Narrative Fiction and Film

Glossary of Terms

Note: In class, we will discuss specific terms and determine which are "required"; the glossary will undergo revision and expansion during the course of the semester.

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adaptation: (1) A filmed version of (most commonly) a novel or short story, or of a screenplay (or, perhaps, a comic book, television series, or video game), which may take the form of a transposition, commentary, or analogy (see below); (2) the process by which certain elements of a novel or story require change in order to be shown on film, as opposed to those which simply require transfer. 

agent (in the narrative): One who performs or experiences story-events (the agent need not be human); see "character" below.

allegory: A narrative whose characters and events represent meanings outside the fiction, whether abstract qualities or ideas (Virtue, Sloth) or historical figures.

analepsis: A segment of the narrative past intruded into the narrative present, giving a sense of what happened prior; a "flashback."

analogy: One of three types of adaptation, according to Wagner, an analogy represents "a fairly considerable departure for the sake of making another work of art": Coppola's Apocalypse Now, which updates Conrad's Heart of Darkness  to the Vietnam War, transcends mere transposition of, or commentary on, the original.

animation: Any film process whereby artificial movement is created by photographing a series of drawings (see cel animation), objects. or computer images one by one. Small changes in position, recorded frame by frame, create the illusion of move­ment.

antagonist: The character opposed to the protagonist (or "hero") of a narrative.

aspect ratio: The relationship of the film frame's width to its height. The standard international ratio (frequently called "Academy ratio") was 1.33:1 until the early 1950s, when widescreen formats became more common, in part as a response to the perceived threat of television.

atmosphere: The mood or aura that suffuses a narrative. It is invoked by the actions and feelings of the characters, but most particularly by the setting (e.g., the gloomy setting of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations).

auteur: The presumed or actual "author" of a film, usually identified as the director. The term is also sometimes used in an evaluative sense to distinguish good filmmakers (auteurs) from bad ones. Identifying the director as the film's "author" and evaluating the film as the work of an auteur has a long history, but it became a prominent issue after the 1940s, particularly in French and English‑language film criticism.

author: The writer of a narrative.  The term has been deconstructed in a number of ways in contemporary literary theory (Barthes, Foucault).  One common distinction is Booth's, who posits the real or historical author (the historical person who actually wrote the fiction) from the implied author (the creator presupposed by the narrative itself).

authorial narrator: A literary narrator who acknowledges being the narrator, making much of his or her own presence in the discourse, but who did not participate in the story‑events.

branching (of story‑events): The fundamental pattern of narrative; a given situation provokes our anticipation of the possibility of a variety of events, but in traditional narrative, only one event actually materializes.

camera angle: The position of the film frame in relation to the, sub­ject it shows: above it, looking down (a high angle); horizontal, on the same level (a straight‑on angle); looking up (a low angle).

camera movement: The onscreen impression that the film framing is changing with respect to the scene being photographed. This is usually caused by the camera's being physically moved (crane shot, pan, tilt, tracking shot), but it may also be caused by a zoom lens or certain special effects.

canted framing: A view in which the film frame is not level; either the right or the left side is lower, causing objects in the scene to appear tipped.

cardinal function: A hinge or risky moment in the narrative, one that could result in different outcomes; the most important moments in the narrative.  Opposed to catalyzing functions, which are complementary to and supportive of cardinal functions. (Barthes)

catalyzing function: Small actions in a narrative that ground the cardinal functions in a sense of reality. Unlike cardinal functions, catalyzers are moments of rest and safety. (Barthes)

causality: The property of traditional plots that requires that event B not only follow event A, but also be its consequence.

character function: The role or roles performed by a character, denoted by Vladimir Propp as villain; donor; princess/father; helper; dispatcher; hero/victim; false hero.  According to Propp, character functions in fairy tales are stable and limited in number; they further constitute the fundamental components of a tale.  Propp's functions are frequently helpful in assessing literary and cinematic fictions.

character: An agent who has one or more discernible traits or qualities of personality.  Characters may be generally categorized as more or less round (three-dimensional) or flat (two-dimensional), static (unchanging) or dynamic (changing); they may function as types (a stock or stereotyped character, such as "the hooker with the heart of gold") or foils (functioning in stark contrast to another character).

character-I: In a first-person narration in which a (former) character tells his or her own story (see "internal narrator"), "character-I" refers to that person as character back in the story (as opposed to the "narrator-I " who speaks now in the discourse).

characterization: The process by which traits are assigned to characters.  Methods include actions, possessions, gestures, dialogue; reported thoughts; description or appearance; others' reactions; and name typing. 

character-narrator: That kind of first‑person narrator who had been a character back in the story (as opposed to "authorial narrator," who had not).

