What is narration?

We explain what the narrative is and what are the elements that a story should have. In addition, the narrative as a literary genre.

1. What is narration?

The narrative is a story of real or fictional events , that is, imaginary, which are carried out by characters within a delimited context (space and time).

A narrative is not necessarily a fiction story, by telling something that happened to us or will happen to us, or a dream we have had, etc., we are narrating. Every day the human being reads and listens to stories at all times , when going to school, to work, when he talks with someone in the street. It is not necessary to read a novel to read a story.

2. What are its elements?

• Narrator : First, a narrative needs a narrator, a person to tell, to tell the story. The narrator will be the one who presents the facts and the characters. You can tell a story in the first person as the protagonist or witness of the story, or write in the third person, referring to another character outside of it. If the narrator is omniscient, he knows everything he feels and the characters think.
• Characters : Then, we have the characters, that is, the beings that live the situations of the story. The characters can be people but also animals or animated or inanimate objects. The characters usually have a certain personality, what is called character. In a story we will find one or several characters that respond to the category of main characters or protagonists, usually one stands out from the rest. Other characters will be secondary. On many occasions a character appears who has opposite characteristics to the protagonist who is called an antagonist (who is usually an evil person).
• Facts : Finally, it is necessary to narrate one or more actions, events that happen to the characters.
• Plot : A story is also composed of a plot , that is, the story itself, and a frame, which contextualizes the plot, indicating the time and space of the story. The plot of a story is divided, in turn, into:
  • Introduction : It is the initial event, the first event that triggers the story told.
  • Knot : It can be divided into reaction and action, it is the way in which the central part of the plot is developed, where the main actions and conflicts take place .
  • Outcome : It is usually brief and ends the actions of people. The end of a story can be opened.
• Dialogues : Also, a story has dialogues, that is, conversations between the characters.
• Descriptions : They help us imagine situations.

3. The narrative as a literary genre

When we talk about a narrative text we refer to the primacy of literary plots within the text in question . This genre is different from the lyric (where verse and rhyme is the main thing) and drama or dramatic genre , where the dialogue of the characters predominates. In these two genres the figure of the narrator does not appear.

A narrative text can respond to different subgenres, the novel being the most extensive and the short story the shortest:

• Novel.
• Nouvelle
• Long story and story.
• Short story and short story.
• Short story.