One of the fundamental concepts in narratology is the distinction between plot and the way that the plot is deployed within a literary work. Some writers define the former as story and the latter as discourse; some use other terms (events/account, incidents/history, hap/tale). Readers enter a text, or are invited into it, to untangle one from the other, using syntactical strategies, chronological clues, and so forth. The process is not simple by any means, but it seems encoded to some degree as a fundamental capability of our species. We do not know if other species can peel the hap from the tale. Take, for example, a man at a desk. He holds a pen in one hand and a gun in the other. Both are loaded. Handwritten on the paper in front of him is this paragraph. Has he written it or is he despondent that he has not? The man enters the room but he is already there. The man uses what is in one of his hands to leave the room. The paragraph writes the man. One of the fundamental concepts is. Outside, bees form a funnel by a window that will now never again be opened.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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