cinematography: A general term for all the manipulation of the film strip by the camera in the shooting phase and by the laboratory in the developing phase.  Elements of cinematography include camera angle, distance, and movement.

climax: In a traditional narrative, the moment in the plot at which the conflict is resolved.  There may be one or more climaxes, depending on the kinds of conflicts (e.g. internal and/or external).

close-up: In film, a framing in which the scale of the object shown is relatively large. Most commonly, a close-up shows a person's head from the neck up, or a medium‑size object. An extreme close-up focuses on a part of a person's head or on a very small object.

closure:  The satisfactory winding‑up of a narrative, giving the reader the sense that everything demanded by the plot has in fact occurred and that narrative movement has come to rest: conflicts are resolved, and the narrative returns to a state of equilibrium, rather than unrest. Traditional fictions signal closure with landmark events — a wedding, a death — but many modern fictions end on an uneventful note, as if to say "That's the way things are."

commentary: One of three types of adaptation, according to Wagner, in which there is an attempt to comment on some aspect of the source material by making purposeful alterations.  Mamoulian's 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde serves as an example of a commentary, as it makes explicit that sexual frustration is the source of Dr. Jekyll's motivation, a notion that is (at most) implicit and inarticulated in Stevenson's novella.

conflict: In a traditional narrative, conflict motivates the progression of plot events, occurring either between two characters or between one character and some opposing force.  Conflicts can be essentially external (taking place in the physical realm) or internal (on intellectual, emotional, or spiritual levels).  The conflict intensifies until a crisis is reached, and the conflict is resolved in a climax.

continuity editing: In film, a system of cutting to maintain continuous and clear narrative action. Continuity editing relies upon matching action, screen direction, and figures' positions from shot to shot. Specific techniques of continuity editing include establishing shot, cut‑in, eyeline match, inter­cutting, match on action, reestablishing shot, screen direction, and shot-reverse shot.

contraction: In adaptation, the process of (necessary) selection of certain elements to transfer or adapt from novel to film.  Theoretically, the greater the complexity of the source novel, more severe the degree of contraction; a less-detailed novella or short story should entail a lesser degree of contraction than would a long, complex novel.

crane shot: A shot in which a change of framing is accomplished by having the camera above the ground and moving up, down, or laterally through the air.

cut: (1) In filmmaking, the joining of two strips of film together with a splice. (2) In the finished film, an instantaneous change from one framing to another. See also jump cut.

cut‑in: An instantaneous cut from a distant framing to a closer view of some portion of the same space.

deep focus: A use of the camera lens and lighting that keeps both the close and distant planes in sharp focus.  Typically, deep focus requires a wide-angle lens, which exaggerates the size of foreground elements and their distance from background elements.

deep space: An arrangement of mise‑en‑scene elements so that there is a considerable distance between the plane closest to the camera and the one farthest away. Any or all of these planes may be in focus.

delayed decoding: The technique of presenting a sense impression, but withholding its naming and explication until later in the narrative.  Delayed decoding is typically a means of suggesting the subjectivity of consciousness to the readers or narratees.  In Heart of Darkness, for instance, the narrator Marlow recounts an attack by telling his narratees that "sticks, little sticks, were flying about" before he names them: Arrows, by Jove!”

denouement: The conclusion of a traditional narrative.  As the conflicts have been resolved and the climax has passed, the denouement shows the narrative's equilibrium restored, and things "as they should be." 

depth of field: The measurements of the closest and farthest planes in front of the camera image between which everything will be in sharp focus. A depth of field from 5 to 16 feet, e.g., would mean everything closer than 5 feet and farther than 16 feet would be out of focus.

dialogue: Speech between characters. (Interior dialogue — or monologue — refers to speech within a character's own mind.)

diegesis: The (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur.

diegetic sound: Any voice, musical passage, or sound effect presented as originating from a source within the film's world (as opposed to nondiegetic sound, such as voice-over narration or a generalized score, which occurs outside the world of the narrative).

direct discourse: One of four types of narrative communication.  In direct discourse, a character's thoughts, emotions, actions, etc. are expressed through a first-person, grammatical voice, as in this example from Dickens: "Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!"

direct naming of traits: That kind of characterization in which a narrator or some other character directly assigns a trait-name (e.g. "lazy" or "brilliant") to a character.

direct quotation: The exact words used by a character in thinking or speaking, usually (though not necessarily) set off with quotation marks. In direct quotation, the character refers to herself by means of the pronoun "I" and uses a verb tense contemporary with the action. (See example under "indirect quotation.")

direct sound: Music, noise, and speech recorded from the event at the moment of filming; the opposite of postsynchronization.

