story elements. For example, Sho's elaboration is NOT the same as disruption.

An example of a story that follows the Kishotenketsu structure is The Licked Hand.

KI - A young girl is home alone with her dog
SHO - An escaped convict is reported on the news, and girl won't fall asleep unless the dog, under her bed, licks her hand.
TEN - In the night, she goes to the bathroom to find her dog dead in the bath; it was dead the entire time!
KETSU - "HUMANS CAN LICK TOO" is written in blood on the wall

This session was generally very interesting! Before this, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of plot structure, but I learnt a lot more that I wouldn't have known had I not attended! The most interesting thing was definitely Kishotenketsu; it's a fairly unconventional plot structure for western societies, and one I didn't know about beforehand. I really want to keep the structure in the back of my mind, so that when the time comes to make my own story, I can consider this less seen method!