What’s a narrative? What’s a story? Aren’t they the same thing? These are the questions that will be answered here. We will examine and compare five types of narrative and discover how they relate to story. We will look at narrative stories, personal narrative essays, narrative non-fiction, plus another two types of narrative. But first, a story inside of a story…
Exhausted from a relaxing weekend at the hot springs, Arthur’s parents looked at their living room with horror. All of the lamps lay broken in a heap in the middle of the room, broken as if they had been through a turbofan aircraft engine—mangled, obliterated, destroyed.
Arthur, mighty captain of his high school chess club, sauntered in dressed in a tuxedo and top hat, “Mom! Dad! You’re home early! What are you–?”
In unison, Arthur’s parents cried out, “What happened here?! What’s going on?!”
Arthur, a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead, replied, “Ohh… now… that’s a good question. I’m glad you asked. Well… I’ll be honest with you. I mean… let me be honest with you. You see, there once was this chess-club geek from a fine, upstanding family. Naturally, he was happy with his station in life, or so he thought. But then one day, while studying Bobby Fischer’s astonishing defense strategy against Spassky’s King’s Gambit, he had an idea. It was an idea unlike any idea –”
Arthur’s father sternly interrupted Arthur, “Stop right there. Wrong kind of narrative. Tell us what happened. Now!”
A Narrative Tells What Happened
Put simply: A narrative tells what happened. As we can see from Arthur’s account, we have more than one type of narrative. Sadly, for Arthur, his lack of understanding of this fact led to even greater consequences. His parents were not amused or entertained by his narrative. They did not want to be told a story. They wanted to know what happened—that’s all.
Narrative, descriptive, expository, and argument are the four main genres of writing. Genre simply means shares similar characteristics. All narratives share the characteristic of telling what happened. If a writer is not telling what happened, it can’t be a narrative.
But genres are fluid. They exist on a spectrum. If a writer is writing a mystery story, the story must have at least some characteristics of a mystery story. Doesn’t that make sense? If a writer’s mystery story has all of the characteristics of a mystery story, it may be a classic mystery story, or perhaps, a formulaic mystery story. If the story has few characteristic of a mystery story, it may be better to classify the story as a thriller or an adventure story, or even a drama.
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The following Five Levels of Narrative model captures the spectrum of both narrative and story and illustrates how they interact.
The Five Levels of Narrative and Story Model
I love the term LEVELS. But truthfully, we could also call this model the five TYPES of narrative, which is really the five GENRES of narrative. Here is why I prefer the term LEVELS for this model. In this model, for the most part, we move from STORY (Level 1) down to INFORMATIONAL/EXPOSITORY text. In fact, the bottom two levels are NOT narratives. While the bottom two levels use narrative or narration, their main genre is not narrative. Here are the five levels:
8 Level 1: Narrative Story
8 Level 2: Narrative Essay: Personal Narrative Essay
8 Level 3: Narrative Non-Fiction
8 Level 4: Expository Text that Is Narration
8 Level 5: Narrative as a Tool in Other Types of Writing
Narrative vs. Story
People use the terms narrative and story as synonyms. Actually, many people use the terms as if they are one in the same. This practice is unavoidable, but it’s not accurate.
8 Narrative (or narration) is the act of telling what happened.
8 Story is adding story structure, story elements, and narrative and literary techniques on top of narrative to create a narrative story.
Every story is a narrative, and truthfully, every narrative probably has a little bit of story in it. The point here is to think about how much STORY is in the NARRATIVE—you know, on a scale of 1-10.
Level 1: Narrative Story
In a narrative story, the goal is to tell a story. We have three kinds of stories: 1) a true story, 2) based on a true story, and 3) an imaginative story.
What makes a story a story? Here’s the answer in order of importance: 1) story structure, 2) story elements, and 3) narrative and literary techniques. Each of these topics is a full topic of discussion that we won’t get into here. But I will say this: If we tell what happened, it will be a narrative. If we want to create a narrative story, we must begin with a narrative story structure and then layer on story elements, narrative techniques, and literary techniques.
