Revealing and Concealing the Frame of Narrative Structure: A Study of Suspense
Graphic design is storytelling; an act of transformation in the service of assembling a visual narrative. It is a process of adaptation, wherein the designer interprets content in order to then reconfigure a new form. There is a complexity and a mystery to this role that impels my own graphic design work.
While the possibilities and limitations of the filmic and literature forms are well understood by theorists and practitioners alike, the domain of the graphic designer is far murkier. My own graphic design adaptations so far have been attempts at bridging different texts, media, and audiences. The broad challenge for myself in broaching this area is to discover what the graphic designer’s visual language can communicate, that neither the filmic or written languages can.
This thesis exists with an inbuilt and acute awareness of its own antithetical counterpart. The process of adaptation implies a source and a new outcome – bringing with it questions of comparison. This process is situated in the nexus point between fields, media, and personal interests. Adaptation is a system that provides a skeleton of conventions and rules to lay my work upon. It is a foundation upon which to both rely, and challenge. There remains in my thinking a skepticism regarding how well a narrative survives an adaptation process – and at the same time a real idealism for what can occur. This idealism is rooted in the fact that the visual language a graphic designer can create might have communicative potentials beyond a purely filmic or written language. One has a wider palette of tools – and can employ the materiality of letterpress and silk-screening, language from great novels, the nuance of typography, and the sense of structure and sequence from filmic editing and film narrative conventions. The interplay between these elements can fuse to form a new type of narrative – this becomes a new type of authorship.
Adaptation via Suspense -- a natural progression.
The broad subject of adaptation quickly diverges into two strands of enquiry. First exists the challenge of adapting a written narrative structure into a visual narrative structure. This involves consideration of how the thing is built; constructed, sequenced, paced, ordered, and ultimately – perceived. Second, the challenge of adapting the tonal qualities of the narrative structure into a visual tonal quality. This involves consideration of how tonal qualities of language (spoken or written) can translate into a visual tone. In considering these tangible and intangible strands of adaptation, a third strand of interest that entwined the previous two - emerged. Both aspects of adaptation are controlled by the frame – be it the frame of point of view (literary model), mise-en scene (film model).
The Frame: literally and metaphorically…
It made sense at this point to embed this thesis enquiry within a terminology that reflects its hybrid and fluid nature. The lens through which projects and texts are read and adapted is informed by film and literary theory. This thesis involves a constant interplay between narrative structures in different media, and the language used to describe this progress must reflect this hybridity. The notions of the frame, and later - the echo, the clue/cataphor, and the pause, the gap) function as terms applicable to film, literature, and through my own application, graphic design. The centrality of the ‘frame’ as a concept (frame as a literal object and as a metaphor for point of view) became evident when looking more closely at adaptation.
It is from the seemingly removed literary narrative model and its use of framing – that I began to narrow my focus. The framing device employed by the writer is the point of view of narration. There are degrees of unconventional use of narration, either via multiple points of view (Russell Banks’ “The Sweet Hereafter”), partially obscured point of view (Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw”) or utterly unreliable first person point of view, (Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”).
These writers explicitly understood the power of the frame as a tool for creating narrative. As master practitioners, they went even further by subverting audience expectation of traditional framing devices. Manipulation of the narratorial voice in the literary model has interesting implications within graphic design. This is a potential tool for heightening tension and visually telling a story in the most interesting way possible. The narrative forms of most interest were those wherein the frame behaves unconventionally – working to obscure as well as reveal content.
Beginning with cliché; Learning the rules of Suspense from Detective fiction as a site of enquiry
Analysis of the filmic and literary models led to a focus on self-reflective narrative structures – structures that expose their own construction. These are also narrative forms that both reveal and conceal their content. As a form – they embody an innate tension for this reason. They withhold information, and hold the audience back from seeing a complete view of the story. They are forms that suspend the audience – that draw us in, but hold us back.
The detective story was an initially obvious, but curiously fertile site to begin examining how the ‘frame’ of point of view shapes a story. The construct of the detective story is unique in that its effectiveness is reliant upon the author’s manipulation of the reader’s viewpoint. As observed by Peter Thom, detective fiction “…is essentially and pervasively self-conscious, “a genre which almost obsessively examines the subject of storytelling itself.”( Detection and Its Designs: Narrative and Power in Nineteenth-Century Detective Fiction; Peter Thoms. Ohio University Press. xii, 178.) It is the perfect source from which to observe and understand conventions for stalling plot, using clues, and pacing narrative flow. In other words – the methods to create a suspenseful and engaging narrative.
Suspense suddenly emerges as the vehicle by which visual narrative can be adapted, constructed, and experienced. In generating visual narrative – suspense provides pre-existing mechanisms that generate story, and not simply plausible story, but compelling story. Suspense is so basic but so effective – it is the designer’s ability to frame visual material, to reveal and conceal it over the span of the visual narrative.
