Includes bibliographical references (p. 242-248) and index.

Asking the questions: how we understand stories -- Beginning: designing the project -- Thinking it through: theoretical frameworks -- Paying attention: provisional observations and inferences -- Entering the fiction: the subjunctive and the deictic centre -- Orienting: finding the way forward -- Filling gaps: inferences, closure, and affect linking -- Making progress or making do: the unconsidered middle -- Concluding: reaching provisional and final judgments -- Inhabiting the story: comparative perspectives -- Understanding narrative interpretation.

Stories are told today through many formats and young interpreters bring multimedia experience to bear on every narrative format they encounter. In this book, twelve young people read a novel, watch a film and play a video game from beginning to end. Their responses inform a new framework of contemporary themes of narrative comprehension.