How an understanding of narrative concepts can help you get to grips with new (and old) platforms and genres. Presentation to the Civic Journalism Lab at Newcastle University - you can find the second part at https://www.slideshare.net/onlinejournalist/using-narrative-structures-in-shortform-and-longform-journalism

2. What this is all about
How you can use narrative concepts to adapt to constant change
Techniques for quickly engaging your audience with the issues
that matter
The problem with stories (and why you shouldn’t claim you’re
not a storyteller)

3. Prelude:

5. leanpub.com/snapchatforjournalists

10. “New social interactions form new genres…
“...characteristic of social media (many-to-many) instead of mass
media (one-to-many). Genres should be studied not only through
textual analysis but also through the prism of social reality and
recurrent social actions, particularly now that users, rather than
[producers], are taking a dominant role in identifying what
constitutes genres.”
Rulyova & Westley 2017

11. Schmidt 2018

12. Chapter 1:
How to read a story
(so that you can write one)

13. “The instruments in an orchestra”
● Genre
● Mimesis vs diegesis
● Actor vs narrator
● Temporality: pacing vs duration, pro/analepsis
● Structure: organising the fabula
Erik Neveu 2017

14. “An unspoken agreement”
Broersma 2008
“Genre represents an unspoken agreement between the [creator] and
the reader about what to expect … [they] also influence what is
included in or excluded from a story … a hard news story will not
contain comments by the author.”

15. ● Listicles, liveblogs (standfirst, linear structure)
● Twitter threads (numbered, 🧵)
● Horizontal [Snapchat/Instagram/etc.] ‘Stories’
● MEMES
● Explainers
● Ergodic stories (choose your own adventure)
Examples of genre

16. What narrative function does a meme perform? Punchline/twist?

18. ● Podcasts (plus sub-genres, e.g. true crime)
● Longform (or ‘immersive stories’)
● Scrollytelling
● YouTube-native: unboxing videos, walkthroughs
● Livestreams (plus sub-genres, e.g. Twitch)
Wait! There’s more!

19. https://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/index.html#/?part=tunnel-creek

20. Speaking subject vs subject of speech
“The actor said” (effaced narrator)
“The actor told the BBC” [“we”]
“I had decided to spend a day in the life of a vet” [first
person]

21. Temporality

22. Temporality

23. Duration and pacing
“The relationship between a duration (story events) and
length (text/etc)”

24. Present vs past tense
“Two or three times a month, Tom
Giles says goodbye to his wife and
three children at their home in
Abingdon, and drives north…”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/14/the-lawyer-who-takes-the-cases-no-one-wants

25. Prolepsis and analepsis
(flash forward & flashback)
“I’m 42 years old. In
less than a year, I’ll
be dead”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMqwSTe5rvo / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx0bcEFkn_U&t=1m25s

26. BBC
E.g. news - spot the flashback

27. BBC
E.g. ‘Story’ -
chronological

28. Mimesis and diegesis (“show, don’t tell”?)

29. An interview...
“Suggests both a mimetic representation of a
conversation and an actual chronology and
temporality. It wants readers to forget that it is an
interpretation of a conversation.”
Broersma 2008

30. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nh3wk
Mimesis to diegesis to mimesis...

32. So those are the tools…
What’s the point? To create movement — but without
violating audience expectations
We can’t use all the tools in every genre.
And the most important tool of all is structure…