discourse: The means by which a story is communicated, that is, told or shown by a narrator or by the camera.

discourse‑time: The period of time that the discourse lasts, that is, the time it takes the narrator to "tell" or "show" the story. Thus, a three‑page short story has a discourse‑time that is one‑third as long as that of a nine‑page story, even though the story‑time of the first may be longer than that of the second.  In written narratives, discourse-time can only be estimated; in film, discourse-time is more precise (it is the running time of the film).

dissolve: A film transition between two shots (hiring which the first image gradually disappears while the second image gradually appears. For a moment the two images blend briefly.

distance of framing: The apparent distance of the film frame from the mise‑en‑scene elements; also called "camera distance" and "shot scale." See also close‑up, extreme close-up, medium shot.

dolly: A camera support with wheels, used in making tracking shots.

duration: The time relation between story and discourse with respect to how long each lasts. (See "stretch," "scene," "summary," "pause," and "ellipsis.").  Along with order and frequency, one of the three possible relationships between story-time and discourse-time.

dynamic character: A character whose traits change during the course of the narrative.

editing: (1) In filmmaking, the task of selecting and joining camera takes. (2) In the finished film, the set of techniques that governs the relations among shots.

ellipsis: One of the five durational relationships between story and discourse. In ellipsis, story-time continues but is not reported by the discourse. Ellipsis depends on the reader's capacity to infer the unmentioned events that may or may not be significant to the plot.

elliptical editing: Editing which omits portions of the action. often with the purpose of startling the viewer or creating ques­tions about what occurred in the missing stretches.

embedded narrative: Narratives that are incorporated or interwoven into a larger narrative world, a diegesis that is separated by narrative agent from the main or frame narrative.

epilogue: Elements of narrative discourse that occur after the plot itself is completed, often telling what happened to major and minor characters in later years.  (In film, an epilogue can be dramatized, though it may be communicated graphically, as in Boys Don't Cry or The French Connection, both of which present written descriptions of the criminals' fates.)

epiphany: An intuitive grasp of reality achieved in a quick flash of recognition in which something is seen in a new light, or in which a truth previously unrealized becomes understood. 

epistolary narrative: A narrative told through a single letter, a sequence of letters, or an interchange of letters.

establishing shot: A film shot, usually involving a distant framing, that shows the spatial relations among the important figures, objects, and setting in a scene.

event: A happening, the fundamental unit of story and of plot.

expectations: The reader's sense of where the story is headed. These can be generic (we can have a sense that we are reading a comedy that will have a happy ending before we know who the protagonists are) or specific to the particular story. Conversely, expectations op­erate with narrative desire to give us a sense of the genre of the narrative.

experimental cinema: Filmmaking which avoids the conven­tions of mass‑entertainment film and seeks to explore unusual aspects of the medium and/or suppressed or taboo subject matter. When experimental films present plots, these are fre­quently predicated upon dreams or symbolic journeys. but often experimental films avoid narrative form altogether, ex­ploring lyric, associational, descriptive, or other formal means.

exposition: The segment of a traditional narrative that provides basic information about setting and character.  The relative stasis of the exposition is typically interrupted by the joining of conflicts that create disequilibrium. 

extreme close‑up: A framing which enlarges a small detail, such as an eye or a line of newsprint.

eyeline match: A cut in which the first shot shows a person looking off in one direction and the second shows a nearby space containing what he or she sees. If the person looks to the left, the following (point-of-view) shot should imply that the looker is offscreen right.

fade: (1) Fade‑in: A dark screen that gradually brightens as a shot appears. (2) Fade‑out: A shot that gradually darkens as the screen goes black.

fidelity:  A common, if problematic, criterion for evaluating adaptations, focusing on the "faithfulness" of the adaptation to the original.  According to McFarlane, fidelity criticism ignores the complexities of the two media's differing systems of enunciation; of contemporary approaches to interpretation; and of contextual and cultural issues in film production.

filter: The perspective or point of view of a character—the way the character per­ceives and conceives of the events and other characters in the story.

first-person: In literature, a type of narration in which the narrator appears as a character in the narrative.  First-person narration may suggest a temporal distance between the narrator's (older) self who narrates ("narrator-I") and the one who appears in the narrative ("character-I"); first-person narration is limited, typically, to events witnessed or experienced by the character, and/or to those recounted to him or her.  By definition, first-person narration is neither authorial nor impersonal; it is always personal, and it may be naive or unreliable.

flashback: One of the possible time‑order relations between story and discourse. In flashback, the event is told or shown out of order, that is, it is shown after events that actually occurred earlier in the story.

flashforward: An alteration of story order in which the plot presentation moves forward to future events and then returns to the present.

