We classify texts into similar categories using three different methods: genre, structure, and fictive character. Genre is a classification of texts with similar tropes, plot patterns, and character conflicts. Structure is a classification based on formal strictures or textual syntax and text delivery. Fictive character is classified on how true a text is.
CONFUSED? Let's talk ice cream
Just like ogres are like onions, texts are like ice cream. They are carefully prepared and served up in all sorts of different ways. Everyone has their favorite flavors and mix-ins, and when prepared without care, it's just a big ol' mess.
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In the scenario, GENRE would be the flavor of ice cream. Strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla all taste different, and when we're about to eat rocky road ice cream, we prepare our mouths for a different experience than if we were about to eat mint ice cream. Just as different people prefer different flavors, different readers prefer different genres based on the idea of catharsis it provides.
Catharsis is the nice, Zen-like feeling we get by releasing our built-up emotions. According to Aristotle, a person who never vented their emotions would become psychologically unhealthy, leading to either a breakdown or a blow-up. This is why humans make and enjoy art, as being emotionally moved by a novel, song, play, movie, poem, or painting can release emotions in a healthy, controlled way. So what do genres have to do with catharsis? Everything. Texts are sorted into genres based on what emotions they are meant to release. For example, someone who wants to experience joy will go for comedy while someone who wants to deal with their fear will dive into horror. Note that genre is defined by what emotions are supposed to be engaged--genre is not a perfect process. Some people have different reactions to genre based on their own background, like the guy who laughs at the same slasher movie that gives his sister nightmares. Often, a text can be blend of different genres (like a double flavor swirl of ice cream) or narrow into specific subgenres (like how vanilla bean is a more specific type of vanilla). STRUCTURE would be how the ice cream is served to the eater. Ice cream could be in a bowl, inside a cone, atop a pie, fried, between two cookies, within a bar or cake, mixed in a shake or float, or even eaten straight out of the carton. Each different kind of serving changes the eating experience: a banana split is not eaten in the same manner as root beer float. Text structure works the same way: a reader's experience changes if the story changes from a novel to an epistolary novella to a children's book to a film adaptation to a Broadway musical. FICTIVE CHARACTER would be how real the ice cream is. Is it true ice cream, handmade with natural flavors? Is it factory made with artificial flavors? Is it even ice cream at all, or is it a "wannabe" like frozen yogurt or sherbet? When examining texts, these categories are usually just "fiction" or "nonfiction," though there are some categories like "historical fiction" that straddle both designations. |
We classify narrative texts into similar categories using three different methods: genre, structure, and truth. Genre is a classification of texts with similar tropes, plot patterns, and character conflicts. Structure is a classification based on formal strictures or textual syntax and text delivery. If a text were, say, ice cream, genre would be the flavor of ice cream, while structure would be how the ice cream is served (a cone, a cup, a frozen bar, etc.). Before you can really dive into writing, you have to be aware of what structure you are writing, as each structure has a different plot shape and literary terminology. The five essential superstructures, which cover every text from musicals to grocery lists, are NARRATIVE, POETRY, MYTH, DRAMA, and EDIFIERS.
THE FIVE SUPERSTRUCTURES OF WRITING. LEARN THEM. LOVE THEM.
NARRATIVE: The art of storytelling
Narratives are completed writings that center around a character in conflict. Common narratives include oral histories, memoirs, short stories, and novels. Narratives start with a point of no return, which is when a character is brought into the main conflict. Many shorter stories start at the point of no return, while longer works first build up normal life before the conflict, which is called the exposition. After the point of no return, the story will have events that build rising tension until the conflict ends at the climax. Just as shorter stories usually skip exposition, many also stop at the climax, while longer narratives explore the ramifications of the climax, which is called the resolution or "new normal."
Point of view is important in narratives, as they are told through either a single character's perspective or the perspective of a third-person narrator. Narratives also carry a theme, or universal truth, that the story is meant to convey to their audience. This theme is often supported by motifs, which are reoccurring patterns in a story, and symbols, which are objects that represent the theme. While archetypes can sometimes occur in narratives, narratives are more likely to develop three-dimensional characters rather than rely on universal characterization. For the full section on storytelling, click the link below.
