Narrative is somebody telling somebody else

According to Narrative theory: Core concepts and debates (2012), “Narrative is somebody telling somebody else, on some occasion, and for some purposes, that something happened to someone or something” (p. 3).

Beginnings

The book offers a categorization (p. 60) of four ways to conceptualize beginnings, middles, and endings.

For beginnings, the categories outlined on page 60 are:

Exposition

Launch

Initiation

Entrance

Middles

For middles the corresponding categories are (in sequence):

Exposition

Voyage

Interaction

Intermediate Configuration

Endings

For endings you have:

Exposition/Closure

Arrival

Farewell

Completion/Coherence

Comment

I like the above-noted conceptualizations.

As well, as Sid Olvet has pointed out to me in an email message, referring to crows and bees – and as a June 21, 2013 CBC article attests – animals and birds also tell stories.

The CBC article cited in the previous paragraphs notes that in one 10th of a second, a prairie dog can say: “Tall thin human wearing blue shirt walking slowly across the colony.”