Lit Theory 101 | Narrative Structure & Time
A practical guide to help make you a better writer and reader | PART 1
Literary theory has a reputation problem. Most of us might have encountered it in some airless seminar where a professor droned on about the death of the author while we wondered if we were dead too. Or it was rammed down our throats as the jargon that gets between us and the actual pleasure of reading—like someone explaining a joke until it stops being funny.
Fuck that version of theory.
Theory done right is electric. It’s the moment you realize why a story you love works. We’ve created this crash course for folks who devour literature and want to write better. We’ll cover concepts that have beguiled us in our own quest to be better readers and writers and editors. And because lit theory is the behemoth you didn’t know you needed to experience, we’ll divide this up into (hopefully!!) manageable parts consisting of six different units:
Narrative Structure & Time
Voice, Consciousness & Distance
Language & Perception
Reader, Text & Interpretation
Affect, Atmosphere, & the Ineffable
Character & Characterization
Today, we’lI focus on Narrative Structure & Time: how stories arrange events, break chronology, refuse linearity, and let structure emerge from content instead of imposing it from outside.
