The Narrative Paragraph
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Another different type of writing is called “narrative writing”. It is different from descriptive writing. Narration tells a story. It has these elements:
A Plot with a Conflict/Climax A Narrator
A Setting Characters
These elements will be examined below in more detail.
Plot and Conflict:
Narratives relate a series of events that happened (in the past, as a memory), are happening (in the present), or will happen ( in the future). As with descriptive writing, you should always use vivid language, but instead of focussing on a special moment in time as you would when writing a descriptive paragraph, a narrative has movement and direction. There is usually a conflict of some kind. Some common types of conflict include:
conflict between one person and another person or between groups
conflict between a person and nature
conflict between an individual and the society in which she or he lives
As a narrative writer, you can choose the events that you want to tell to your audience, and you also have the power to decide what order in which to tell these events. Selection and order are two powerful writer’s tools.
Narratives also have special types or organization and structure.
1. You can decide to tell your story in chronological order. This means that you tell the story “in time” according to the order the events happened one after the other. Some people call this a “linear narrative” because it seems to travel in a straight line.
2. A story can also be told using a “flashback” technique. In this type of structure, events are interrupted by a memory of something that happened in the past or by an event that will happen in the future. Sometimes the story or paragraph starts right in the middle of an exciting event ( a technique called “in medias res”, which is Latin) then backtracks to explain how the story got to that point. These “non-linear narratives” are difficult to build but are very interesting to read. The movie “Twelve Monkeys” is constructed this way.
3. A third way that a narrative can be constructed is by learning about a series of events or a major happening from the points of view of several characters. The story “Voices in the Park” is written this way. By looking at the perspectives of different people about a common event, readers in the audience can learn about how mysterious a simple thing can be when it is viewed by several different people at the same time.