Narratives: Social Marketing

Although there are many definitions of narrative, they typically describe at least two, and typically three or more, events that are temporally and causally sequenced. The most conventional story forms possess a beginning, middle, and an end in which early events explain and bring about subsequent events. Story events are composed of characters, relationships among characters, and information about the setting or scene in which action occurs. Stories also describe the desires of the characters, a triggering action that puts those desires in conflict with other characters or some element of the environment, and some kind of resolution of the conflict. These elements are universal but flexible properties of the narrative form. Whereas most stories have all of the features, the presence or absence of ...