How a plot is structured affects our responses to the events it contains. Click on the links below to access short summaries of some of the most prominent kinds of narrative structures (and in the case of flashbacks and flashforwards structuring devices) we tend to find in films and works of literature. These summaries include considerations of how each of these plot structures (and structuring devices) might influence the way we react to and interpret the actions and characters of the narratives themselves.
- Single and multiple plots
- Stories within stories
- Open and closed plots
- Flashbacks (analepsis) and flashforwards (prolepsis)
- Plot genres
- Grand narratives
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