Fiction writing is the composition of non-factual prose texts.
Fictional writing often is produced as a story meant to entertain or
convey an author's point of view. The result of this may be a short story, novel, novella, screenplay, or drama, which are all types (though not the only types) of fictional writing styles. Different types of authors practice fictional writing, including novelists, playwrights, short story writers, radio dramatists and screenwriters.
A genre is the subject matter or category that writers use. For instance, science fiction, fantasy and mystery fiction are genres. Genre fiction also known as popular fiction, is plot-driven fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
Genre fiction is storytelling driven by plot, as opposed to
literary fiction, which focuses more on theme and character. Genre
fiction, or popular fiction, is written to appeal to a large audience
and it sells more primarily because it is more commercialised. An
example is the Twilight series which may sell more than Herman Melville's Moby Dick, because the Twilight novels deal with elements of pop culture – romance and vampires.
Literary fiction is usually contrasted with, popular, commercial, or genre fiction.
Some have described the difference between them in terms of analysing
reality (literary) rather than escaping reality (popular). The contrast
between these two categories of fiction is controversial among some critics and scholars.
Elements of fiction
Character
Author Jenna Blum
described the process of creating a character: "It feels like having a
string dangle out of thin air and you pull on the string, and the next
thing you know, a sweater knits itself out of nowhere and you have a
character who is made out of whole cloth."
Characterization is one of the five elements of fiction, along with plot, setting, theme, and writing style. A character
is a participant in the story, and is usually a person, but may be any
persona, identity, or entity whose existence originates from a fictional
work or performance.
Characters may be of several types:
Point-of-view character: the character by whom the story is viewed. The point-of-view character may or may not also be the main character in the story.
Antagonist: the character who stands in opposition to the protagonist
Minor character: a character that interacts with the protagonist. They help the story move along.
Foil character: a (usually minor) character who has traits opposed to those of the main character
Plot
The plot,
or storyline, is the rendering and ordering of the events and actions
of a story. Starting with the initiating event, then the rising action,
conflict, climax, falling action, and ending possibly with a resolution.
Plot consists of action and reaction, also referred to as stimulus and response and has a beginning, a middle, and an ending.
The climax of the novel consists of a single action-packed
sentence in which the conflict (problem) of the novel is resolved. This
sentence comes towards the end of the novel. The main part of the action
should come before the climax.
Plot also has a mid-level structure: scene and sequel. A scene is
a unit of drama—where the action occurs. Then, after a transition of
some sort, comes the sequel—an emotional reaction and regrouping, an
aftermath.
Setting
Setting
is the locale and time of a story. The setting is often a real place,
but may be a fictitious city or country within our own world; a
different planet; or an alternate universe, which may or may not have
similarities with our own universe. Sometimes setting is referred to as
milieu,
to include a context (such as society) beyond the immediate
surroundings of the story. It is basically where and when the story
takes place.
Theme
Theme
is what the author is trying to tell the reader. For example, the
belief in the ultimate good in people, or that things are not always
what they seem. This is often referred to as the "moral of the story."
Some fiction contains advanced themes like morality, or the value of
life, whereas other stories have no theme, or a very shallow one.
Style
Style
includes the multitude of choices fiction writers make, consciously or
not, in the process of writing a story. It encompasses not only the
big-picture, strategic choices such as point of view and choice of narrator,
but also tactical choices of grammar, punctuation, word usage, sentence
and paragraph length and structure, tone, the use of imagery, chapter
selection, titles, etc. In the process of creating a story, these
choices meld to become the writer's voice, his or her own unique style.
For each piece of fiction, the author makes many choices,
consciously or subconsciously, which combine to form the writer's unique
style. The components of style are numerous, but include point of view,
choice of narrator, fiction-writing mode, person and tense, grammar,
punctuation, word usage, sentence length and structure, paragraph length
and structure, tone, imagery, chapter usage, and title selection.
Narrator
The narrator is the story teller. The main character in the book can also be the narrator.
Point of view
Point of view
is the perspective (or type of personal or non-personal "lens") through
which a story is communicated. Narrative point of view or narrative
perspective describes the position of the narrator, that is, the
character of the storyteller, in relation to the story being told.
Tone
The tone of a literary work expresses the writer's attitude toward or feelings about the subject matter and audience.
Suspension of disbelief
Suspension of disbelief is the reader's temporary acceptance of story elements as believable, regardless of how implausible they may seem in real life.
Authors' views on writing
Ernest Hemingway wrote "Prose is architecture, not interior decoration."
Stephen King, in his non-fiction, part autobiographical, part self-help writing memoir, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,
he gives readers helpful advice on honing their craft: "Description
begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's."
"Now lend me your ears. Here is Creative Writing 101:
Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading
characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader
may see what they are made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as
possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete
understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish
the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages."
The creation of a work of fiction implies the construction of an imaginary world.
