p.20 Both the construction and the understanding of plots draw on
the human ability to understand human activity as actions. The connecting concepts used in narrative configuration
utilize the conceptual network that distinguishes the domain of action from that of physical movement. Key notions here are
goals, motives, and agents. The narrative scheme organizes the individual events it addresses using a framework of
human purposes and desires, including the limits and opportunities posed by the physical, cultural, and personal environments.
p.52-53 Mink's 1974 article [History and Fiction as Modes of Comprehension]...
Mink differentiated three structures of comprehension: theoretical, "categoreal," and configurational. He
held that all three modes of comprehension function to grasp "together in a single mental act things which are not experienced
together, or even capable of being so experienced, because they are separated by time, space, or logical kind. And the ability
to do this is a necessary (although not a sufficient) condition of understanding." ...In configurational
comprehension things are understood as elements in a single and concrete complex of relationships.
p.112 When the story-making process is successful, it provides a coherent and plausible account of how and
why something has happened. The story schema can be applied to almost all events in our social life... The
typical person will impose a story structure on a variety of input, and this appears to hold true in widely diverse cultures.
p.113 In developing narrative competence, children learn to
produce and comprehend causally and temporally structured plots that are organized around a variety of themes and involve
a large number of characters.
