Narrative Item

A Narrative Item is a content unit that presents a sequential account of related events, experiences, or scenarios (either real or imagined) to convey meaning, entertainment, or information.

• AKA: Story, Narrative Sequence, Narrative Structure.
• Context:
  • It can typically be created by a Story Telling System.
  • It can typically involve a sequence of events, ideas, or scenarios.
  • It can transmit Knowledge through experiential framing and memorable sequences.
  • It can engage Audience Attention through conflict presentation and resolution process.
  • It can develop Character Dynamics through personality traits and relational interactions.
  • It can improve Concept Understanding through narrative concrete instantiation and abstract concept personification.
  • It can activate Empathy Neural Circuits through narrative perspective-taking and character emotional mirroring.
  • ...
  • It can often refer to a Narrative Element such as character, plot, setting, or theme.
  • It can often have a Narrative Beginning, a Narrative Middle, and a Narrative End.
  • It can often establish Causal Relationships through event connections and consequence establishment.
  • ...
  • It can range from being a Short Narrative to being a Long Narrative, depending on its content scope.
    • It can range from being a Microfiction Narrative to being a Novella Narrative, depending on its narrative length classification.
    • It can range from being a Single-Scene Narrative to being a Multi-Scene Narrative, depending on its narrative structural division.
  • It can range from being a Simple Narrative to being a Complex Narrative, depending on its structural complexity.
    • It can range from being a Linear Narrative to being a Nonlinear Narrative, depending on its chronological arrangement.
    • It can range from being a Fast-Paced Narrative to being a Slow-Paced Narrative, depending on its narrative temporal density.
    • It can range from being a Self-Contained Narrative to being an Intertextual Narrative, depending on its narrative reference framework.
    • It can range from being a Conventional Narrative to being an Experimental Narrative, depending on its narrative structural conformity.
    • It can range from being a Linguistically Simple Narrative to being a Linguistically Complex Narrative, depending on its narrative language accessibility.
  • It can range from being a Mental Narrative to being an Uttered Narrative, depending on its expression mode.
    • It can range from being an Unrecorded Narrative to being a Recorded Narrative, depending on its preservation method.
      • It can range from being an Oral Tradition Narrative to being a Written Tradition Narrative, depending on its narrative transmission method.
    • It can range from being a Private Thought Narrative to being a Shared Thought Narrative, depending on its narrative accessibility scope.
  • It can range from being a Linguistic Narrative to being a Visual Narrative, depending on its communication medium.
    • It can range from being a Unimodal Narrative to being a Multimodal Narrative, depending on its narrative sensory engagement diversity.
    • It can range from being a Text-Based Narrative to being a Image-Based Narrative, depending on its narrative primary encoding format.
  • It can range from being a Fictional Narrative to being a Non-Fictional Narrative, depending on its factual basis.
    • It can range from being a Mimetic Narrative to being an Allegorical Narrative, depending on its narrative reality relationship.
    • It can range from being a Fantasy Narrative to being a Realistic Fiction Narrative, depending on its narrative world-building approach.
  • It can range from being a Concrete Narrative to being an Abstract Narrative, depending on its representation level.
    • It can range from being a Physically-Grounded Narrative to being a Conceptually-Grounded Narrative, depending on its narrative tangibility.
    • It can range from being a Specific-Instance Narrative to being a Universal-Concept Narrative, depending on its narrative abstraction level.
  • It can range from being a Single-Perspective Narrative to being a Multiple-Perspective Narrative, depending on its viewpoint diversity.
    • It can range from being a Monologic Narrative to being a Dialogic Narrative, depending on its voice structure.
    • It can range from being a Reliable Narrative to being an Unreliable Narrative, depending on its narrative narrator trustworthiness.
  • It can range from being a Character-Focused Narrative to being a Plot-Focused Narrative, depending on its narrative emphasis.
    • It can range from being a Character Development Narrative to being a Character Ensemble Narrative, depending on its narrative character complexity.
    • It can range from being a Plot-Action Narrative to being a Plot-Contemplation Narrative, depending on its narrative plot movement.
  • It can range from being a Culturally Universal Narrative to being a Culturally Specific Narrative, depending on its narrative cultural particularity.
    • It can range from being a Western Narrative to being a Non-Western Narrative, depending on its cultural origin.
