When Russell Banks wrote his novel The Sweet Hereafter he created the story of a terrible bus accident in which a number of children died and their town was left to cope. These details make up the foundation of the novel, but the discourse he pursued is what allowed him to look deeper into the details, framing them to encourage subsequent interpretation.

Banks' narrative discourse involves taking the standpoint of the aftermath and using it to examine the accident in hindsight. This particular approach to chronology, or fabula as described by Mieke Bal, is used to reflect upon the accident and examine the implications of why it might have happened and what should be done in the aftermath. Banks discourse involves laying out his novel in the form of five first-person narrative chapters in which four people, each involved differently in the accident, tell their stories. By giving different perspectives of the occurrences within the town and the townspeople themselves, Banks creates a seemingly unbiased representation of the story. The characters' views and opinions balance each other out to give a rounded perspective. By using a lawyer as one of the four narrators, Banks demonstrates an outside perspective and the collective need to place blame and find resolution. He also presents a girl who has survived the accident, but remains crippled, to emphasis how life must go on after the tragedy. Each of the four characters plays a key role in the narrative as they weave their own discourses within Banks' and draw conclusions for the reader as he takes in the story.

In addition, the multiple narrator form chosen by Banks emphasizes the separateness of the townspeople after the accident. The tragic events of the story naturally have the effect of either bringing people together or tearing them apart, and in this case Banks' narrative style is used to demonstrate the latter. Another element of his discourse which helps emphasize this point is that he chooses a small, closely knit town as the setting, which exhibits the great contrast occurring before and after the accident. Banks' writing of his story and discourse occur simultaneously, and therefore, compliment each other within the narrative.

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