Three types of Narratives:

The Lyrical Narrative / the Narrative Poem:

What is a Narrative Poem?

A narrative poem tells the story of an event in the form of a poem.

It has a beginning, middle, and end.

There is a strong sense of narration, characters, and plot.

It may or may not rhyme.

It could be short or long.

Narrative Poem Examples:

The Ballad of the Harp Weaver

By Milley

The Visual Narrative:

A visual narrative  (also visual storytelling) is a story told primarily through the use of visual media. The story may be told using still photography,  illustration, or video, and can be enhanced with graphics, music, voice and other audio.

Visual Narrative examples:

Prose Narrative:

Narrative prose is the natural style of speaking and writing, with absence of musicality, rhyme, rhythm and other peculiarities of the poetic structure . It consists of the everyday conversation people use to express themselves rationally. The text in prose is objective and not very ambiguous, on a certain subject, for example.

Narrative Prose is a form of writing in which the work is written in prose, instead of poetry, and tells a definitive story through actions. Many written works are written on this form, including a large amount of literary works and more modern pieces of fiction.

Stories written in narrative prose may still have strong and rich characters but these characters are part of the action and are not just witnesses. Prose narrative is usually written at the time of the action and tells a story through a series of events.

Narrative is storytelling — simple, direct, transparent writing that takes the reader right to the thing that happened.

EXAMPLES OF NARRATIVE PROSE

1. Narrative Prose

Narrative prose is an essay that tells an event (fiction / nonfiction) based on a time sequence (chronologically).

Example:

Earthquake

There was an earthquake in the area of Surabaya, East Java early this morning. This incident caused panic to the surrounding residents who were sleeping soundly. There were no casualties in this incident but some of the residents’ houses had cracks in the walls of their houses. The earthquake sent people screaming in all directions.

(The above is an example of description in narrative prose. This example would be used as the exposition (the introduction) to the narrative.)

Narrative Techniques – Narrative Ways

Narrative techniques are as follows:

– The narrator (1st person / 3rd person)

– The kind of storytelling (i.e. narrative ways) (7 types: video online website)

– The angle of view (limited / omniscience)

– The focus (author’s purpose / theme)

– Time of storytelling

– The narrative rate / Pacing (pacing techniques available online, website)

Narrative ways are as follows :

– Narration: telling of the story by the narrator)

– Dialogue:

– Description: description of landscapes, places and persons)

Why Writing Stories Matter and Why YOU Should Make TRUE EFFORT

Writing Narratives:

Outlining:

1. Outlining using Freytag’s model to outline the main parts of the story.

2. Outlining using the Character / Protagonist methodBuild more and more on the characteristics of the main character. As you build the character more and more, conflict will arise; think about that conflict and make a story with it.

3. Outlining by using an event as the main topic4. Outlining focusing on telling a specific moral or theme.

Description and Detail within the Narrative:

Tone and Mood:

Language and Word Usage

Diction

Sentence Structure

Punctuation and Page Setup

Dialogue

Paragraphs indentation

Time Shifts