Tool Detail
Narrative Architecture
Altman's following theory.
Diagnose protagonist-following coherence.
Scene N/A|Full €10
What This Tool Measures
Maps how audience attention is distributed and handed between characters (Altman), locates the structural beats, and tracks the thematic patterning — motifs, binary oppositions, and echoes.
Methodology
- Track who the narrative follows by scene range and classify the focus pattern (single/dual/multiple/diffuse).
- Type each attention hand-off (metonymic, metaphoric, hyperbolic) and flag leakage and dead spots.
- Locate turning-point beats, act divisions, and pacing balance.
- Thread recurring motifs, binary oppositions, and scene echoes through the sequence.
Key Terms
- Following
- Altman’s reframing of narrative as the management of audience attention: which character the narration stays with, moment to moment.
- Following-unit
- A continuous stretch of scenes that stays with one character (or a group travelling together).
- Modulation
- A transition between following-units. Metonymic = spatial hand-off; metaphoric = thematic cut; hyperbolic = abrupt jump.
- Leakage
- A scene shown without the protagonist in a single-focus script — often giving the audience knowledge the hero lacks.
- Motif
- A charged image, object, sound, or phrase that recurs and accumulates meaning. A motif that appears once is an orphan.
- Binary opposition
- A pair of opposed values (freedom/constraint) that structures a story’s meaning (Lévi-Strauss). A “torn” scene has both poles active at once.
- Structural echo
- A rhyme between scenes: a setup paid off later, a mirror (same situation transformed), or an inversion (reversed meaning).