    • It can range from being a Cross-Cultural Narrative to being a Culture-Specific Narrative, depending on its narrative cultural boundary.
  • It can range from being a Child-Oriented Narrative to being an Adult-Oriented Narrative, depending on its narrative audience maturity targeting.
    • It can range from being a Children's Educational Narrative to being a Children's Entertainment Narrative, depending on its narrative child-focused purpose.
    • It can range from being an Young Adult Transitional Narrative to being an Mature Content Narrative, depending on its narrative maturity level.
  • It can range from being a Passive Narrative to being an Interactive Narrative, depending on its narrative audience engagement level.
    • It can range from being a Reception-Only Narrative to being a Participation-Enabled Narrative, depending on its narrative audience role.
    • It can range from being a Fixed-Path Interactive Narrative to being an Open-World Interactive Narrative, depending on its narrative choice freedom.
  • It can range from being an Open-Ended Narrative to being a Conclusive Narrative, depending on its narrative resolution completeness.
    • It can range from being an Ambiguous Ending Narrative to being a Cliffhanger Narrative, depending on its narrative continuation approach.
    • It can range from being a Partially Resolved Narrative to being a Fully Resolved Narrative, depending on its narrative plotline closure.
  • It can range from being a Human-Authored Narrative to being an AI-Authored Narrative, depending on its narrative creative origin.
    • It can range from being an Human-to-Human Narrative to being an Human-to-AI Narrative to being an AI-to-Human Narrative to being an AI-to-AI Narrative, depending on its narrative intended audience comprehension framework.
    • It can range from being a Human-Edited AI Narrative to being an Autonomous AI Narrative, depending on its narrative creative supervision.
  • It can range from being a Didactic Narrative to being an Aesthetic Narrative, depending on its narrative authorial intent.
    • It can range from being an Explicitly Instructional Narrative to being an Implicitly Instructional Narrative, depending on its narrative teaching directness.
    • It can range from being a Knowledge-Transfer Narrative to being an Experience-Transfer Narrative, depending on its narrative learning mechanism.
  • It can range from being a Tragic Narrative to being a Comic Narrative, depending on its narrative emotional tone.
    • It can range from being a Darkly Tragic Narrative to being a Wistfully Tragic Narrative, depending on its narrative tragic inflection.
    • It can range from being a Satirical Comic Narrative to being a Farcical Comic Narrative, depending on its narrative comedic approach.
  • It can range from being a Genre-Specific Narrative to being a Genre-Transcendent Narrative, depending on its narrative genre adherence.
    • It can range from being a Genre-Pure Narrative to being a Genre-Hybrid Narrative, depending on its narrative genre mixing.
    • It can range from being a Genre-Conforming Narrative to being a Genre-Subversive Narrative, depending on its narrative genre expectation alignment.
  • It can range from being a Culturally-Bound Narrative to being a Culturally-Transcendent Narrative, depending on its narrative cultural specificity.
    • It can range from being a Cultural Symbol-Dense Narrative to being a Cultural Symbol-Sparse Narrative, depending on its narrative cultural reference density.
    • It can range from being a Culture-Specific Value Narrative to being a Universal Value Narrative, depending on its narrative ethical framework transferability.
  • It can range from being a Past-Oriented Narrative to being a Future-Oriented Narrative, depending on its narrative temporal focus.
    • It can range from being a Historical Record Narrative to being a Memory Narrative, depending on its narrative past documentation approach.
    • It can range from being a Near-Future Speculative Narrative to being a Far-Future Speculative Narrative, depending on its narrative future projection distance.
  • It can range from being a Literal Narrative to being a Metaphorical Narrative, depending on its narrative figurative density.
    • It can range from being a Factually Direct Narrative to being a Symbolically Encoded Narrative, depending on its narrative representational approach.
    • It can range from being a Single-Layer Meaning Narrative to being a Multi-Layer Meaning Narrative, depending on its narrative interpretive depth.
  • It can range from being a Sensory-Rich Narrative to being a Conceptually-Rich Narrative, depending on its narrative experiential emphasis.
    • It can range from being a Visual-Detail Dominant Narrative to being an Auditory-Detail Dominant Narrative, depending on its narrative sensory modality emphasis.
    • It can range from being a Physical-Experience Narrative to being an Abstract-Experience Narrative, depending on its narrative experiential nature.
  • It can range from being a Cognitively Accessible Narrative to being a Cognitively Demanding Narrative, depending on its narrative comprehension requirement.
