There is always a choice: Alternative possible events in the narrative as a theoretical problem

Fictional narrative is traditionally considered by narratologists from the point of view of events that actually occurred within the storyworld, but at the same time includes events that could only happen. In other words, it assumes the existence of alternative possible scenarios. Classical narratologists (Tzv. Todorov, K. Bremond, R. Barthes) have also paid attention to this feature of narrative logic, but this type of eventfulness in the narrative has been studied much less often. The article examines the mechanisms of functioning of alternative versions of events in the narrative. Thus, alternatives can be presented by the narrator, the hero, or fall to the share of the reader's imagination. They can also have a different narrative scope: they can be omitted, implicit, explicit, or even expanded into a separate storyline. Depending on these criteria, different mechanisms of functioning of alternatives are distinguished: embedded narratives (describing desires, intentions, fantasies, etc. of heroes), virtual events ("still possible" events), disnarration (indications of events on behalf of the narrator or hero that could only have happened, but did not happen), denarration (events that occurred, but then refuted), alternarration (events presented according to the principle of "either, or"), counterfactual narratives (alternatives deployed in separate storylines). Alternative scenarios can be included in the structure of the narrative, but they can also function at the level of reader interaction with it: in this case, we can talk about "replotting" (playing alternatives in the reader's imagination), about stimulating counterfactual and optional thinking of the reader. Each of the mechanisms in the article is considered on separate literary and cinematic examples, but this does not exhaust the problem of the functioning of alternatives in the narrative. On the contrary, the mechanisms considered allow us to raise new questions: whether such events can be included in the fabula and under what conditions; how the functioning of alternatives in literary narratives of different eras changes; whether it is possible to talk about the media specificity of such events - whether their functioning in literature differs from other types of narratives, for example, cinematic. Consideration of alternative scenarios makes it possible to present the narrative progression in a different way in the narrative and to reconsider the reader's complicit interaction with it. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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