How does suspense as a mechanism relate to the design of visual narrative? The rules of suspense are essentially the rules of storytelling – and this is how I use graphic design. These rules/methods encapsulate various aspects of adapting and constructing narrative – from the structural, to the psychological and experiential.
Two Faces of Suspense: Suspense as an action and an experience…
If suspense was used as a verb – then at this stage I was only using it in a limited sense. I was regarding suspense as generator – a methodology for ordering visual information to build a sequence. The ‘rules of suspense’ could help fulfill the first criteria of adaptation; the adaptation of narrative structure.
But if suspense were to be regarded as a noun – as a state rather than an action, it could be useful in the second mode of adaptation – infusing the sequence with tonality. I began to consider not only how suspense might be enfolded in the creation of a visual narrative, but in how it may be unfolded by the viewer/reader of that narrative. Suspense then becomes more than a mechanism used by the designer to adapt structure - it becomes a state the designer is trying to create for the viewer.
Suspense is therefore the designer’s ability to suspend their audience between two states – be it two visual tones, two visual languages, or two meanings. This is not ambiguity, rather the careful creation of contradictory states/meanings in a piece that the audience is shifted between. This varies, from the tension created between two elements interacting on the screen, to the potential tension between two narrators presenting a story. The ultimate dichotomy I explore again and again is the viewer’s suspension between the fictional world of the work, and the non-fictional world outside of the work. It is about playing with the at time fine line between the artificial construct of a designed piece – questioning where the end of the stage is, where the book really ends, whether a title sequence is part of a film or the doorway from the real world into the film. There is a wonderful suspense that can be derived from playing with shifting the viewer between two states.
I find myself now armed with visual and theoretical research gleaned from all these diverse narrative models. While spanning different forms, genres and eras, these models are connected by their common use of the ‘frame’ to reveal and conceal, and ultimately – suspend the reader/viewer. Theories have been observed and absorbed from the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, Henry James’ structuring of the novel, and the rules of detective fiction from Poe to Christie. I have added to my growing terminology – stalling action, narrative gaps/pauses, juxtaposing point of view and visual clues have all crystallised as key mechanisms for creating visual narrative. Derived from literary and film narrative models, these can now be applied to my own projects and tested out. These concepts now function as nexus points between fields, sites of overlap that allow me to synthesise making and theorising.
Underlying all studies is the desire to create work that fulfils the criteria of any adaptation; work that values the essence of the original content and is fuelled by it to create a fictional world with its own internal logic, temporality, structure, rhythm and nuance. And also, work that truly engages the viewer both intellectually and emotionally, the way any good story should.
While the possibilities and limitations of the filmic and literature forms are well understood by theorists and practitioners alike, the domain of the graphic designer is far murkier. My own graphic design adaptations so far have been attempts at bridging different texts, media, and audiences. The broad challenge for myself in broaching this area is to discover what the graphic designer’s visual language can communicate, that neither the filmic or written languages can.
This thesis exists with an inbuilt and acute awareness of its own antithetical counterpart. The process of adaptation implies a source and a new outcome – bringing with it questions of comparison. This process is situated in the nexus point between fields, media, and personal interests. Adaptation is a system that provides a skeleton of conventions and rules to lay my work upon. It is a foundation upon which to both rely, and challenge. There remains in my thinking a skepticism regarding how well a narrative survives an adaptation process – and at the same time a real idealism for what can occur. This idealism is rooted in the fact that the visual language a graphic designer can create might have communicative potentials beyond a purely filmic or written language. One has a wider palette of tools – and can employ the materiality of letterpress and silk-screening, language from great novels, the nuance of typography, and the sense of structure and sequence from filmic editing and film narrative conventions. The interplay between these elements can fuse to form a new type of narrative – this becomes a new type of authorship.
Adaptation via Suspense -- a natural progression.
The broad subject of adaptation quickly diverges into two strands of enquiry. First exists the challenge of adapting a written narrative structure into a visual narrative structure. This involves consideration of how the thing is built; constructed, sequenced, paced, ordered, and ultimately – perceived. Second, the challenge of adapting the tonal qualities of the narrative structure into a visual tonal quality. This involves consideration of how tonal qualities of language (spoken or written) can translate into a visual tone. In considering these tangible and intangible strands of adaptation, a third strand of interest that entwined the previous two - emerged. Both aspects of adaptation are controlled by the frame – be it the frame of point of view (literary model), mise-en scene (film model).
The Frame: literally and metaphorically…
It made sense at this point to embed this thesis enquiry within a terminology that reflects its hybrid and fluid nature. The lens through which projects and texts are read and adapted is informed by film and literary theory. This thesis involves a constant interplay between narrative structures in different media, and the language used to describe this progress must reflect this hybridity. The notions of the frame, and later - the echo, the clue/cataphor, and the pause, the gap) function as terms applicable to film, literature, and through my own application, graphic design. The centrality of the ‘frame’ as a concept (frame as a literal object and as a metaphor for point of view) became evident when looking more closely at adaptation.
