Paul’s in KMI http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/paulm/ but his interests don’t appear to overlap with mine. What I found most interesting about his talk was his summary of a narrative plan in one of his pieces of research. First, theme introduction provides characters, props, scenery and anything else needed for the narrative. Second, Conflict Introduction introduces a problem. Third, Conflict Resolution presents attempts to solve the conflict, the last of which is successful. Fourth, Post Completion, wraps up the narrative. A fifth, Comic, section, can be inserted pretty much anywhere.

This structured look at narrative tied in with what Michael Young had been saying the previous day. It’s interesting to see narrative formalised in this way, to see the skeleton around which so many stories are built. It also tied win with the work on the Royal Mile where I was wondering what makes a narrative memorable. Does it need to contain conflict to be memorable?

Why the weird picture at the top of this posting? Paul was researching ‘Tiny Planets’ and looking at narrative structure within episodes.