Editing Storytelling (section)

=== Aesthetics ===
The art of narrative is, by definition, an [[Aesthetics|aesthetic]] enterprise, and there are a number of artistic elements that typically interact in well-developed stories. Such elements include the essential idea of narrative structure with identifiable beginnings, middles, and endings, or exposition-development-climax-resolution-denouement, normally constructed into coherent plot lines; a strong focus on temporality, which includes retention of the past, attention to present action and protention/future anticipation; a substantial focus on characters and characterization which is "arguably the most important single component of the novel";<ref>[[David Lodge (author)|David Lodge]] ''[[The Art of Fiction (book)|The Art of Fiction]]'' 67</ref> a given [[Isogloss|heterogloss]] of different voices dialogically at play&nbsp;– "the sound of the human voice, or many voices, speaking in a variety of accents, rhythms and registers";<ref>Lodge ''The Art of Fiction'' 97</ref> possesses a narrator or narrator-like voice, which by definition "addresses" and "interacts with" reading audiences (see [[Reader Response]] theory); communicates with a [[Wayne Booth]]-esque rhetorical thrust, a dialectic process of interpretation, which is at times beneath the surface, conditioning a plotted narrative, and at other times much more visible, "arguing" for and against various positions; relies substantially on now-standard aesthetic figuration, particularly including the use of [[metaphor]], metonymy, [[synecdoche]] and [[irony]] (see [[Hayden White]], ''[[Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-century Europe|Metahistory]]'' for expansion of this idea); is often enmeshed in intertextuality, with copious connections, references, allusions, similarities, parallels, etc. to other literatures; and commonly demonstrates an effort toward ''[[bildungsroman]]'', a description of identity development with an effort to evince ''becoming'' in character and community.