The fiction genre is very broad and offers a wide variety of exciting opportunities for authors as far as writing is concerned. It goes without saying, it is the most competitive genre of the two genres of writing. There are many tools, devices, and rules of writing used in the fiction genre. One of the most useful tools of writing is the narrative writing style.

Perhaps just to be sure that you get the difference between narrative and expository writing, can you tell the difference between a newspaper article titled “A night at the Southern border” and a storybook with the same title? Both the newspaper article and the book are about a night at the southern border, but they are very different pieces of writing. The newspaper article provides facts about what a night at the southern border is, explaining real details about what happens at that location at that time. The book, on the other hand, is based on a created or imagined story about a night at the southern border. Narrative writing is basically writing a story. As a fiction writer, it’s important that you fully understand the narrative writing style before you use it. Let’s take a look at the types of narrative writing.

Types of narrative writing

Linear narrative

For this type of writing, the story or event is narrated chronologically. The author aligns the scenes in his or her story such that each scene is succeeded by the next logical scene. Linear narrative is used in most TV shows, movies, and some storybooks.

Nonlinear narrative

The nonlinear narrative is the complete contrast of the linear narrative. The story does not follow a chronological order. The writer in this case uses a variety of techniques which include but are not limited to the use of first-person in the narration, footnotes, recovered documents, emphasizing a character’s emotions in the narration, and more.

Viewpoint narrative

Viewpoint narrative entails the author narrating the story through a character’s perspective. Using this type of narrative, the author can explore the character’s perspective on the story and allow the audience to get to know the character’s thoughts, feelings, and even personality.

Descriptive narrative

Descriptive writing usually involves the author giving details and depictions of the characters, the story’s setting, the characters’ feelings, and more. Many techniques can be used by the author to make their work descriptive, one among the many examples is imagery.

Now that you know the types of narrative writing styles, do you know the characteristics of narrative writing?

The characteristics of narrative writing

It’s more important for an author to know and understand the characteristics of a given writing tool or device than any other detail about the same. This will help the author fully grasp the dynamics behind the use of the particular writing device and consequently improve his or her work in writing.

A defined structure

The structure, in this case, refers to the beginning, middle, and end of a story. Each narrative story has this type of structure. The beginning usually has the introduction of the story, the middle of the story includes exposing your characters to conflicts and showing how they deal with them. The end is where you answer unanswered questions and connect the loose story threads.

Descriptive language

In narrative writing, the author should use language that is vivid and specific in a way that the reader is prompted to imagine a scene he or she didn’t witness.

Characters

A narrative story can have one or more characters. In some cases, the narrator is the only character in the story, and he or she narrates the story from his or her perspective. For every story, there is always the protagonist. Some stories may have an antagonist, but this is not entirely necessary.

Plot

Each narrative story has a plot. A plot refers to a series of events that happen in the story. A good plot can be many things, but most importantly is comprehensible to the audience.

To make your narrative writing even better, you can incorporate different narrative writing styles in your work. But you do need creativity to create an amazing story. To be more creative, you can pay attention to how other narrators tell their stories; this will help a great deal in your writing.

Sources

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/narrative-writing
https://www.thoughtco.com/narrative-composition-term-1691417