Creating Narratives (1/5): Introduction

To create a narrative, you will need to consider four things: voice, perspective, style and structure. They are each as important as one another.

Definitions

Narrative voice considers who is telling the story, how they refer to themselves and how they address the reader, namely through the use of pronouns.

Narrative perspective considers whose point of view the story is told from, rather than who's telling the story.

Narrative style considers the form of the writing itself, whether this be a witness statement, a religious scripture or an instruction-based gamebook.

Narrative structure considers the order in which information is presented –– whether or not this be in chronological order, for example.

Example:

In a diary entry, Person A recounts Person B’s history of childhood trauma from primary school to secondary education.

In this example, the narrative voice pertains to how Person A addresses the reader (here, this is likely the diary itself) and the characters in the story (Person B);

narrative perspective refers to Person B’s own history, experience, thoughts and feelings, as Person A will recount Person B's trauma with consideration of Person B's point of view; the narrative style here is a diary entry (a form of epistolary narrative); and, finally, the narrative structure is linear, as Person B's history of trauma is recounted in chronological order (from primary to secondary school).