ABSTRACT
From conversational anecdotes told in face-to-face contexts through to fi lm, digital storytelling, and beyond, narrative experiences employ a rich range of semiotic resources. The multifaceted nature of storytelling is nothing new, and is without doubt far more widespread, creative, and diverse than these initial examples signal. Stories might be spoken or written, and in their performance employ gesture, movement, facial expression, and prosodic elements such as voice quality, pitch, pace, and rhythm. Other narrative resources might include soundtracks, music, image, typeface, and hyperlinks, none of which are exceptional for their presence in stories of various kinds available at the outset of the twenty-fi rst century. Put simply, stories do not consist of words alone. However, the multiple and integrated nature of semiotic resources used in storytelling is less simple to explain than to assert, and is long overdue for systematic and close attention in narrative theory. The dominant and interrelated trends that have shaped contemporary narrative studies in the last three decades provide the backdrop against which we can situate this now pressing need.