It’s rare that a person tells a great story without trying to tell a great story. Admittedly, sometimes we get lucky and what happens falls into a story format. Furthermore, some people have a gift for telling stories. They pick up on the rhythms of story without formal study in the same way that some people pick up on the rhythms of music. These people can see the story structure in what happened (and many of these people seem quite comfortable with bending the truth just enough to make it fit into a story format). In short, some people just know how to tell a good story.
A huge part of story is the intent to tell a story. As an example, many true-life stories have been nominated for best picture Academy Awards, and someone always complains, “That’s not what happened, exactly.” Point being: A story is not just telling what happened. It’s taking what happened and telling what happened in story format. A writer must find the story in what happened. Mark Twain put it this way: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” That’s not commentary on truth; that’s commentary on what it means to tell a good story.
Level 2: Narrative Essay: Personal Narrative Essay
Some state writing assessments ask students to tell a story, and some assessments ask students to write a personal narrative essay. Regardless of the intent of the prompt, some students will write more of a story, and some will write more of an essay. For the most part, the rubrics are constructed in a way that either is fine. This is one reason why it’s difficult to make a distinction between a story and a narrative essay.
The easiest way to understand a personal narrative essay is to think of a college admissions essay. Do you think they just want to hear a good story? No. They want to learn something about the student. They want to understand who the student is, but probably more importantly, they want to see if the student is self-reflective enough to be able to think about who he or she is. Surely, they want to see if the student can write. And when students use story elements, narrative techniques, and literary techniques, it demonstrates high-level writing skills.
Do you remember what Mark Twain said about story? “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” Well, for a personal narrative essay, we may want to let the truth get in the way. Story structure is not the most important thing in a personal narrative essay. We don’t want to abandon story structure, but we do want to understand what an essay is.
The term essay has become a generic term for any short composition where students write from their personal perspective. The five-paragraph essay is an essay because students write it from their personal perspective. “This is how I see things, and here is my support and evidence.” This personal perspective is what makes an essay an essay. But most academic essays are, for lack of a better word, formal essays. Many essay enthusiasts say that they are not essays at all.
A personal narrative essay comes much closer to the original intent of the essay than an academic essay does. Ever since Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) wrote his first essay—credited as being the first essay, a real essay has been a reflective search for truth. The two terms most associated with a Montaigne-style essay are reflective and meandering. Why meandering? Essays meander because the truth is not linear.
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Writers seeking truth must go where the truth leads them. That’s how we get to the truth. Montaigne was known to contradict himself in the same essay, and people loved it. People loved it because it contained the truth as Montaigne personally saw it. The goal of one of these types of essays is not to give an answer.
Please note: While we want our students’ personal narrative essays to be reflective, we probably don’t want them to meander.
A personal narrative essay is three things: 1) personal, 2) a narrative, and 3) an essay. In a personal narrative essay, the writer reflects on and tells a story of a meaningful event, and the writer discusses the significance of the event: Why was the event meaningful? What effect did it have on the writer’s beliefs, values, relationships, goals—self?
The Main Difference: Narrative Story vs. Narrative Essay: One only needs to read an effective personal narrative essay to see that it is different from a narrative story. The main difference is this. In a story, the writer implies the themes and theme messages but does not discuss them. The reader infers the theme messages. Even if the writer claims there are no theme messages, the reader infers some anyways. People seek meaning in everything.
In a personal narrative essay, the writer openly discusses the theme messages (the meaning behind the events)—it’s reflective writing.
Once again, a personal narrative essay is three things: 1) personal, 2) a narrative, and 3) an essay. Here are a few related terms and synonyms: personal essay, informal essay, narrative essay, personal narrative, and personal memoir
Level 3: Narrative Non-Fiction
Pieces of narrative non-fiction are narratives, so the question is this: Are they stories? Once again, three things make a story a story: 1) story structure, 2) story elements, 3) narrative and literary techniques.
