#narratology

• Acrony — A state or characteristic of being timeless; the total absence of linear time or the conscious suspension of chronological succession within a certain conceptual framework. In narratology and literary analysis, the term defines a profound temporal distortion (extreme anachronie) where the events related in the text are completely devoid of chronological connections or anchors, making it impossible to place them in a before/after logical sequence.
• Actant — A structural concept developed in linguistics by L. Tesnière and extended into narratology by A.J. Greimas. In linguistics, it defines the being, object, or concept actively or passively participating in the process expressed by a verb (equivalent to verbal arguments). In literary theory and semiotics, it represents an abstract unit or a functional role within a narrative model (e.g., Subject, Object, Sender, Receiver, Helper, Opponent), regardless of whether it is embodied by a character, a group, or an inanimate object.
• Actantial — Pertaining to actants or their roles; relating to the functional structure of roles within a narrative or a syntactic framework. In literary theory and semiotics, the term describes the structural network of relationships among the agents of an action (the actantial model), highlighting how narrative forces interact to propel the plot, independent of the characters' psychological identities.
• Plotting — The act of plotting and its result; the structural operation of composing the plot or storyline of a literary or dramatic work. In a clinical psychological or psychiatric sense, the term designates the involuntary tendency to confabulate, to invent imaginary fictional scenarios, to forge implausible stories, and to present them as real-life events, often associated with mythomania.
• Plot structure — The collection of elements constituting the plot, storyline, or epic structure of a literary work; the structural manner in which events are arranged and linked within a narrative. In clinical psychology, the term sometimes designates the inclination to invent imaginary facts or the tendency toward compulsive fabulation specific to certain personality disorders.
• Anachrony — A structural discordance between the chronological order of events in a story and their textual arrangement order within the narrative discourse. Conceptualized in modern narratology by Gérard Genette, this aesthetic device includes fundamental techniques such as analepsis (flashback) and prolepsis (anticipation), being used to break the linearity of time and generate complex psychological or dramatic effects.
• Analepsis — An aesthetic device and syntactic figure of speech in modern narratology consisting of interrupting the chronological thread of a story to insert events, memories, or details that took place prior to the present moment of the action; commonly known in cinematography as a flashback. Structurally conceptualized by Gérard Genette as a dominant form of narrative anachrony, this mechanism breaks temporal linearity to illuminate characters' pasts and provide essential psychological keys of interpretation.
• Antimetalepsis — An extremely rare figure of speech, rhetorical device, or tropological structure consisting of the inversion, countering, or neutralization of a previous metalepsis; a reverse narrative or conceptual transgression that abruptly restores the structural boundary between the author's plane (extradiegetic) and the characters' plane (intradiegetic), canceling the illusion of direct interaction between the text's levels of reality.
• Authorial — Belonging to the author, specific to the author, or referring to the author's status within a literary work; relating to the act of original creation. In literary theory and narratological analysis, the term describes an omniscient narrative instance (auctorial perspective), the voice coordinating the discourse from outside the action, or paratextual elements bearing the creator's mark.
• Autodiegetic — Designating a type of narrator who is at the same time the protagonist, the main character of the narrative text; relating to first-person narrative where the storyteller recounts their own experiences lived within the fictional universe.