    • It can range from being a Straightforward Comprehension Narrative to being a Inference-Required Narrative, depending on its narrative cognitive processing demand.
    • It can range from being a Common-Knowledge Narrative to being a Specialized-Knowledge Narrative, depending on its narrative prerequisite information requirement.
  • It can range from being a Documentation-Centered Narrative to being an Interpretation-Centered Narrative, depending on its narrative factual emphasis.
    • It can range from being a Fact-Focused Documentary Narrative to being a Fact-Contextualizing Documentary Narrative, depending on its narrative factual presentation approach.
    • It can range from being a Minimally Interpreted Narrative to being a Heavily Interpreted Narrative, depending on its narrative interpretive layer presence.
  • ...
  • It can create Narrative Coherence through logical progression and thematic unity.
  • It can incorporate Conflict Types such as character versus character, character versus self, or character versus environment.
  • It can utilize Narrative Perspectives such as first-person narration, third-person limited, or omniscient viewpoint.
  • It can contribute to Identity Formation through personal narrative construction and autobiographical memory.
  • It can reflect Worldviews through perspective embedding and value propositions.
  • It can evoke Emotional Responses through character identification and dramatic tension.
  • It can evoke Intellectual Responses through thematic exploration and conceptual challenge.
  • ...
• Examples:
  • by Narrative Works (that are intentionally crafted for artistic or communicative purposes), such as:
    • Literature Narratives, such as:
      • Novels, such as:
        • Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace", which is a historical epic that interweaves the lives of multiple aristocrats and commoners against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, exploring themes of war, peace, love, and society in 19th century Russia.
        • George Orwell's "1984", which is a dystopian narrative that presents a totalitarian society through the experiences of Winston Smith, serving as both political critique and warning narrative about social control.
      • Short Narratives, such as:
        • Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", which is a dark allegory set in a small American town, where a seemingly ordinary village tradition culminates in a shocking and brutal act of violence, revealing the hidden cruelty and conformity in human society.
      • Biographys, such as:
        • Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, which is a detailed biography chronicling the life of Nelson Mandela, from his early childhood and activism against apartheid in South Africa to his 27 years in prison and eventual election as the first black President of South Africa.
        • The Diary of Anne Frank, which is a firsthand account of a young Jewish girl's experiences hiding from the Nazis during World War II in occupied Netherlands, providing an intimate glimpse into the horrors of the Holocaust and the resilience of the human spirit.
      • ...
    • Visual Entertainment Narratives, such as:
      • Comic Strips, such as:
        • Gary Larson's "The Far Side", which are single-panel comics that feature bizarre and witty captions, often involving talking animals or eccentric people, offering a satirical take on everyday events and human behavior.
      • Stand-Up Comedys, such as:
        • George Carlin's Routines, which are live comedy acts that blend biting observations on politics, religion, and social norms, delivered with ironic humor and a cynical edge.
      • Sitcoms, such as:
        • Friends Episodes, which are episodic stories centered around a close-knit group of friends living in Manhattan, where humorous situations often arise from their interpersonal relationships.
      • ...
    • Film Narratives, such as:
      • Historical Dramas, such as:
        • Schindler's List, which is a historical motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg, telling the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved over a thousand Jewish lives during the Holocaust.
      • Documentarys, such as:
        • Video Days (1991), which is a skateboarding short subculture avant-garde documentary video directed by Spike Jonze, capturing youth culture in early 1990s Los Angeles.
      • Animation Narratives, such as:
        • Pixar's "Up", which is an animated emotional adventure that begins with a poignant montage showing a couple's life together, before transitioning to a fantastical adventure with a house carried by balloons.
        • Studio Ghibli's "Spirited Away", which is a Japanese coming-of-age fantasy following a young girl's journey through a magical realm, exploring themes of identity, courage, and environmental respect.
      • ...
    • Musical Narratives, such as:
      • Story Songs, such as:
        • Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", which is a balladic narrative recounting the tragic sinking of the Great Lakes freighter, poignantly depicting the fate of the crew.
      • Concept Albums, such as:
