DISCOURSE AND STORY: "Story" refers to the actual chronology of events in a narrative; discourse refers to the manipulation of that story in the presentation of the narrative. These terms refer, then, to the basic structure of all narrative form. Story refers, in most cases, only to what has to be reconstructed from a narrative; the chronological sequence of events as they actually occurred in the time-space (or diegetic) universe of the narrative being read. The closest a film narrative ever comes to pure story is in what is termed "real time." In literature, it's even harder to present material in real time. One example occurs at the end of the Odyssey (Book XXIII, pages 467-68); Odysseus here presents the story of his adventures to Penelope in almost pure "story" form, that is, in the chronological order of occurence. Stories are rarely recounted in this fashion, however. So, for example, when the Odyssey actually begins, we do not find ourselves at the chronological start of the story but in medias res, when Odysseus is about to be freed from the isle of Calypso (which actually occurs nearly at the end of the chronological story which Odysseus relates to Penelope on p. 467). Discourse also refers to all the material an author adds to a story: similes, metaphors, verse/prose, etc.. In film, such manipulations are extended to include framing, cutting, camera movement, camera angles, music, etc..