The study of the structure, function, and effect of narrative initiated by Russian Formalism and developed into a highly specialist sub-discipline by structuralism. In particular, narratology draws on the crucial distinction between animal studies developed by Russian Formalism which distinguishes between the actual events in a story and the imaginative way these events are described. In this respect, Propp, Vladimirâs analyses of the formal structure or morphology of Russian folktales, which compared hundreds of traditional stories and broke them down into 31 basic narrative functions and 7 character types, was foundational. By emphasizing form over content, narratology is able to show similarity between stories that might otherwise appear to contain quite different subject matter. Popular fiction studies provides a good example of this by demonstrating the structural similarity of Mills & Boon romances and Jane Austenâs novels. The major narratological theorists after Propp are LĂ©vi-Strauss, Claude, Barthes, Roland, Greimas, Algirdas Julien, and Genette, GĂ©rard. Further Reading: M. Bal Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (1997).