flat character: A character who has only a single or very few traits.

focal length: The distance from the center of the lens to the point at which the light rays meet in sharp focus. The focal length determines the perspective relations of the space rep­resented on the flat screen. A normal lens approximates human vision; a telephoto lens compresses distance; and a wide‑angle lens expands perspective.

focus: The degree to which light rays coming from the same part of an object through different parts of the lens converge at the same point on the film frame, creating sharp outlines and distinct textures.

frame: (1) In film, a single image on the strip. When a series of frames is projected onto a screen in quick succession, the spectator sees an illusory movement. (2) In narrative, the "frame" of a frame-narrative.

frame‑narrative: A narrative that contains another narrative inside (e.g. the frame‑narra­tive of Scheherazade concerns the heroine's attempt to save her life by telling the sultan a different tale every night). The "outside" narrative is the frame; the "inside" narrative is the framed narrative.

free quotation: A quotation of a character's thought or speech that is not marked by a "tag" such as "he said" or "she thought."

free direct discourse: One of four basic types of narrative communication, in which a character's thoughts, emotions, actions, etc. are expressed without graphical or grammatical indication.  Unlike free indirect discourse, there exists no ambiguity regarding to whom the voice belongs; unlike direct discourse, there are no graphical or grammatical indications of the character's thoughts.  When free direct discourse is ungrammatical, it may take the form of stream of consciousness.

free indirect discourse: One of four basic types of narrative communication.  Free indirect discourse is a narrational strategy that makes liberal use of free quotation; the narrator steps into (and out of) a character's mind.  In effect, what the character would be thinking or saying is expressed in the third-person past tense, rather than in the first-person present tense.  In Emma, for instance, the narrator sometimes uses language readers could assume to be Emma's, without marking that language graphically as Emma's (with italics or quotation marks).  Free indirect discourse can be further differentiated as free indirect speech or free indirect thought.

frequency: One of three possible temporal relationships between story and discourse. Story-events may be shown once, twice, or numerous times in the discourse, or a simple sentence in the discourse may be used to imply that a story event occurred repeatedly.

genre: A French term meaning "literary kind" or "type"; for example, tragedy, epic, lyric, novella, and detective novel are different literary genres; in film, common genres include screwball comedies, road movies, horror films, gangster films, and Westerns.

graphic match: In film, two successive shots joined so as to create a strong similarity of compositional elements, such as color or shape.

hand-held camera: The use of the camera operator's body as a camera support, either holding it by hand or using a harness. Seen in some silent films, but more common in documentaries and fiction films from the 1960s on.

Hays code: A self-regulatory code of ethics created in 1930 by the motion picture industry, under Will H. Hays, and put into strict effect in 1934, with Joseph Breen (of the Breen Office) as director of the Code Administration. The code set forth general standards concerning what could and could not be shown in American movies. Among the general principles of the code was the requirement that "no picture shall be produced which will lower the standards of those who see it."The specific regulations forbade justified revenge; explicit presentation of crime methods; explicit presentation or acceptance of "low forms of sex relationships," including adultery and prostitution; "excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embracing, suggestive postures and gestures"; "miscegenation" (sex relationships between the white and black races); and "pointed profanity."

hero/heroine: The character whose fate means the most to the reader, that is, the character with whom the reader tends most to identify.

identification: The process by which the reader puts himself or herself in a character's place.

ideology: A comprehensive system of beliefs and ideas about the nature of things (e.g., Puritanism or Nazism). Adherents of an ideology may be unconscious that they follow it. What they believe and how they believe it seems simply common sense.

impersonal narration: Narration whose narrator did not participate in the events of the story‑world and who tells or shows the story from a vantage point outside that world.

implied author: The creator presupposed by the narrative itself. The implied author is the source of our sense of the fiction's underlying values and beliefs—its ideology. The values of the narrator usually correspond to those of the implied author, but in "unreliable narration" they do not. The implied author may or may not resemble the real author (Booth).

implied reader: Sometimes referred to as the "imagined" reader, the "informed" reader, or the "ideal" reader, the implied reader is that presupposed by the narrative itself. For example, a narrative condemning racial discrimination implies a reader who believes in equality among the races. The implied reader is also the audience of the implied author. 

in media res: Latin for “in the middle”; in narrative, a text that begins "in the middle of things," foregoing traditional exposition, and includes flashbacks to earlier events in the story.

indeterminacies: The details left out of a text that readers must supply for themselves to make sense of the narrative.

indirect discourse: (Also called "report") One of four main types of narrative communication, indirect discourse is the citation of a character's speech or thought without quotation marks (thus "He wondered if he would see Jane" is the indirect discourse form of "He wondered 'Will I see Jane?"').

