Conversation

Poll: What would you say is the atomic unit of storytelling, the smallest meaningful slice of plot?
  • Event
    23.6%
  • Beat
    37.6%
  • Dialogue exchange
    24.4%
  • Other
    14.4%
729 votesFinal results
39
23
Replying to
Character/actor, even if implied. "It was" is probably the shortest story ever, though we see the addition of another factor here, temporality. Robbe-Grillet mucked about with this
1
Replying to
actor (narrator); speech act; subject; narrative viewpoint; temporality. Not a "good" story, but a story. No (apparent) conflict, no suspense or denouement, relies on i-thou effect (reader response) for whatever "effect" it has. But it's atomic. Gets complex very very fast.
Replying to
Also, and this isn't smartassed, I told you that it was a story. Throw in intention, though that's probably an appendage of "speech act." Surprisingly important, why a bus ticket is not a story despite sharing a lot of very similar semantic and narrative structure.