Writers can add these three components to factual information about events and turn the events into a story, or they can remove these three things from a story and turn the events into factual information. Writers must ask these question: How much of a story do I want to tell? How much story is appropriate?
Do you remember Arthur and his parents? “Stop right there. Wrong kind of narrative!” Arthur’s parents wanted Narrative Non-Fiction. Arthur probably could have included a little bit of story, but his parents mainly wanted to know what happened.
8 Types of Narrative Non-Fiction: essays, articles (e.g., news story), narrative history writing, biography, etc.
As the list shows, we have many different types of Narrative Non-Fiction writing. These types of writing blend factual information and explanation with story. If the piece of writing is mostly or entirely factual information and explanation, then it’s probably better classified as expository (informational/explanatory) text. But if a writer chooses to make a piece of Narrative Non-Fiction writing a story, it will be a Narrative Non-Fiction Story.
In journalism, it’s common for writers to use the inverted pyramid structure, in which they place the most important information (Who? What? Where? Why? When? How?) up front. Well, that doesn’t make for a great story, does it? It may still be a narrative, but it’s not a great story.
In a great story, we withhold information and delay giving the readers what they want. We let things unfold in story format in order to create curiosity and suspense. When writers do this in a news story, it’s known as burying the lead.
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We have now crossed the line and left the main genre of narrative. We are now in the world of expository, argument, or descriptive writing. As the hundred-year-old quotes below illustrate, this is how it has always been. Genre exists on a fluid spectrum. Genre is a classification system created by fallible human beings. It’s not a concrete model like the three types of rocks. The three types of rocks actually exist in nature
Level 4: Expository Text that Is Narration
This kind of writing is narration, but it’s not narrative writing per se. Although the events do take place on a timeline, the writer’s goal is not to tell a story. The writer’s goal is to inform and explain.
Although the writer will certainly try to write well and with style, the writer won’t bring in a bunch of story elements (plot, characters, setting, etc.), narrative techniques (dialogue, etc.) or other LFR ™ (literary techniques, figures of speech, rhetorical devices). Here are two quotes that span a hundred years that explains this kind of writing:
a. General Narration/Process Narration: “Explanations of a process of manufacture, methods of playing a game, and the like, often take the form of generalized narration… Such a narration will not tell what someone actually did, but will relate the things that are characteristic of the process or action under discussion whenever it happens. Such general narration is really exposition.” — Composition-Rhetoric (1905) by Stratton D. Brooks.
b. “Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.” — Common Core State Standards: Grades 9-10 (2010)
Level 5: Narrative as a Tool in Other Types of Writing
In this kind of writing, the text and the purpose is primarily expository, argument, or description. But this does not mean that the writer needs to abandon all narrative considerations. When a writer starts telling what happened, they are slipping into narrative. Writers can ignore this fact, or they can embrace it and use it to great effect. Here are two quotes that span a hundred years that explains this aspect of writing:
a. “Both description and narrative may be used for expository purposes, and argument, as in a lawyer’s plea for the conviction of a criminal, may be thrown into the form of a story.” — Paragraph Writing: A Rhetoric for Colleges (1909) by Fred Newton Scott and Joseph Villiers Denny
b. “Students’ narrative skills continue to grow in these grades. The Standards require that students be able to incorporate narrative elements effectively into arguments and informative/explanatory texts.” — Common Core State Standards: Grades 6-12 (2010)
In Conclusion
Writing begins with having something to say and an intent or purpose. As an example, an advertisement is persuasive writing because the writer uses persuasive techniques because the writer wants to sell something. Point being: each of these five types or five levels of narrative and story has a specific purpose and intent. Writers must figure out which type of narrative writing will be most effective given the audience, the topic, and the occasion. Do you remember poor Arthur? He just didn’t understand this. But now you do!
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