The narrative structure

A story has the traditional 3 parts we have all been accustomed to: beginning, middle and end. Some new elements of the narrative are being introduced to us now: enigma, snags, snares and cliff-hangers. They are there to keep the reader/listener interested, make him finish the book. The syntagmatic structure of a story is composed by kernels, which are key points that instigate, continue or resolve and satellites which have a role to maintain the tension in a situation. Since kernels are points of action that advance a sequence, they cannot be removed, reordered, or replaced without substantially altering the sequence. Satellites, by contrast, can be omitted, reordered or replaced without revising the sequence.’ (Cohan& Shires 1988)

Usually a story begins in a state of equilibrium, which is later disturbed by a force. Then a second force in the opposite direction comes and resets the equality.

There are several types of narrative, some have a story and no plot, and some have both. Other plots are character driven. In some cases the characters can be stereotypes, this was the audience can easily relate to it.

Stories have been a part of our lives since forever, and it would be hard to imagine living without stories. Everybody needs them, not only young people.