        • Pink Floyd's "The Wall", which is a rock opera following the psychological journey of a fictional troubled protagonist through childhood to breakdown and redemption.
      • Musical Theaters, such as:
        • Hamilton, which is a historical theatrical retelling of founding father Alexander Hamilton's life through contemporary hip-hop and musical techniques.
      • ...
    • Game Narratives, such as:
      • Role-Playing Games, such as:
        • "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim", which is an open-world role-playing game that allows players to explore a vast fantasy world with multiple interwoven storylines.
      • Interactive Storys, such as:
        • "The Walking Dead" video game series, which is a choice-based interactive adventure, where players' decisions directly influence the development and outcome.
      • Tabletop RPG Campaigns, such as:
        • Dungeons & Dragons Campaigns, which are collaborative improvised adventures where a dungeon master guides players through a shared world, with outcomes determined by player decisions and dice rolls.
      • ...
    • AI-Generated Narratives, such as:
      • Computer-Generated Fiction, which is synthetic storytelling created through language models and narrative generation systems.
      • Interactive AI Storytelling, which is adaptive narrative that responds to user inputs and preferences in real-time.
      • AI-Human Collaborative Writing, which combines human creativity with machine suggestions to create hybrid narratives.
      • AI-to-AI Story Exchange Systems, which enable autonomous narrative agents to develop shared fictional universes through iterative storytelling protocols.
      • AI Dream Narratives, which are coherent narratives constructed from neural network patterns during computational sleep states.
      • Cross-Entity Collaborative Storytelling, which involves multi-agent narrative development across human-AI teams working on shared creative goals.
      • LLM Chain-of-Thought Narratives, which externalize reasoning processes through sequential explanation steps to improve human understanding of AI decision-making.
      • ...
  • by Social Narratives (that emerge from and shape collective understanding), such as:
    • Power Narratives, such as:
      • State Narratives, such as:
        • National Identity Narratives, such as:
          • American Dream Narrative like Horatio Alger Stories, which are success narratives that promote the idea of social mobility through hard work and moral virtue, shaping American cultural values and social aspirations.
          • Manifest Destiny Narrative like John L. O'Sullivan's "Great Nation of Futurity" (1839), which is a territorial expansion narrative that justified American westward expansion through claims of divine providence and civilizing missions.
      • Political Legitimacy Narratives, such as:
        • Democratic Values Narrative like FDR's "Four Freedoms" Speech, which is a governance narrative that articulated fundamental rights to justify American involvement in World War II.
        • National Security Narrative like Cold War Containment, which is a policy narrative that shaped American foreign policy through threat perception and strategic response.
      • ...
    • Cultural Memory Narratives, such as:
      • War Memory Narratives, such as:
        • World War II Narratives, such as:
          • Greatest Generation Narrative like Tom Brokaw's Book, which is a collective memory shaping how Americans understand the wartime experience and post-war prosperity.
          • Holocaust Memory Narrative like Survivor Testimonies, which form a collective testament to human suffering and resilience.
      • Social Movement Narratives, such as:
        • Civil Rights Narratives, such as:
          • Dream Speech Narrative like Martin Luther King Jr.'s Address, which is a rhetorical narrative articulating racial equality and social justice vision.
          • Rosa Parks Narrative, which is a resistance narrative demonstrating the power of individual action and collective resistance.
      • ...
    • Identity Narratives, such as:
      • Ethnic Identity Narratives, such as:
        • Migration Narratives, such as:
          • Ellis Island Stories, which are immigrant experience narratives shaping American identity and cultural memory.
          • Underground Railroad Narratives, which are resistance stories about escape from slavery and pursuit of freedom.
      • Professional Identity Narratives, such as:
        • Medical Narratives, such as:
          • Hippocratic Tradition, which is a professional ethic narrative about medical duty and patient care.
          • Modern Medicine Narrative, which is a scientific progress story about medical advancement and healing practice.
      • Gender Identity Narratives, such as:
        • Feminist Narratives, such as women's suffrage stories, which chronicle the political struggle for voting rights and gender equality.
        • LGBTQ+ Narratives, such as coming out stories, which document personal journeys of self-discovery and identity affirmation.
      • ...
    • Mental Narratives, such as:
