Class

the portion of a story's argument developed from an Overall Story point of view

There are four principal points of view which must come into play in all complete stories. They are the Overall Story, Main Character, Impact Character, and Relationship Story views. In practice, each of the four points of view is like a different camera angle on the same unfolding events. The Overall view of a story is the widest, examining the issues that affect all the characters in the story overall. The Overall view is not unlike that of a general on a hill watching a battle. From that vantage point, the general can observe the larger strategies and see how the forces involved ebb and flow. On the downside, the soldiers cannot be identified as individuals, but only by their functions in the battle as a whole. Similarly, an audience needs to get a sense of the bigger picture - the story-wide view that shows how all of the characters and dramatic forces fit into the grand scheme. From this angle, characters are identified by their dramatic functions, such as Protagonist and Antagonist. The Overall Story, then, is a description of the interactions of the characters and events in a story seen with a wide angle view from the outside looking in. For the audience it provides, scope, context, foundation, and background.