Metaphorically Speaking..

A story, on the other hand, is the pot inside the pot. It is a smaller more specific piece of equipment used often for entertainment purposes and involves not just the discourse of information from sender to receiver, but the conveyance of a plot in artful representation of events (Herman 43-44). A narrative includes traits, identities, and notions used to identify and characterize specific elements of time and space (Barthes 247-9). A story infuses the elements of mood, feeling, distance, and tone to enhance delivery and comprehension of the message (Herman 44).

It can be said a story is a narrative, because as the pot within the pot, it certainly obtains the characteristics the of creator to audience pass of information. It cannot be said, however, that all narratives are stories. They all contain discourse, the transmission of opinions, feeling, or intended messages, because all living creatures create and receive discourse inherently throughout their existence (Abbott 15-19). Just as the pots need a substance and heat source within the steamer, narratives and stories need a thought source which derives from discourse.

Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative; Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Barthes, Roland|Duisit, Lionel. New Literary History, Vol. 6, No. 2, On Narrative and Narratives (1975). Pp 237-272. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Web.

Herman, David. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.