Open Narratives

Open narratives mean that there is no actual ending to a soap opera, therefore the soap just continues, for example this Emmerdale, which is celebrating its 40^th year on television (17/10/12). Also with open narratives, there tends to be more than one storyline, including relationships/affairs, murders etc. Not all the stories conclude all at the same time, once one of the stories comes to a conclusion, other stories are developed. At the end of each episode, the soap ends with a cliffhanger keeping the audience thinking about what is going to happen in the episode. Ending the episode with a cliffhanger keeps the audience interested; therefore they continue to watch the soap. Using open narratives, the soap can continue to follow the same stories for a several episodes until they come to a conclusion.  Apart from Emmerdale that is celebrating its 40^th year on TV, other soap operas that have been on TV or many years are Coronation, which has been seen on TV for 52, and also Eastenders, which has been seen on TV for 27 years. For the amount of time these particular soaps have been on TV, you can see that the audience has a big interest in them.