informant: A type of narrative data that provides "immediate signification," such as names of places, characters, characters' professions, etc.  For example, in David Lean's Great Expectations, most informants are transferred from the novel to the film: e.g. names of places ("Satis House," the "Barnard Inn") and characters ("Pip," "Mrs. Havisham," "The Pale Young Genteleman") are retained, as are characters' professions (Jaggers: lawyer, Wemmick: clerk, Joe: blacksmith) and other data (Mrs. Havisham's clocks are stopped at 20 of nine.)  But in Alfonso Cuaron's 1998 version, only a few informants (e.g. "Estella") are transferred.  Transfer of informants suggests a step towards mimesis in adaptation.

inner view: The narrator's access to the character's consciousness.

inquit: The Latin word for the "tag" of indirect quotation: "He replied" and "she won­dered " are inquits.

intercutting: Editing that alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously. Used synonymously with "crosscutting."

internal narrator: A narrator who previously participated in the plot as one of the characters. He or she may have been either the protagonist or a secondary character, or "witness‑narrator."

intrusive narrator: A narrator who interrupts the direct discourse of the narrative's characters (a narrative metalepsis); a narrator who passes judgment over his/her characters.

inverted narrative order: An order in which the discourse presents the story in an order different from that followed by the story‑events themselves. "Flashback" is an example.

irony: (1) Situational irony: events seem to conspire against expectations; (2) verbal irony: the underlying inten­tion of a remark is quite different from, perhaps even the opposite of, its literal meaning; (3) dramatic irony: readers/viewers are aware that what a character says or believes is not “the way things really are.” 

jump cut: An elliptical cut that appears to be an interruption of a single shot. Either the figures seem to change instantly against a constant background or the background changes instantly while the figures remain constant.

leitmotif: In film, a repeated spoken phrase, or melody, or effect, that is both associated with a single character and descriptive of that character.  The use of leitmotif as a method of characterization in the silent era, as the organist played a different melody for each major character, but its use is still common today.

limited filter: In a written text, the narrator's power to enter minds is limited to a single (or a few) character(s). Limited filter is a contrast to omniscience, where the narrator can enter the mind of any or all characters.  (The phrase "limited omniscience" is sometimes used to describe "limited filter," yet many scholars think the phrase "limited omniscience" an oxymoron.)

linearity: In a narrative, the clear motivation of a series of causes and effects that progress without significant digressions, de­lays, or irrelevant interpolations.

long shot: In film, a framing in which the scale of the object shown is small. A standing human figure would appear less than the height of the screen.

long take: In film, an uninterrupted shot that continues for an unusually lengthy time. Rare in silent cinema, the long take became more significant in the late 1930s and 1940s, especially as used by Jean Renoir and Orson Welles. It soon became a common technique in films throughout the world.

match on action: A continuity cut which joins two shots of the same gesture, making it appear to continue uninterrupted.

medium shot: A training in which the scale of the object shown is of moderate size. A human figure seen from the waist up would fill most of the screen.

medium: That form in which a narrative is presented, whether in film, literary fiction, staged drama, or another (such as radio or television production).  Each medium has its own system and codes of narration.

metafiction: A fiction that raises questions about its own structure and therefore, implicitly or explicitly, about the basic conventions of narrative.

metalepsis: An intrusion from one narrative level into another, which serves to make the reader conscious of the various narrative levels and the fictionality of the discourse.

mimesis: Imitation of life. Generally associated with "showing," mimesis attempts to "render" or "present" the reality of a story-world, in contrast to diegesis, which suggests that the story-world is — through narrative devices — being "told."  (Note: contemporary theorists now suggest, in contrast to Henry James, that mimesis is more or less impossible in written narration, and that all that is possible is different degrees of diegesis.)

mimetic: Imitative, particularly of real life. A character's mimetic functions lead the reader to view him or her as lifelike.

mise‑en‑scene: All the elements placed in front of the camera to be photographed: the settings and props, lighting, costumes and make‑up, and figure behavior.

montage: A segment of a film that summarizes a topic or compresses a passage of time into brief symbolic or typical images. Frequently dissolves, fades, superimpositions, and wipes are used to link the shots in a montage sequence.

motif: An element in a film or story that is repeated in a significant way.

motivation: The reasons, whether presented explicitly or implicitly, for a character's behavior.

narratee: The audience to whom the narrator addresses the narrative. Narratees may be named and active personages (see Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing"), but often they are only implicit.

narration: (1) The sum of narrative strategies by which the narrative is presented and received, including the choice of narrator, order of events, method of narration, etc. (also called enunciation  by McFarlane); (2) the specific and identifiable act of narration itself, as it occurs in a set time and place and occurs via some mode of communication.

