웹소설에서의 회귀․ 환생 모티브 활용 연구- Vogler의 서사구조를 중심으로 -

Abstract

After the advent of web novel which is a new type of novel that can beread in 5-10 minutes for one episode through the smart phone, novels thathave motifs of return-to-the-past or reincarnation appear more frequently. Inorder to explain this trend, we examined the sales and marketing practicesproviding readers with about 25 episodes free of charge that are commonlyfound in many web novels. This study tried to find the reason of using themotifs by checking the structural characteristics of web novel, while theexisting studies have been focused on the socio-psychological factors suchas psychological mechanisms of younger generations to overcome the unfairness. For this end, we selected four web novels that have the return-to-the-past orreincarnation motifs and tried to find which stories are included in the freeepisodes. For the analysis, we applied the three-stage story frameworkdeveloped by Christopher Vogler. As a result, we found that the selectedweb novels allowed readers to quickly skip the stories that can be classifiedin the Stage 1 (entering the hero’s path) and Stage 2 (transforming into thehero) that can make readers feel frustrated and impatient. In addition to this,the selected web novels included the stories that can be classified in theStage 3 (returning as the hero and clearing up a mission with the powerful ability) for readers to experience some catharsis in the 25 free episodes. Through this, the web novels attracts readers to pay for the next episodes bymaking them to anticipate a full-scale catharsis. In other words, we foundthat the web novels that have return-to-the-past or reincarnation motifs areused as a tool that make the stories possible to quickly provide readers withthe catharsis in the free episodes and used as a useful mean to maximize thesales revenue.