Conventions of soap operas

 

For soaps to exist they have to have a continuous story with different story lines interwoven with each other. Due to this soap operas have a lot of conventions. These being that the shows runs usually multiple times a week all year round and feature continues story lines that deal with personal personal, family and domestic relationships. The casts are bigger than a normal TV drama but only usually focus on a limited set of characters at a time. 

Soaps don't end and don't seem to have an ending to a story line compared to a film or TV series, as we see a build up to the story, then the actual story, then we see how the event has affected the characters, before it not being mentioned as much, as the characters have moved on as real people do. While this is happening, other story lines have being building up in the background with multi- narrative strands, so once a story line 'ends' we are already engrossed in another story that has been building. Sometimes the story lines are linked and sometimes not. 

Soaps have realist characteristics as well as fictional ones, such as we see the characters deal with what has happened and often some are mentioned many years later, at it was a experience that molded their character. Although soaps are supposed to be 'kitchen sink drama' in recent years the story lines have become very dramatized through big explosions and controversial topics, as well as the unreal aspect of all the drama and events that happen, all happen in one place. Also the fact that if these people were real and went through all the scandal's, death and misery they'd either move away or have a mental breakdown.