Point of view is important in narratives, as they are told through either a single character's perspective or the perspective of a third-person narrator. Narratives also carry a theme, or universal truth, that the story is meant to convey to their audience. This theme is often supported by motifs, which are reoccurring patterns in a story, and symbols, which are objects that represent the theme. While archetypes can sometimes occur in narratives, narratives are more likely to develop three-dimensional characters rather than rely on universal characterization. For the full section on storytelling, click the link below.
POETRY: Machines of expression
Poetry is writing written in verse where restrictions on meter and rhyme come before style and meaning. Examples include poems and songs. Poetry is usually seen as flowery and superfluous, but are actually (as William Carlos Williams puts it) machines of words. Like machines, poems contain only what is needed and have a regular rhythm to their recitation. An analysis of a poem's structure is called prosody, and involves looking at the stanzas, rhyme scheme, refrains, and meter to can determine what type of "machine" the poem is. Unlike a narrative or edifying paragraph, where ideas follow a sequential order, lines in a poem can happen in any order. The lines are like spokes in a gear, all revolving around a main idea, which is called a conceit. The conceit is never directly stated and must be inferred by the reader and is tied to the poem's structure. Just as different machines perform different tasks, different poetic structures relate to different conceits. For an entire article on how to read poetry, click on the link below.
MYTH: Neither fact nor fiction
Myth is writing that disregards "fictional" or "nonfictional" distinction and instead seeks to impart higher moral or cultural truths. Myths started as oral tales passed down by generations of storytellers and encompass four types: true myths (which are religious stories), legends (historically-based stories), fables and fairy tales (magical children's stories), and literary tales (where writing of another structure evolves into myth). Myths rely heavily on archetypes, which are the primal examples of certain cultural characters and ideas, such as the hero and the wolf. Myths also follow the myth cycle: Some event jars everyday society into peril, so a hero emerges to fix whats wrong. After gaining a benediction or wisdom and finding companions, the hero goes on a quest and finds what is needed to fix society. Before the hero can return, he or she must deal with their own self doubts and sacrifice something dear to them to defeat the villain. After they are victorious, the hero fixes society and returns a changed person.
DRAMA: Bringing writing to life
Drama is writing that is meant to be performed rather than read. Drama includes plays, musical theatre, film, speeches, and, to a certain extent, lyrical music. Drama mainly consists of lines characters say with little description of setting and few deliberate actions. Therefore, the story requires actors (usually under the vision of a director) to complete the story through how lines are said and how they physically interact. Since different actors can interpret a character differently than another actor, this makes each performance of drama unique and makes actors (and directors) co-creators. This is why plays are not "authored" like other works (authored is a verb meaning "composed in writing"), but are instead wrought (a verb meaning "physically crafted," like a pot or a wheel), and the person who scripts the play is called a playwright. Plays revolve around action, which is reflected in the plot graph for drama: it starts at stasis, a flat line representing life with no major conflict or issues. Then, characters create unrest, causing conflicts between one another. Characters bounce between great heights when they succeed and great lows when they fail, until characters finally come to settle back to stasis and contentment. To read the full article on drama, click the link below.
EDIFIERS: Nailing down reality
Edifying texts convey information and endeavor to teach or persuade more than they entertain. There are three subcategories of edifiers. FUNCTIONAL texts directly instruct the reader and are meant to be used to do something practical; these include recipes, how-to guides, grocery lists, and other step-by-step instructions. EXPOSITORY texts are meant to objectively inform a reader on a topic; these include textbooks, almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, wiki pages, and newspapers. RHETORICAL texts seeks to persuade the reader to change a belief or to take an action for or against something; these included essays, speeches, advertisements, opinion articles, and critiques.
All edifiers build to something, like steps on a stairway, reflecting its plot diagram. Functional texts are literal steps to go from an incomplete project to a completed one. Expository steps build toward knowledge, starting at basic topic facts and expanding on that knowledge with further detail. Rhetorical texts start at a thesis, which is the main argument of a rhetorical speech or essay. The argument is then built up by claims, which is then further built up with supporting evidence and warrant, or justification that the evidence proves the claim. For the full section on edifiers, click the link below.
All edifiers build to something, like steps on a stairway, reflecting its plot diagram. Functional texts are literal steps to go from an incomplete project to a completed one. Expository steps build toward knowledge, starting at basic topic facts and expanding on that knowledge with further detail. Rhetorical texts start at a thesis, which is the main argument of a rhetorical speech or essay. The argument is then built up by claims, which is then further built up with supporting evidence and warrant, or justification that the evidence proves the claim. For the full section on edifiers, click the link below.