ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the study of narrative as an approach itself, where the central object of analysis is storytelling form and structure, not primarily the content of a story. As a theoretical field, the study of storytelling is often termed narrative theory, or sometimes the more technical term narratology. The analysis of any narrative needs to consider how it is shaped by its medium and what elements might be understood by thinking across media forms, a perspective that becomes more by thinking about the intellectual history of narrative theory. One of the common tendencies of narrative theory is to provide distinctions between categories, often leading to a taxonomy of narrative concepts, techniques, and structures. While practical theory can have tremendous influence amongst narrative creators, scholars have developed their own body of critical theory, writings that seek primarily to analyze and understand existing narratives, not guide storytellers to create new ones.
