As a novel, it broke narrative continuity into a tripartite structure.
Sometimes the bizarre premises, the coyness and the broken narratives work together to create a uniquely Dorstian experience.
The projections consist of large faces (like the one at left) speaking broken narratives, both poetry written by Mr. Oursler for the project and texts from the history of electronic technology.
The Bible famously documents how God created the world in one week, breaking the narrative down to his daily schedule.
With Chi-Raq he's sprung loose, coming close to breaking the narrative for amusing skits and musical numbers.
Dark Matter is madly fast-moving, made even more so by Crouch's not un-irritating habit of breaking his narrative up into single-line paragraphs.
The challenge of how to use this technology without breaking the narrative experience shares something with television trying to discover what it can do creatively with the red button to enhance rather than interrupt the viewer's experience.
"Abstraction," here, isn't always formal; it can mean breaking with narrative, as in Tyeb Mehta's film "Koodal," which combines images of cows headed for slaughter, crowds massing at Gandhi's funeral, and the gyrations of a self-flagellating dancer.
With that established, a full-on cliffhanger ramps up the dramatic tension exponentially by breaking the narrative chain.
There are a lot of people who just don't believe in unions, and that's what the breaking up narrative is largely about.
And though they're minor, they're irritating and can momentarily throw readers out of the book, breaking the narrative's spell.
