Story time and discourse time

Time analysis is concerned with the order of the events that occur in a story and with the proportioning of story time and discourse time. An anachrony is a deviation from strict chronology in a story. The two main types of anachrony are flashbacks and flashforwards. A flashback is the presentation of events that have occurred before the beginning of the main events narrated in the story. A flash-forward is the presentation of a future event before its proper time. An objective flashforward presents an event that will actually occur; whereas a subjective flashforward is just a character's vision of a likely future event. Repetitive anachronies (both flashforwards and flashbacks) recall already narrated events; completive anachronies present events that are omitted in the primary story. External anachronies present events that take place before the beginning or after the end of the primary story; while anachronies that fall within the range of the primary story are internal anachronies. The time it takes an average reader to read a passage, or, more generally, the whole text is defined as discourse time. The fictional time taken up by the events in the text is called story time If it takes you less time to read the text (30 minutes) than for the events in it to happen (a week), the durational aspect of this text will be identified as speed-up presentation.