This paper develops a semiotic theory of literary communication, examining the structure of narrative fiction at the interface between narratology and literary pragmatics. It sets down the prolegomena for an examination of the discursive structures of narrative as developed in the third section of "Action, Story, Discourse", a systematic treatise in structuralist narratology. The first section of this paper provides an introduction to the notion of linguistic pragmatics, and then proceeds to examine from this standpoint the issues of writing, communicative interaction, fictionality, narration and narrative status. The paper develops an analysis of fictionality from the perspective of speech act theory, and ends with a pragmalinguistic examination of the concept of literature, of literary communication and effect, and of the notion of literary genres.