narrative: A kind of text composed of events, characters, and settings. Unlike argument and description, narrative possesses a double time order: the time of the events narrated (story-time) and the time that it takes to narrate those events (discourse-time).  Almost since its inception, the cinema has made narrative its dominant pattern.

narrativity: A text's narrativity is the result of its narrative indeterminacies. It must possess neither too much detail (being too writerly a text), which will bore and/or alienate the reader, nor too little detail (being too readerly a text), which will require that the reader "invent" his/her own narrative in an effort at coherence. Robert Scholes defines narrativity as "the process by which a perceiver actively constructs a story from the fictional data provided by the narrative medium."

narrator: The agent who communicates—by "telling" or "showing"—the story.

narrator‑I: In first‑person or internal narration in which a (former) character tells his or her own story, narrator‑I is the term referring to the character in his or her capacity as narrator, telling or showing the story "now," in the discourse.

nondiegetic sound: Sound, such as mood music or a narrator's commentary, represented as coming from a source outside the world of the narrative (the "diegesis").

normal lens: A lens that shows objects without severely exag­gerating or reducing the depth of the scene's planes. In the­atrical filmmaking, a normal lens is 35mm to 50mm.

novelization: An adaptation, in written fictional form, of (usually) a film (or, less usually, of a comic book, television show, or video game); the process of novelization inverts the typical sequence of cinematic adaptation, where a written novel or story is considered potential source material for a film.

objective: In film, a camera perspective that is presented with a normal lens, at medium-to-long distance, and with a minimum of camera movement, displaying a pretense of objectivity (a static camera simply "recording" an objective reality).  Opposed to a subjective perspective, where the camera is either (a) "identified" with the perspective of a character via point-of-view shots, or (b) so dynamic in terms of angle, movement, and distance as to preclude any pretense toward objectivity.

omniscience: A narrative technique in which the narrator can report what is going on in the mind of any character at any time.

order: Along with duration and frequency, one of three possible relationships between story and discourse.  Order is the time relation between story and discourse that concerns its sequential aspect. In normal order, the sequence of the telling of the events corresponds exactly to the sequence in which the events occurred in the story. In "inverted narrative order"—for example, in a flashback—there is a disparity.

pan: A camera movement in which the camera body swivels to the right or left. The onscreen effect is of scanning the space horizontally.

pan-and-zoom technique: A way of substituting for cutting into and out of a scene; continuous pans and zooms concentrate attention on significant aspects of a scene. Often the pan‑and‑zoom technique enables the director to create a long take. See also zoom lens.

paraphrase: A summary of a fictional narrative, presented in brief form and ordinary (non-literary) language.  Because a it presents only the basic elements of the narrative (e.g. setting and atmosphere, cardinal and character functions), a paraphrase is often a purposeful first step in studying adaptation.

pause: One of the five durational relationships between story and discourse. The story stops for a moment as the narrator describes or comments on events, characters, themes, or anything that concerns him or her. When the story-events resume, no "story-time" has elapsed. (In film, the equivalent of pause is perhaps the hardest of the durational relationships to convey, though since The Matrix the effect has become more widely used).

personal narration: Narration in which the narrator seems to have a recognizable personality.

plot: The connected series of events that constitutes the narrative. In traditional plots, the basis of connection is "causation."

point: The consequence of the narrative, the reason that it gets told. Point is not the same thing as "theme." "Point" concerns only the fiction, whereas "theme" goes beyond the fiction, implying something about the real world.

point-of-view (POV) shot: A shot taken with the camera placed approximately where a character's eyes would be, showing what the character would see. A POV shot is usually preceded or followed by a shot of the character looking.

privilege: What the narrator can tell. Some narrators (omniscience) can invade the consciousness of every character in the text; others may be re­stricted (limited filter) to what a single character knows and feels, or even to what a camera‑eye might see and hear (Booth).

prolepsis: A segment of narrative future intruded into the present; a flashforward or foreshadowing. In written narratives, prolepsis is most common in first-person (internal) narration.

props: Objects in the setting.

protagonist: The leading character of a narrative.

rack focus: In film, shifting the area of sharp focus from one plane to another during a shot.

readerly text: A text in which the reader constructs coherent meaning by bringing outside knowledge into the reading process (Barthes).

real author: The historical person who actually wrote the fiction—distinguished from implied author.

real reader: The actual person engaged as reading the text—distinguished from implied reader.

reestablishing shot: In film, a return to a view of an entire space after a series of closer shots following the establishing shot.

reframing: In film, using short pan or tilt movements of the camera to keep figures onscreen or centered.

