kids and narratives

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On Nick jr., there's a segment called, "What Happens Next?" in which someone, usually an adult recite a story and stop the established narrative and a child starts again using their imaginations. Most often, they'll go off on some completely unrelated storyline and not keep the flow of the story. For example, there's a youngster who is telling the tale of an Asian boy who is told to kill a creature or face punishment. He doesn't do as he is instructed and is rewarded in some way by the creature to be killed. At that point, the canon narrative ends and the child is to pick up where he left off. He goes off on a tangent about hos the creature and the boy become best friends and run off to play on the swings and have adventures without any though of what the father thought or did or what the reward was

...and they lived happily ever after.

I'm wondering; at what age are children able to form a cogent, fluid and congruent story?

You'll see really interesting tangents pretty much through at least 2nd grade, but that overlapped with my son with his being able to outline a really wonderful world and history starting in around K. In general, though, I think somewhere mid elementary school is where you'll see consistent coherent stories.

But they may never consistently reply well to prompts - kids like my son are rebellious against prompts, and want to tell THEIR story, not the one the prompt is trying to lead them into.