Читать книгу Storytelling for Media - Joachim Friedmann - Страница 9

A story is spatially located – this statement is almost commonplace in narratology. It means that the actions and events of a narrative take place in one or more places – what is referred to as the setting in a dramaturgical terminology. But is the design of a narrative space subject to a narrative specificity or is it a purely descriptive representation because a story presupposes the space in which it takes place? In this case, a route description or driver directions would also fulfil all the criteria for defining a story. The driver, as a protagonist, is following directions, following a map, where they cross a given space and finally arrive at their destination. It’s likely that they must also overcome obstacles on the way that trigger conflicts, e.g. in the form of construction sites or traffic restrictions. A travelogue in a book or newspaper article could also be considered a narrative. Intuitively, however, such a text would not necessarily be defined as a story.

In this respect, one has to ask whether there are special strategies of narrative spatial design. As was already clear from the description of the narrative figure, the representation of a character of a story is subject to different design principles than in a purely descriptive text. This also applies to narratively depicted spaces.

For a long time, narrative spatial design was hardly an issue for structuralist narratology. One reason for this was probably to be found in the roots of narratology in linguistics and literary studies and the associated focus on literary narratives, thus, in turn, there is a focus on questions of temporality, narrator position, and narrative perspective. In fact, in contrast to visual narrative media such as film, comics or games, verbally conveyed narratives can even completely dispense with description of places. In jokes, for example, as a short form of narrative, often a dialogue takes place without a locality being depicted. Even if this may be a theoretical option in literature, narratologist GERARD GENETTE refers to the possibility of telling a story without location, while it would not be possible to situate it without temporal reference in the present, past, or future. Genette concludes that the temporal determinations of narration are more important than the spatial ones.