report (indirect discourse): One of four types of narrative communication, report (also known as indirect discourse) is an account of a different character's thoughts cast in the narrator's diction. Report differs from free indirect discourse in that in report, the diction is clearly the narrator's, while in free indirect discourse, there exists ambiguity as to whether the diction is that of the narrator or that of the character.

round character: A character who has many traits, some of which may even be mutually contradictory. (Hamlet is perhaps literature's "roundest" character).

scene: (1) One of the five durational relationships between story and discourse. The telling or showing of the story-event lasts approximately as long as the event lasts.  (In film, "scene" is the most common or normal of durational relationships, though summary can be shown through montage, ellipsis through fade-in/fade-out.) (2) In film, a set of shots taking place in a single setting in a specific time.  A narrative is composed of a sequence of scenes.

screen direction: In film, the right-left relationships in a scene, set up in an establishing shot and determined by the position of characters and objects in the frame, the directions of movement, and the characters' eyelines. Continuity editing attempts to keep screen direction consistent between shots.

setting: The space in which the story-events occur. Setting consists of background and "props." 

showing: Narrating the events in such a way as to make them seem to be "just happening by themselves."

shallow focus: In film, a restricted depth of field, which keeps only those planes close to the camera in sharp focus; the opposite of deep focus.

shallow space: In film, an arrangement in which the action is staged with relatively little depth; the opposite of deep space.

shot/reverse shot: In film, two or more shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a conversation situation. In continuity editing, characters in one framing usually took left, in the other framing, right. Over‑the‑shoulder framings are common in shot/reverse‑shot editing.

shot: (1) In shooting, one uninterrupted run of the camera to expose a series of frames. Also called a take. (2) In the finished film. one uninterrupted image with a single static or mobile framing.

skaz: A written narrative with the characteristics of oral narrative (e.g. Huckleberry Finn).

slant: The perspective or angle—moral, intellectual, emotional—from which the narrator presents the story. For example, a narrator may be very sympathetic or very indifferent to the fate of the characters.

static character: A character who does not change over the course of the story. story: that part of the narrative that is told or shown. It is constituted by the whole set of events, characters, and settings.

story: The events of a narrative; what happens, as opposed to the way it is told ("discourse").

storyboard: A tool used in planning film production, consisting of comic-strip-like drawings of individual shots, with descriptions written below each drawing.

story-time: The time it takes for the story-events to occur. In Citizen Kane, story-time is approximately 65 years (although the discourse-time is only two hours).  In Great Expectations, story-time is approximately 27 years (and the discourse-time perhaps 12 hours or so).

stream of consciousness: A narrational technique that attempts to approximate the flow (jumble, play, images) of mental and sensory impressions that pass through the mind. These impressions are often ungrammatical, and they may appear incoherent, choppy, or fragmented. This lack of coherence should not imply sloppiness or randomness, but instead it should suggest a narrational mode that is intensely subjective. Unlike epistolary narration, which can also be intensely subjective, there is no narratee -- no actual audience for the flow of information. Both epistolary and stream-of-consciousness narration are carefully constructed narrational devices intended to reveal characteristics and events of a single mind or life.

stretch: (1) One of the five durational relationships between story and discourse. The telling or showing of the story-event lasts longer than the story-event lasts.  (In film, "stretch" is most commonly shown via slow-motion.) 

subjective: (1) In film, a camera perspective that is identified with the perspective of a character via point-of-view shots. (2) A perspective that is so dynamic in terms of angle, movement, and distance as to preclude any pretense toward objectivity, despite not being identified with the point of view of any person (e.g. the opening shot of Rear Window).  It is generally thought that film cannot render the purely subjective point of view of the literary first-person narrator, as the camera can neither sustain a point-of-view shot for an extended period nor imply that the point-of-view shots are somehow shaped by the narrator's perspective.

summary: One of the five durational relationships between story and discourse. In summary, discourse statements are much shorter than the events that they narrate; for example, "the war lasted for thirty years."  In film, summary can be presented by montage.

surprise ending: A twist ending, in which the last event is totally, and usually ironi­cally, unexpected. suspense: a particularly intense kind of narrative curiosity, often because one of the possible outcomes of the present situation endangers the character with whom the reader identifies.

symbol: Something that is itself and also stands for something else—as a flag is a piece of colored cloth that stands for country.  Some symbols are universal or cultural: flags, water, plants, certain colors.  Others are more specific to a certain context.  (For instance, in Do the Right Thing, a Brooklyn Dodgers home jersey with number 42—the white jersey with red and blue trim worn by Jackie Robinson, the first black to play baseball in the major leagues—can represent both a history of racial oppression and an instance of historic integration.)  Finally, some symbols acquire meaning only within the story itself; outside the story, they do not convey the same meaning.  These symbols accumulate their meaning through repetition, through the value placed on an object or action by a character, or through their comparison with other objects, actions, or events.

