What are diegetic boundaries?

Diegetic boundaries are invisible walls that decide what you can see and hear in a story or game world.

Imagine you're playing with toy blocks, building a castle in your room. You can see the blocks you’ve placed, but you can’t see the ones behind the wall of your closet, those are hidden from view. That’s like a diegetic boundary, it’s something that stops you from seeing or hearing parts of the world.

Like a Curtain on Stage

Think of a play on stage. When the curtain is up, you can see the actors and what they're doing. But if the curtain goes down, you can’t see them anymore, that's a diegetic boundary in action! It’s like a wall between what’s happening and what you can see or hear.

Real Life Example

If you’re sitting at the kitchen table and your brother is playing video games in his room, you can hear him laughing, but you can’t see what he's doing on his screen, that’s a diegetic boundary too! It's like an invisible wall between you and his world.

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Examples

A character walks through a door, and the scene changes, that’s a diegetic boundary in action.
Imagine watching a movie where the background suddenly shifts to another room without any explanation, that's a non-diegetic boundary.
When you play a video game and move from one level to another, that transition is often a diegetic boundary.

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Categories: Science · diegetic boundaries· narrative structure· film theory