What is a narrative

A narrative should be a telling of stories that has characters inside to be represented for the audience. As defined by Abbott in The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, “stories” are a series of events (Abbott 19); “Characters” are defined as anything that have been incorporated with “human qualities (Abbott 19)”. Although different authors have their own distinctive definitions towards the term “narrative”, there is a consistency of several key elements that frame the term. First, it has to be a story, or story-like representation. In addition, the stories need to be connected with the audience. In other words, it has to grab the readers’ attention and thus it needs to incorporate something “meaningful (Ryan 29)”. Second, it has to be channeled through the real world. This does not necessarily mean that it has to be a real-life story. It can be “fictional (Herman 279)”, as mentioned by Herman. But it has to somehow find its way to be situated in the daily life.

Depends on the media that is used for representation, a narrative can be conveyed thorough different forms. That includes printed media like books, newspapers and magazines as well as electronic media such as Internet. There are also different styles of narrative. As stated by Fischer, the narrative can be both “verbal (written and sound)” and “visual (moving and still)” (Fisher 2010).

Work Cited:

Abbott, H. Porter: The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (Cambridge Introductions to Literature). Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 16.

Fisher, Annemarie. "Blog Task: Definition of Narrative (due Tuesday)." Message to Global Media Narrators. COLI 321 M/GERM 380 L/ENG 300 G: Global Media Narratives In The Digital Age. Sep.10 2010. E-mail.

Herman, David (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 279 f.

Ryan, Marie-Laure: Toward a Definition of Narrative, in: Herman, David (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007, p. 29.