      • Personal Mental Narratives, such as:
        • Daydream Narrative where someone imagines achieving a significant life goal, such as owning a home or winning an award.
        • Anticipatory Mental Narrative where someone imagines the sequence leading up to an upcoming event.
      • Group Mental Narratives, such as:
        • Collective Memory Narratives, such as shared remembrance of historical events or cultural traditions.
        • Shared Future Narratives, such as common visions of societal progress or technological advancement.
      • ...
    • Belief System Narratives, such as:
      • Religious Narratives, such as:
        • Creation Narratives, such as:
          • Genesis Story, which is a foundational narrative explaining the origin of existence and human purpose in Abrahamic traditions.
          • Dreamtime Stories, which are Aboriginal Australian creation narratives explaining the formation of landscapes and natural phenomena.
        • Salvation Narratives, such as:
          • Buddhist Enlightenment Story, which is a spiritual journey narrative about Buddha's path from princely life to enlightenment.
          • Christian Redemption Narrative, which is a theological story about human salvation through divine intervention.
      • ...
    • Institutional Narratives, such as:
      • Organizational Storys, such as:
        • Corporate Narratives, such as:
          • Apple Origin Story about Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in a garage, which shapes Silicon Valley entrepreneurial culture.
          • Google's "Don't Be Evil" Narrative, which is a corporate ethics story about tech responsibility and company values.
        • Educational Narratives, such as:
          • Liberal Arts Education Story, which is an educational philosophy about holistic learning and intellectual development.
          • STEM Education Narrative, which is a modern education story about technological progress and economic competitiveness.
      • ...
    • Scientific Narratives, such as:
      • Progress Narratives, such as:
        • Evolutionary Theory Story, which is a scientific narrative about the development of life and natural selection.
        • Big Bang Narrative, which is a cosmological story about the origin of universe and cosmic evolution.
      • Discovery Narratives, such as:
        • DNA Structure Story about Watson and Crick, which is a scientific discovery narrative about breakthrough moments.
        • Quantum Theory Development, which is a physics narrative about paradigm shifts in scientific understanding.
      • ...
    • Economic Narratives, such as:
      • Market Narratives, such as:
        • Free Market Story, which is an economic philosophy narrative about market efficiency and individual freedom.
        • Socialist Narrative, which is an alternative economic story about collective ownership and social justice.
      • Development Narratives, such as:
        • Modernization Story, which is a progress narrative about societal development through industrialization.
        • Sustainable Development Narrative, which is an environmental story about balanced growth and ecological preservation.
      • ...
    • Technology Narratives, such as:
      • Innovation Storys, such as:
        • Digital Revolution Narrative, which is a technological change story about societal transformation through computing advancement.
        • AI Development Story, which is an emerging technology narrative about machine intelligence and human future.
      • Impact Narratives, such as:
        • Social Media Story, which is a connectivity narrative about global communication and social change.
        • Privacy Concern Narrative, which is a digital age story about personal data and surveillance society.
      • ...
    • Environmental Narratives, such as:
      • Climate Change Storys, such as:
        • Global Warming Narrative, which is an environmental crisis story about human impact on planetary systems.
        • Climate Action Story, which is a response narrative about collective effort for environmental protection.
      • Conservation Narratives, such as:
        • Wildlife Protection Story, which is a nature preservation narrative about species survival and biodiversity.
        • Sustainable Living Narrative, which is an ecological lifestyle story about human-nature harmony.
    • ...
    • Narrative Manipulation Forms (that employ narrative techniques to influence perception and behavior), such as:
      • Propaganda Narratives, such as:
        • State Propaganda Narratives, such as:
          • War Justification Narratives that frame military actions through selective fact presentation and emotional appeals.
          • Ideological Purity Narratives that promote social conformity through fear-inducing storys and deviance punishment tales.
      • Misinformation Narratives, such as:
        • Conspiracy Theory Narratives that create alternative explanations through pattern overidentification and authority distrust framing.
        • Commercial Deception Narratives that promote product consumption through false scarcity storys and manufactured solution narratives.
      • Narrative Ethics Violations, such as:
