Unit 3 Lesson 2: Narrative Writing

Narration is drawn upon by the inherent human need to tell and share stories largely for
entertainment.
What makes a narrative effective and memorable is in the writer’s skill to pace the story and also
in the story’s relevance to anyone who would read it.
Narrative Writing
Narration, in its basest definition, is storytelling. It is a sequence of events, not necessarily
arranged in chronological order, told by the narrator, happening in a particular place at a particular time.
Narration is creating a world based on the writer’s imagination. It is also revisiting a world based on the
author’s memory. In either case, the reader is claimed to be transported from one’s real world to the
reality of the story being read.
An effective narrative is that which makes the reader think and compel him/her to read the
narrative again. To achieve this effectiveness, writers should make sure that their narratives should have
vivid description of details, a consistent point of view and verb tense, and well-defined point or
significance.

Ex: Essays, Fairy tales, autobiographies and news stories.

Vivid Description of Details
Narration banks so much on how the details of the story are told. Description is appealing to the
five senses of the human body (for more in-depth discussion on the Description, please refer to the
previous unit). It takes the reader into narrative by letting him/her feel how it is like in the world of the
story.

Ex: She took a breath, and the freezing air went into her lungs and felt them going into spasm.
She gasped and more cold air went into her lungs, and it was as she were drowning.

Consistent Point of View

The three most commonly used points of view are first, second, and third points of view.
Generally speaking, one would know that the third person point of view is being used in the story when
the pronouns are he, she, it, him, her, they, its, their, and them consistently appear in the narration.
The third POV is generally used to convey the narrator as an omniscient and dispassionate
observer. The narrator is all-knowing; this trait enables to see not only the dialogue that happens between
or among the character’s innermost thoughts and desires. Through internal monologue, the reader is able
to penetrate the character’s mind to be able to understand what the characters are not blatantly saying.
Dispassion, on the other hand, presents a relatively objective story to the reader, one without much bias
and opinion. The narrator tells the story as it happens, with no commentary and partiality.
 Ex: If Jennifer is your viewpoint character and Stefan is a non-viewpoint character, then the
following passage would be a viewpoint inconsistency. “Are you serious?” Jennifer asked.
Stefan swallowed. I’ve gone too far, he thought, absently rubbing his finger over the fidget
spinner in his pocket.

Consistent Verb Tense

A consistent verb tense is needed to make clear to the reader whether the story or the narrative
had already happened, has been happening for some time now, happens on a regular basis, is currently
happening and will do so indefinitely, or will happen sometime in the future.
Ex: I’m eating the cake that I made this morning.
Well Defined Point or Significance
A writer chooses a story that he/she would weave into a narrative. The vivid details are there, and
the consistent POV and verb tense, as well. But so what? None of these would matter if there is no point
in them. As a writer, how do you want your narrative to be remembered? What is it about human nature
and human experience your narrative wishes to tell your readers? The answers to this questions will lead
you to the significance of your narrative.
Narrative Devices
The use of narrative devices is a technique writers utilize to add flavor and enrich the meaning of
their stories. With these devices, an author can shorten, lengthen, and/or focus on a particular event in the
story.
Anecdote
Anecdote are brief narratives that are written from the writer’s memory. It can be used as an
introduction to an essay, as an example to illustrate a point, or as a closing statement that caps things off
nicely in your essay or as a memento to your reader that will make him/her remember your narrative.
Flashback
A flashback is an event that happened in the past. As a word itself, suggests you are “flashing
back” or quickly looking at something that already happened. It is necessarily the focus of the story;
rather more of an addition to explain or to elaborate on a point made by the writer in the narrative.
Time Stretch
A time stretch is a single event in the story that the author focuses writing about.

Time Summary
As supposed to as a time stretch in which in a single is prolonged, a time summary is
characterized by jamming together multiple events and/or shortening a relatively long period of time.
Time summaries can be determined with expressions such as “In a single day…”, “Overnight…”, “After
the winter season…”, “After around a week or so…”, “A few years after…”, etc.
Flashforward
As opposed to a flashback, a flashforward is an event that has yet to happen in the story. It is
“flashing forward” or quickly looking at something that will happened in the future. Similar to the
primary purpose of a flashback, a flashforward is included in a narrative to add meaning to the story.
Ex: When Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and sees his own
grave.
Dialogue
A narrative does not only have a narrator who tells a story in accordance to how he/she observes a
sequence of events. Writers also include dialogues, a word or a series of words enclosed in a pair of
quotation marks, which signal the characters’ spoken word.
Ex: “I don’t want to go home,” said Julia. “I like it here at the zoo. The animals are all so funny.”
She began to cry and then wailed, “I didn’t even get to see the elephants!”

Reporters:
Macalandap, Hamim M.
Shalabie, Rayan H.
Tomawis, Al-Hussein G.