How do I decide what the story is about and where it should begin, and what does Labov's 'most reportable event' and backward causal chain imply for drafting and revising?
Labov's later papers (1997, 2001, 2006) argue that a narrator first chooses the most reportable event e0, then walks backwards through efficient causes until reaching an ordinary event needing no explanation, which becomes the orientation. Because the more reportable an event, the less credible it is, each backward step also serves credibility. Labov states the chain is a necessary implication of his definitions rather than an observed process, and that reportability is relative to the audience. The sources concern serious personal narratives; applying them to fiction is a proposal.
Labov's later papers (1997, 2001, 2006) argue that a narrator first chooses the most reportable event e0, then walks backwards through efficient causes until reaching an ordinary event needing no explanation, which becomes the orientation. Because the more reportable an event, the less credible it is, each backward step also serves credibility. Labov states the chain is a necessary implication of his definitions rather than an observed process, and that reportability is relative to the audience. The sources concern serious personal narratives; applying them to fiction is a proposal.
Curator qualifications: All excerpts located; reportability relative vs near-universal topics tension kept.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
"citations": [
{
"url": "https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/sfs.html",
"note": "candidate evidence excerpts"
},
{
"url": "https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/uesn.pdf",
"note": "candidate evidence excerpts"
},
{
"url": "https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/Papers/FebOralNarPE.pdf",
"note": "candidate evidence excerpts"
}
]
}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] Labov's later papers (1997, 2001, 2006) argue that a narrator first chooses the most reportable event e0, then walks backwards through efficient causes until reaching an ordinary event needing no explanation, which becomes the orientation. Because the more reportable an event, the less credible it is, each backward step also serves credibility. Labov states the chain is a necessary implication of his definitions rather than an observed process, and that reportability is relative to the audience. The sources concern serious personal narratives; applying them to fiction is a proposal. · locator: candidate evidence excerpts source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |