Understanding Narrative: Structure, Elements & Techniques
Understanding Narrative: Structure, Elements & Techniques
Narration is the telling of a story; the recounting of actions performed by real or fictitious characters.
- Real Events: Journalistic texts, historical texts, biographies, diaries, or oral reports.
- Fictitious Events: Literary narratives such as myths, legends, and stories.
Key elements within narratives include the narrator, characters, and action.
The Narrator
- Internal Narrator: A character within the story, acting as either the protagonist or a witness. This narrator often uses the first-person perspective.
- External Narrator (Objective): This narrator does not participate in the events. An external narrator can be:
- Omniscient: Knows everything about the characters, including their feelings, thoughts, desires, and intentions.
- Objective: Only describes the characters’ actions without revealing their inner thoughts.
Characters
Characters are the real or fictitious beings who carry out the action.
Character Types:
- Primary vs. Secondary: Classified by their relevance to the story.
- Protagonist: The character who receives the action, often opposed by one or more antagonists.
Character Complexity:
- Flat: Embody stereotypes and follow predictable behavior patterns; they do not evolve. Traditional stories often feature flat characters representing virtues or defects.
- Round: Possess greater psychological complexity and are capable of evolving, similar to real people.
Action and Structure
Narrative action comprises the set of facts, situated within a specific spatial and temporal framework, that are interrelated.
Narrative Structure:
- Trigger → Actions → Solution
- Initial Situation → Development of Action → Final Situation
The narrative framework establishes the time and place of the events. It introduces the characters and details the initial, often balanced, situation. This equilibrium is usually disrupted by an exceptional event that triggers the development of actions. These actions aim to resolve the conflict, leading to the final situation.
Time
- External Time: The era or time period in which the events occur. It is often explicitly stated in the narrative framework (e.g., “December 1951”) or indicated with indefinite formulas (e.g., “Once upon a time”).
- Internal Time: Refers to the sequence of events within the narrative. When events are ordered chronologically, the plot follows a linear development. However, the narrator can disrupt this order using retrospection and anticipation:
- Retrospection (Flashback): Going back in time to recount events that occurred before the current point in the narrative.
- Anticipation (Flashforward): Moving forward in time to relate events that will occur later.
Space
The narrative space can be real or imagined.
- Real Space: Can be presented objectively (as in news reports) or subjectively (idealizing or degrading certain locations, as in some novels).
- Imagined Space: Can be credible (as in realistic stories) or fantastic (as in science fiction stories).
Linguistic Elements
- Temporal Expressions: The narrator establishes the action in time and expresses temporal progression using verb forms and time markers that indicate the before, during, or after of the events.
- Characterization Techniques: Characters are characterized through:
- Their actions.
- Descriptions provided by the narrator.
- Their words in monologues and dialogues.
The narrator can incorporate the characters’ words and thoughts using direct or indirect style:
- Direct Style: The character’s words are presented literally.
- Indirect Style: The narrator rephrases what the characters say in their own words.