Narrative techniques
| Technique | Description | Effect (in term of driving forward the narrative of the film) | Example from a film |
| 1. Exposition | Fills in the back story of the characters and their situations | Shows our interest in the characters and we want to see what happens to them | The narration in the beginning of Amelie, explaining her background and his family |
| 2. Dangling cause | Information or action that leads to no effect or resolution until much later in the film | Our interest in the film is retained, and allows the film to have many different stories going on | Shrek 2, the king is actually a frog and the fairygod mother turned him into a prince so he could be king |
| 3. Obstacle | Stands in the way of the character reaching their goal | Makes it more interesting and dramatic as it demands that things happen | Psycho, the policeman follows her |
| 4. Deadline | A time limit placed on a protagonist to accomplish a goal | Increases tension makes the film more goal orientated | Inception, they had a closed time because the dreams were synchronized and that way the drug would let them do it |
| 5. Dialogue hook | Created a link between two consecutive scenes | Makes to unrelated scenes make sense | Uma Thurman on Kill Bill talks about |