It is from the seemingly removed literary narrative model and its use of framing – that I began to narrow my focus. The framing device employed by the writer is the point of view of narration. There are degrees of unconventional use of narration, either via multiple points of view (Russell Banks’ “The Sweet Hereafter”), partially obscured point of view (Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw”) or utterly unreliable first person point of view, (Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”).
These writers explicitly understood the power of the frame as a tool for creating narrative. As master practitioners, they went even further by subverting audience expectation of traditional framing devices. Manipulation of the narratorial voice in the literary model has interesting implications within graphic design. This is a potential tool for heightening tension and visually telling a story in the most interesting way possible. The narrative forms of most interest were those wherein the frame behaves unconventionally – working to obscure as well as reveal content.
Beginning with cliché; Learning the rules of Suspense from Detective fiction as a site of enquiry
Analysis of the filmic and literary models led to a focus on self-reflective narrative structures – structures that expose their own construction. These are also narrative forms that both reveal and conceal their content. As a form – they embody an innate tension for this reason. They withhold information, and hold the audience back from seeing a complete view of the story. They are forms that suspend the audience – that draw us in, but hold us back.
The detective story was an initially obvious, but curiously fertile site to begin examining how the ‘frame’ of point of view shapes a story. The construct of the detective story is unique in that its effectiveness is reliant upon the author’s manipulation of the reader’s viewpoint. As observed by Peter Thom, detective fiction “…is essentially and pervasively self-conscious, “a genre which almost obsessively examines the subject of storytelling itself.”( Detection and Its Designs: Narrative and Power in Nineteenth-Century Detective Fiction; Peter Thoms. Ohio University Press. xii, 178.) It is the perfect source from which to observe and understand conventions for stalling plot, using clues, and pacing narrative flow. In other words – the methods to create a suspenseful and engaging narrative.
Suspense suddenly emerges as the vehicle by which visual narrative can be adapted, constructed, and experienced. In generating visual narrative – suspense provides pre-existing mechanisms that generate story, and not simply plausible story, but compelling story. Suspense is so basic but so effective – it is the designer’s ability to frame visual material, to reveal and conceal it over the span of the visual narrative.
How does suspense as a mechanism relate to the design of visual narrative? The rules of suspense are essentially the rules of storytelling – and this is how I use graphic design. These rules/methods encapsulate various aspects of adapting and constructing narrative – from the structural, to the psychological and experiential.
Two Faces of Suspense: Suspense as an action and an experience…
If suspense was used as a verb – then at this stage I was only using it in a limited sense. I was regarding suspense as generator – a methodology for ordering visual information to build a sequence. The ‘rules of suspense’ could help fulfill the first criteria of adaptation; the adaptation of narrative structure.
But if suspense were to be regarded as a noun – as a state rather than an action, it could be useful in the second mode of adaptation – infusing the sequence with tonality. I began to consider not only how suspense might be enfolded in the creation of a visual narrative, but in how it may be unfolded by the viewer/reader of that narrative. Suspense then becomes more than a mechanism used by the designer to adapt structure - it becomes a state the designer is trying to create for the viewer.
Suspense is therefore the designer’s ability to suspend their audience between two states – be it two visual tones, two visual languages, or two meanings. This is not ambiguity, rather the careful creation of contradictory states/meanings in a piece that the audience is shifted between. This varies, from the tension created between two elements interacting on the screen, to the potential tension between two narrators presenting a story. The ultimate dichotomy I explore again and again is the viewer’s suspension between the fictional world of the work, and the non-fictional world outside of the work. It is about playing with the at time fine line between the artificial construct of a designed piece – questioning where the end of the stage is, where the book really ends, whether a title sequence is part of a film or the doorway from the real world into the film. There is a wonderful suspense that can be derived from playing with shifting the viewer between two states.
I find myself now armed with visual and theoretical research gleaned from all these diverse narrative models. While spanning different forms, genres and eras, these models are connected by their common use of the ‘frame’ to reveal and conceal, and ultimately – suspend the reader/viewer. Theories have been observed and absorbed from the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, Henry James’ structuring of the novel, and the rules of detective fiction from Poe to Christie. I have added to my growing terminology – stalling action, narrative gaps/pauses, juxtaposing point of view and visual clues have all crystallised as key mechanisms for creating visual narrative. Derived from literary and film narrative models, these can now be applied to my own projects and tested out. These concepts now function as nexus points between fields, sites of overlap that allow me to synthesise making and theorising.
Underlying all studies is the desire to create work that fulfils the criteria of any adaptation; work that values the essence of the original content and is fuelled by it to create a fictional world with its own internal logic, temporality, structure, rhythm and nuance. And also, work that truly engages the viewer both intellectually and emotionally, the way any good story should.