        • Cultural Appropriation Narratives that misrepresent traditional storys through decontextualization and commercialized adaptation.
        • Historical Revisionist Narratives that alter collective memory through factual omission and interpretive distortion.
      • AI-Human Trust Manipulation, such as:
        • Anthropomorphic Deception that creates false agent representation through simulated consciousness narratives.
        • Capability Exaggeration Narratives that establish unrealistic expectations through superintelligence suggestion.
      • ...
  • Emerging Narrative Forms, such as:
    • Transmedia Narratives, such as:
      • The Matrix Universe, which extends across films, animations, video games, and comics to create an integrated story world.
      • Star Wars Expanded Universe, which builds a cohesive narrative across multiple media platforms and storytelling formats.
    • Virtual Reality Narratives, such as:
      • Immersive Documentarys, which place viewers within 3D environments to experience story settings firsthand.
      • VR Adventures, which allow participants to physically navigate through narrative spaces.
    • Algorithmic Narratives, such as:
      • Procedurally Generated Storys, which use AI systems to create dynamic narratives based on rule sets.
      • Interactive Fiction AI, which adapts story elements in response to user input and choice patterns.
    • Social Media Narratives, such as:
      • Twitter Thread Stories, which develop narrative arcs through sequential posts on microblogging platforms.
      • Instagram Stories, which combine images, text, and video clips to create visual narrative sequences.
    • Collaborative Narratives, such as:
      • Fan Fiction Communities, which expand original narratives through collective storytelling and creative interpretation.
      • Wiki-Based Narratives, which develop shared universes through distributed authorship and collaborative editing.
    • Extended Reality Narratives, such as:
      • Augmented Reality Storys, which overlay narrative elements onto physical environments through mobile devices.
      • Mixed Reality Experiences, which blend physical interactions with digital narratives in real-time.
    • AI-AI Narrative Exchanges, such as:
      • Multi-Agent Story Systems, which generate emergent narratives through agent interaction protocols.
      • Distributed Narrative Intelligences, which form collective storytelling networks through agent communication frameworks.
      • Synthetic Culture Development, which involves autonomous agents creating shared mythology and cultural reference points.
      • Intermodel Narrative Transfer, which enables knowledge distillation between different AI systems through narrative summarization.
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • Written Journals, which typically includes personal reflections without a structured narrative.
  • Forum Pages, which consists of discussions and comments without a unified narrative structure.
  • Expository Writing, which presents facts and information without necessarily forming a narrative structure.
  • Procedural Text, which provides instructions or steps to follow, rather than telling a story.
  • Data Report, which organizes and presents data without the connected sequence of events typical of a narrative.
  • Abstract Paintings, which express through visual elements without sequential structure or temporal progression.
  • Random Word Generator Outputs, which produce text strings without narrative coherence or meaningful connections.
  • Purely Instructional Contents, which focus on directive communication rather than event sequence or perspective sharing.
  • Static Descriptions, which present visual details or characteristics without event progression or temporal development.
  • Catalog Listings, which enumerate items or products without causal relationships or narrative framework.
  • Raw Sensory Data, which captures environmental information without interpretive organization or sequential arrangement.
  • Statistical Tables, which present numerical values without causal explanations or temporal flow.
  • AI Token Sequences, which represent raw model output without intended narrative structure or coherence patterns.
  • Unprocessed Neural Network Patterns, which contain activation states without semantic narrative organization.
• See: Essay, Myth, Poem, Non-Fiction Document, Motion Picture, New Journalism, Creative Non-Fiction, Historiography, Anecdotes, Legend, Literature, Prose, Narrative Element, Narrative Structure, Narrative Arc, Narrative Voice, Narrative Authority, Storytelling, Narrative Identity, Narrative Theory, Narrative Ethics, Plot, Character, Setting, Conflict, Theme, Perspective, Medium, Narrative Analysis, Computational Narratology, Natural Language Processing, Cognitive Narrative Schema, Cultural Narrative Pattern, Narrative Intelligence, Digital Storytelling, Narrative Medicine, Educational Narrative, AI-Human Narrative Interaction, Machine Narrative Generation, Narrative Alignment, Conceptual Narrative Transfer, Narrative Cognition, AI Storytelling System, Human-AI Collaborative Fiction, Machine Comprehension.

