Linear = arranged in or extending a straight or nearly straight line

chronological = following the order in which they occurred

sequential = forming or following in a logical order or sequence

circular structure = an object that references itself.  making sure the function that is being passed in, filters out repeated or circular data.

Time based = over a period of time

narrative arc =  is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, board games, video games, and films with each episode following a dramatic arc.

Freytag’s pyramid = Devised by 19th century German playwright Gustav Freytag, Freytag’s Pyramid is a paradigm of dramatic structure outlining the seven key steps in successful storytelling: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and denouement

Exposition = Narrative exposition is the insertion of background information within a story or narrative. This information can be about the setting, characters’ backstories, prior plot events, historical context.

Inciting incident = The event that sets the main character or characters on the journey that will occupy them throughout the narrative.

Rising action =  starts right after the period of exposition and ends at the climax. Beginning with the inciting incident, rising action is the bulk of the plot. It is composed of a series of events that build on the conflict and increase the tension, sending the story racing to a dramatic climax.

climax = The ending and leading up to the end of the narrative

Falling action = Falling action is what happens near the end of a story after the climax and resolution of the major conflict. falling action is what the characters are doing after the story’s most dramatic part has happened.

Resolution = the ending of the story, happens after the conflict

Denouement = the final part of a play, film, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved.

Beginning / middle / end = The plot through out the films

Equilibrium = Everything is balanced at the beginning

Disruption = Changing something over and over again

Transgression = Often disequilibrium is caused by societal / moral / ethical

Peripeteia = a sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances, especially in reference to fictional narrative. “the peripeteias of the drama”

Anagnorisis = the point in a play, novel, etc., in which a principal character recognizes or discovers another character’s true identity or the true nature of their own circumstances.

Catharsis = is the purification and purgation of emotions through dramatic art, or it may be any extreme emotional state that results in renewal and restoration

The 3 Unities: Action, Time, Place = a tragedy should have one principal action. unity of time:

 Flash-forward / Flash-back: a flash-forward takes a narrative forward in time, a flashback goes back in time, often to before the narrative began.

Foreshadowing = be a warning or indication of a future event.

Ellipsis = the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues.

Pathos =  to persuade an audience by purposely evoking certain emotions to make them feel the way the author wants them to feel.

Empathy = is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference

Diegetic / non-diegetic = In film, diegesis refers to the story world, and the events that occur within it. Thus, non-diegesis are things which occur outside the story-world

Slow motion = A slow movement to add to a tense scene

In media res = the practice of beginning an epic or other narrative by plunging into a crucial situation that is part of a related chain of events.

Metanarrative = in critical theory and particularly in postmodernism is a narrative about narratives of historical meaning, experience, or knowledge

Quest narratives = one of the oldest and surest ways of telling a story.