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Shaping Successful Stories
structural media theorist Gustav Freytag knew what shape a narrative must be to please us and it still seems true…
Most writers, particularly those who have taken courses, have read or heard about stories having shapes. However, this structural way of thinking about a narrative is not limited to word-based media. Any form of art that takes time to happen has a narrative. Even a single still image, such as a photograph or a painting exists in time and does, indeed have a narrative beginning with its creation. Perhaps even before that.
The photographer, who already has a life story prior to making the picture, must find or stage the image and choose the moment to release the shutter. Then the resulting picture is reproduced and disseminated, eventually arriving before the eyes of the viewer. That, in itself, is a narrative… but the story doesn’t end there. The viewer takes time to decode the image and interpret its meaning. Sometimes, initial impressions are overturned when a certain detail is spotted and even after the viewer walks away from the gallery or closes the book, they may continue to think about what they saw in the photograph and draw their own conclusions. Pretty much the same goes for a painting with the added narrative element of the time it took for the artist to observe, sketch…
