The article describes the basic elements of the pending narrative and develops them into a tool of qualitative analysis by taking examples from Covid-19-related reports, opinions and editorials in the news. The pending narrative is a powerful story form, persuading the responsible actors in public to take action by stirring up compelling passion for a specific goal. It has a cogency that comes from the threat that if we do not act in the right way now, the continuity of life will be jeopardized. Crises are fertile breeding grounds for pending narratives, and the arrival of the Covid-19 virus is an expressive example of a situation threatening the continuity of human life around the globe. These circumstances feed on the emergence of pending narratives, which translate the unknown, uncertain and frightening future from open, multiple and unpredictable trajectories into more closed, predictable and controllable pathways. In the development of the pending narrative into a tool of qualitative analysis, the article takes influences from narratology, Bamberg’s theory on positioning analysis, Greimas’ narrative semiotics and critical discourse analysis. It proposes that in the analysis of pending narratives we benefit from the separation of three levels. On the first level, pending narratives highlight disorder and the menacing trajectory of the anti-subject, and outline a qualifying trajectory for the subject to overcome the threat. On the second level they persuade the responsible actors and the audience to identify with the qualifying trajectory and to take action or support it. And on the third level they articulate the kind of values, identities and moral order in aid of which the required action is taken.

本文通过引用Covid-19相关新闻，观点和社论中的示例，描述了待定叙事的基本元素，并将其发展为定性分析的工具。悬而未决的叙事是一种有力的故事形式，通过激发对特定目标的强烈热情，说服公众中负责任的演员采取行动。它的威力来自威胁，即如果我们现在不以正确的方式行事，生命的连续性将受到威胁。危机是悬而未决的叙事的沃土，而Covid-19病毒的到来就是威胁全球人类生存连续性的一种典型例证。这些情况以待定叙事的出现为基础，这些叙事将未知，不确定和令人恐惧的未来从公开的，多个且不可预测的轨迹进入更封闭，可预测和可控制的路径。在将待定叙事发展为定性分析工具的过程中，本文受到了叙事学，班贝格的定位分析理论，格雷马斯的叙事符号学和批判性话语分析的影响。它建议在分析未完成的叙述时，我们将从三个层次的分离中受益。在第一层，待定的叙述突出了混乱和反主体的险恶轨迹，并勾勒出主体克服挑战的资格轨迹。在第二层，他们说服负责的演员和听众确定排位赛的轨迹，并采取行动或予以支持。在第三层，他们阐明了价值观的种类，