A while back I created these graphics to illustrate a game storytelling technique that I thought I discovered lol, implemented in some of my game settings, where you begin with a Hidden Thing that is then revealed / parameterised by the span of player choices and actions in the story, with the ending theme conclusion looping back to the beginning.
I called this Fixed Start-End Decision Span, it is designed to constrain the problem of combinatorial choice explosion (endless irresolveable / irreconciliable expansion of branching decision paths) by returning back to the fixed intro hidden thing which is also the end conclusion. I thought I was really clever lol having implemented this Start-End loop structure.
Well I did some literary research and it turns out, there is actually an official name for this structure.
It is called Fabula and Syuzhet (Russian transliteration of sujet, French for subject) from Russian formalism (seems hard to translate, maybe can think of it as plot and subject, narrative and emplotment, theme and story etc).
Fabula and syuzhet essentially occurs when the story contents is separated from the storytelling process (often, but not always, the actual chronological sequence of events).
This wikipedia article
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabula_and_syuzhetand this popular article explain it
https://screencraft.org/blog/10-screenplay-structures-that-screenwriters-can-use/Basically it is whenever the real-time storytelling action and happenings are separated from the narrative process and technique. Flashback, flashforward can be variants of it but not necessarily so (also, story-within-a-story like Scheherzade etc, many variants).
An example of fabula and syuzhet would be the film Interview With The Vampire (1994) where the film begins with the modern day Brad Pitt as vampire interview, but the actual story is his memories reminiscences and feelings that he narrates over the centuries etc. Then the film ends by looping back and synchronising the action again to modern day when his story interview finishes.
Anyway just thought it might be interesting narratology for storytelling anons or even any dungeonmasters. That screenwriter article I linked above also suggests some other structures, most of which are well known, but I had never heard of this Fabula and Syuzhet nomenclature before hehe