tag: A phrase such as "he said" or "she thought" that marks a given phrase as a quotation of a character's speech or thought.

take: In filmmaking, the shot produced by one uninterrupted run of the camera. One shot in the final film may be chosen from among several takes of the same action.

telephoto lens: A lens of long focal length that affects a scene's perspective by enlarging distant planes and making then) seem close to the foreground planes. In 35mm filming, a telephoto lens is 75mm or more in length. See also normal lens, wide-angle lens.

telling: Narration in which the "voice" of a narrator seems clearly audible (as opposed to "showing").

temporal distance: An important element of time in literature, and one of a number of ways in which the "narrator-I" may differ from the "character-I."  Temporal distance describes the time between the moment of narration and the events being narrated.  In Great Expectations, given that its contemporary readers would have assumed that the narration was itself taking place at about the time of publication (1860-61), and given that the events of the narrative begin about 1806, the temporal distance is approximately 55 years at the novel's start, and less by half, approximately 27 or 28 years, by its end.

theme: An assertion or argument about the real world that, in narrative fiction, is communicated by means of fictional events and characters. themes do not retell the story (as does a paraphrase); themes typically express ideas more broadly than the specifics of the story. As themes attempt to interpret (possible) meanings, rather than evaluate quality or summarize events, they may be numerous (especially in modern fiction), and they are and usually arguable.

thesis: A single, unambiguous theme about the real world, as expressed in a fable or parable: e.g.  slow and steady wins the race is the thesis of the fable "The Tortoise and the Hare."

third-person: In literature, a type of narration in which the narrator does not appear as a character in the narrative.  Third-person narration often includes a degree of filter, which limits the narrator's knowledge or perspective to that of one (or more) character(s). By definition, third-person narration may be authorial, but it is always impersonal rather than personal.

tilt: In film, a camera movement in which the camera body swivels upward or downward on a stationary support. It produces a mobile framing that scans the space vertically.

tracking shot: In film, a camera movement in which the camera body moves through space in a horizontal path. On the screen, it produces a mobile framing that travels through space forward, backward, or to one side.

trait: A physical, psychological, or moral quality of a character.

transfer: The process by which elements of a written narrative may be presented in film: according to McFarlane, cardinal functions and character functions of a written narrative may transfer to film, but other elements—particularly the narration itself—require adaptation. 

transposition: One of three types of adaptation, according to Wagner, a transposition attempts to present its source directly onscreen with a minimum of interference or change. Lean's Great Expectations and Bogdanovich's Daisy Miller both serve as examples of transposition.

unreliable narration: A narration that seems suspicious or otherwise at odds with what really happened in the story as the reader infers it.

unreliable narrator: A narrator whose statements of fact or (more frequently) moral and aes­thetic judgments differ from those of the implied author.

verisimilitude: A narrative's rendering or representation of "truth" or "reality" in a fictional text.

viewer: The actual person who views the film. Just as scholars disagree over whether film has a "narrator" in the literary sense, so too do they disagree over whether the distinction between "implied reader" and "real reader" has an analogue in film.

whip pan: An extremely fast movement of the camera from side to side, which causes the image to blur briefly into a set of indistinct horizontal lines (sometimes called a "flash pan").

wide‑angle lens: A lens of short focal length that affects a scene's perspective by bulging straight lines near the edges of the frame and exaggerating the distance between foreground and background planes. In 35mm filming, a wide‑angle lens is 30mm or less.

widescreen formats: Screen ratios wider than the Academy ra­tio, which is standardized at 1.33:1 (or 4:3) in the United States. Im­portant widescreen formats are the U.S. standard of 1.85:1 (or 16:9) and the CinemaScope and anamorphic Panavision ratio of 2.35:1.

wipe: In film, a transition between shots in which a line passes across the screen, gradually eliminating the first shot and replacing it with the next one.

witness‑narrator: An internal I‑narrator who is not the protagonist.

writerly text: A text that possesses so many narrative gaps that the reader must "write" his/her own story to make sense of the narrative (Barthes).

zoom lens: A lens with a focal length that can be changed during a shot. A shift toward the telephoto range (zoom‑in) enlarges the central portions of the image and flattens its planes to­gether. A shift toward the wide‑angle range (zoom‑out) de-enlarges the central portions of the image and separates planes more.

definitions culled in part from Chatman, Reading Narrative Fiction; Bordwell/Thompson, Film History; and Richter, Narrative/Theory