In Chapter three of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, McCloud explains the narrative structures of comics and how they differ from other media. McCloud explains first that people tend to percieve the world around them through the senses. Similar to the structure of comics, we often are not given the whole picture but instead have to piece together parts from all of our senses to figure it out. McCloud coins this act as "closure." Just like in real life, people are able to connect the panels within comics despite the gaps or "gutter" to form a complete story. Unlike other media like video games, this action is not completely involuntary. In order form an understandable narrative, readers must pay attention to the characters, descriptions, and time format which McCloud further explains in the next chapter.
In Chapter four McCloud reveals the unusual time format within comics. Unlike the ways in which he believes "people are trained" by mass media and more traditional forms of art, each panel within a comic does not represent "one single snapshot in time." This is made apparent by the "word balloons" and sound effects. An action such as an explosion may be shown in only one panel and then immediately followed by the affects in the next. This does not mean that the explosion only lasted for that split second. McCloud compares time in a comic to a rope where "each inch represents a second" and as he winds it through the comic, it is clearly shown that each panel cannot only represent one second. This is a useful technique in which authors and illustrators can tell an entire story within a short amount of time. Once again, a lot is left up to the imagination of the reader.
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