Screenplay and Narrative Theory: The Screenplectics Model of Complex Narrative Systems

151 Pages·2015·1.32 MB·English

by  George Varotsis

Screenplay and
Narrative Theory

Screenplay and
Narrative Theory
The Screenplectics Model of
Complex Narrative Systems
George Varotsis
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2015949338
ISBN: 978-1-4985-0441-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
eISBN: 978-1-4985-0442-3
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To Boubou Xanel
simply because I cannot describe in words how much I love you

Contents
1 Structural Analysis of Narrative Systems 1
2 Universality of Structural Patterns 15
3 Complex Narrative Systems 35
4 Narrative Logic and Parameterization 57
5 Cognitive Aspects of the Story-World Configuration 69
6 Narrative Causality 85
7 The Plot-algorithmic Process 103
Epilogue 119
Bibliography 125
Index 131
About the Author 141
vii

Chapter 1
Structural Analysis of
Narrative Systems
The NArrATive LANdSCApe of SCreeNpLeCTiCS
As a professional discipline, screenwriting has come a long way since
the first motion picture was projected on April 23, 1896. In the dawn
of the cinema era, screenwriters were refused the appropriate credibility
almost to the point of violent devaluation of their screenwriting craft
mainly because cinema at large was fascinated with the authorship of film
directors. This form of neglection resulted in screenwriting to be excluded
from theoretical studies in academic disciplines such as narrative theory
and film theory. Though Aristotle was the first to investigate the early
notions of the narrative form, the advancement of the theoretical aspects
of screenwriting, as a form of narrative expression, was limited to the
necessary transformations from silent cinema to the present-day motion
pictures, and the attempts of popularized “how-to” techniques such as
Syd Field’s (Field 2003; 1984a; 1984b), Robert McKee’s (McKee 1999)
and Linda Seger’s (Seger 1994) to further investigate the field. Although
these approaches derive from professional practice they were based on
internalized rules-of-thumb drawn from purely inductive interpretations
of existing screenplays but were lacking deeper empirical, but most
importantly, theoretical justification.
Such analyses, however successful they may have been in the nurturing of
new writers, failed to provide answers on two troubling fundamental ques-
tions: first, how or what makes stories emerge in the context of narrative, and
second, what are the underlying dynamics and mechanics that allow a screen-
play to function as a unified whole? The epithet whole implies a network of
factors and parameters that are used in conjunction for the formulation of
a theoretical landscape of logical and structural principles with universal
1