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References

2025-05-10

• Deep Research https://chatgpt.com/share/68202bd9-2d20-8012-b7e4-3d54cc1dde25
  • Question: Define "Narrative Item".
  • Answer: A Narrative Item is a self-contained unit of content that presents a sequential account of related events, experiences, or scenarios (whether real or imagined) in order to convey meaning, provide entertainment, or communicate information.
    • Core Definition:
      • Essential Characteristic: The Narrative Item serves as a structured account where parts are organized in time and causality – one event leads to another – forming a unified story meant to be understood by an audience.
      • Fundamental Role: Narrative Items are foundational to human communication and cognition, enabling people to represent and construct understanding of the world, empathize with others, and share knowledge across time.
    • Core Functions:
      • Knowledge Transmission: Narrative Items serve as powerful vehicles for sharing knowledge, lessons, and cultural wisdom by making complex ideas more relatable and memorable.
      • Worldview Expression: Narrative Items embed the values, beliefs, and worldviews of the storyteller or culture through characters and plots, illustrating what a community holds to be right or wrong.
      • Memory Facilitation: Narrative Items provide a structure for memory with a beginning, progression, and end, helping humans encode and recall information more effectively.
      • Audience Engagement: Narrative Items captivate audience attention through conflict, uncertainty, and curiosity, evoking emotions that hook interest and investment.
      • Identity Shaping: Narrative Items play a pivotal role in forming personal identity and community bonds through shared stories about experiences, family history, and cultural heritage.
    • Common Contexts:
      • Oral Tradition: The most traditional context for Narrative Items is oral storytelling where folk tales, myths, legends, and personal anecdotes are recounted from one person to others.
      • Cultural Education: Narrative Items communicate values and social norms through traditional stories, fables, religious parables, and epic sagas that instill cultural values.
      • Creative Media: Narrative Items appear in literature, theater, film, television, and digital media, allowing authors and creators to explore themes and characters.
      • Personal Narrative: Individuals use Narrative Items to make sense of their own lives, constructing a coherent story that links experiences into a whole.
      • Complex Communication: Narrative Items help weave raw facts into compelling explanations in journalism, advocacy, business, marketing, and science communication.
    • Structural Dimensions:
      • Story Structure: Every Narrative Item has a beginning that sets the stage, a middle that develops conflict, and an end that brings resolution or closure.
      • Conflict: A core structural element of Narrative Items is conflict—the problem, challenge, or tension that drives the story forward.
      • Coherence: Narrative Items require logical consistency where each event follows from previous events in a sensible way and all elements support the overall story.
      • Perspective: Every Narrative Item is told from a particular perspective (first-person, second-person, or third-person) that influences how the story is experienced.
      • Causality: Narrative Items connect events through cause and effect, giving the story momentum and logic as each plot beat affects what follows.
    • Classification Ranges:
      • Length and Complexity: Narrative Items range from brief anecdotes to multi-volume epics, and from simple, straightforward plots to complex narratives with multiple threads.
      • Chronology and Structure: Narrative Items can be linear (chronological) or nonlinear (out of sequence), fast-paced or slow-paced, conventional or experimental.
      • Medium and Mode: Narrative Items can be primarily linguistic or visual, oral or written, unimodal (single mode) or multimodal (multiple modes).
      • Reality Basis: Narrative Items can be fictional (invented) or non-fictional (factual), and mimetic (realistic) or allegorical (symbolic).
      • Perspective and Voice: Narrative Items can employ single or multiple perspectives, monologic or dialogic structures, and reliable or unreliable narrators.
      • Cultural Orientation: Narrative Items can be culturally universal or culturally specific, drawing from Western or non-Western narrative traditions.
      • Function and Tone: Narrative Items can have didactic (instructional) or aesthetic (artistic) intent, tragic or comic tone, and morally clear or ambiguous frameworks.
      • Authorship and Transmission: Narrative Items can be human-authored or AI-authored, orally transmitted or written/recorded, and interactive or passive.
      • Ideological Position: Narrative Items can be politically neutral or politically charged, reflecting varying degrees of social commentary.
  • Citations:

[1] https://gabormelli.com
[2] https://frontiersin.org
[3] https://change-llc.com
[4] https://edutopia.org
[5] https://education.nationalgeographic.org
[6] https://blog.reedsy.com
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org
[8] https://scribendi.com
[9] https://vaia.com
[10] https://janefriedman.com
[11] https://merriam-webster.com
[12] https://septembercfawkes.com
[13] https://indeed.com
[14] https://studiobinder.com
[15] https://nofilmschool.com
[16] https://sciencedirect.com
[17] https://library.fiveable.me
[18] https://www-archiv.fdm.uni-hamburg.de
[19] https://britannica.com
[20] https://brand2global.com
[21] https://blooloop.com
[22] https://ebsco.com

2020

• (Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/narrative Retrieved:2020-5-4.
  • A narrative or story is an account of a series of related events, experiences, or the like, whether true (episode, vignette, travelogue, memoir, autobiography, biography) or fictitious (fairy tale, fable, story, epic, legend, novel). The word derives from the Latin verb narrare (to tell), which is derived from the adjective gnarus (knowing or skilled). Along with argumentation, description, and exposition, narration, broadly defined, is one of four rhetorical modes of discourse. More narrowly defined, it is the fiction-writing mode in which the narrator communicates directly to the reader. Oral storytelling is the earliest method for sharing narratives. During most people's childhoods, narratives are used to guide them on proper behavior, cultural history, formation of a communal identity and values, as especially studied in anthropology today among traditional indigenous peoples.

    Narrative is found in all forms of human creativity, art, and entertainment, including speech, literature, theatre, music and song, comics, journalism, film, television and video, video games, radio, game play, unstructured recreation and performance in general, as well as some painting, sculpture, drawing, photography and other visual arts, as long as a sequence of events is presented. Several art movements, such as modern art, refuse the narrative in favor of the abstract and conceptual.

    Narrative can be organized into a number of thematic or formal categories: non-fiction (such as definitively including creative non-fiction, biography, journalism, transcript poetry and historiography); fictionalization of historical events (such as anecdote, myth, legend and historical fiction) and fiction proper (such as literature in prose and sometimes poetry, such as short stories, novels and narrative poems and songs, and imaginary narratives as portrayed in other textual forms, games or live or recorded performances). Narratives may also be nested within other narratives, such as narratives told by an unreliable narrator (a character) typically found in the genre of noir fiction. An important part of narration is the narrative mode, the set of methods used to communicate the narrative through a process narration (see also “Aesthetics approach” below).

2020b

• (Greene, 2020) ⇒ Brian Greene. (2020). “Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in An Evolving Universe.” Knopf. ISBN:9781524731670
  • QUOTE: ... These are all ongoing stories, developed by thinkers hailing from a great range of distinct disciplines. Understandably so. A saga that ranges from quarks to consciousness is a hefty chronicle. Still, the different stories are interlaced. Don Quixote speaks to humankind’s yearning for the heroic, told through the fragile Alonso Quijano, a character created in the imagination of Miguel de Cervantes, a living, breathing, thinking, sensing, feeling collection of bone, tissue, and cells that, during his lifetime, supported organic processes of energy transformation and waste excretion, which themselves relied on atomic and molecular movements honed by billions of years of evolution on a planet forged from the detritus of supernova explosions scattered throughout a realm of space emerging from the big bang. Yet to read Don Quixote’s travails is to gain an understanding of human nature that would remain opaque if embedded in a description of the movements of the knight-­errant’s molecules and atoms or conveyed through an elaboration of the neuronal processes crackling in Cervantes’s mind while writing the novel. Connected though they surely are, different stories, told with different languages and focused on different levels of reality, provide vastly different insights.

2012

• (Gottschall, 2012) ⇒ Jonathan Gottschall. (2012). “The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.” Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
  • BOOK OVERVIEW: Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives.

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