Typically, the fictionality of the work is publicly acknowledged and
the audience expects the work to deviate in some ways from the real
world rather than presenting only factually accurate portrayals or characters who are actual people. Because fiction is generally understood to not fully adhere to the real world, the themes and context of a work, such as if and how it relates to real-world issues or events, are open to interpretation.
Characters and events within some fictional works may even exist in
their own context entirely separate from the known physical universe: an
independent fictional universe.
In contrast to fiction, creators of non-fiction
works assume responsibility for presenting only the historical and
factual truth. Despite the traditional distinction between fiction and
non-fiction, some modern works blur this boundary, particularly ones
that fall under certain experimental storytelling genres—including some postmodern fiction, autofiction, or creative nonfiction like non-fiction novels and docudramas—as well as deliberate literary frauds, which are falsely marketed as nonfiction.
The Internet has had a major impact on the creation and distribution of fiction, calling into question the feasibility of copyright as a means to ensure royalties are paid to copyright holders. Also, digital libraries such as Project Gutenberg make public domain
texts more readily available. The combination of inexpensive home
computers, the Internet, and the creativity of its users has also led to
new forms of fiction, such as interactive computer games or computer-generated comics. Countless forums for fan fiction can be found online, where loyal followers of specific fictional realms create and distribute derivative stories. The Internet is also used for the development of blog fiction, where a story is delivered through a blog either as flash fiction or serial blog, and collaborative fiction, where a story is written sequentially by different authors, or the entire text can be revised by anyone using a wiki.
Types of literary fiction in prose are distinguished by relative length and include:
Short story: the boundary between a long short story and a novella is vague, though a short story is commonly fewer than 7,500 words
Historical fiction places imaginary characters into real historical events. In the 1814 historical novel Waverley, Sir Walter Scott's fictional character Edward Waverley meets a figure from history, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and takes part in the Battle of Prestonpans. Some works of fiction are slightly or greatly re-imagined based on some originally true story, or a reconstructed biography.
Often, even when the fictional story is based on fact, there may be
additions and subtractions from the true story to make it more
interesting. An example is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a 1990 series of short stories about the Vietnam War.
The definition of literary fiction is controversial. In the book
trade, it is used to market novels which do not fit neatly into an
established genre (see genre fiction).
Other definitions are that a novel is literary fiction if it is
character-driven rather than plot-driven, or if it examines the human
condition, or if it uses language in an experimental or poetic fashion,
or simply if it is "serious". Literary fiction is often used as a synonym for literature, in the narrow sense of writings specifically considered to be an art form. While literary fiction is sometimes regarded as superior to genre fiction, the two are not mutually exclusive, and major literary figures have employed the genres of science fiction, crime fiction, romance, etc, to create works of literature. Furthermore, the study of genre fiction has developed within academia in recent decades.
The term is sometimes used such as to equate literary fiction to literature. The accuracy of this is debated. Neal Stephenson
has suggested that while any definition will be simplistic there is
today a general cultural difference between literary and genre fiction.
On the one hand literary authors nowadays are frequently supported by
patronage, with employment at a university or a similar institution, and
with the continuation of such positions determined not by book sales
but by critical acclaim by other established literary authors and
critics. On the other hand, he suggests, genre fiction writers tend to
support themselves by book sales. However, in an interview, John Updike
lamented that "the category of 'literary fiction' has sprung up
recently to torment people like me who just set out to write books, and
if anybody wanted to read them, terrific, the more the merrier. ... I'm a
genre writer of a sort. I write literary fiction, which is like spy
fiction or chick lit". Likewise, on The Charlie Rose Show,
he argued that this term, when applied to his work, greatly limited him
and his expectations of what might come of his writing, so he does not
really like it. He suggested that all his works are literary, simply
because "they are written in words".
Literary fiction often involves social commentary, political criticism, or reflection on the human condition. In general it focuses on "introspective, in-depth character studies" of "interesting, complex and developed" characters. This contrasts with genre fiction where plot is the central concern.
Usually in literary fiction the focus is on the "inner story" of the
characters who drive the plot, with detailed motivations to elicit
"emotional involvement" in the reader. The style of literary fiction is often described as "elegantly written, lyrical, and ... layered". The tone of literary fiction can be darker than genre fiction, while the pacing of literary fiction may be slower than popular fiction. As Terrence Rafferty
notes, "literary fiction, by its nature, allows itself to dawdle, to
linger on stray beauties even at the risk of losing its way".
Realistic fiction typically involves a story whose basic setting (time and location in the world) is real and whose events could feasibly happen in a real-world setting; in contrast, speculative fiction typically involves a story where the opposite is the case, often being set in an entirely imaginary universe, an alternative history
of the world other than that currently understood as true, or some
other non-existent location or time-period, sometimes even presenting impossible technology
or defiance of the currently understood laws of nature. However, all
types of fiction arguably invite their audience to explore real ideas,
issues, or possibilities in an otherwise imaginary setting or using what
is understood about reality to mentally construct something similar to
reality, though still distinct from it.
In terms of the traditional separation between fiction and non-fiction,
the lines are now commonly understood as blurred, showing more overlap
than mutual exclusion. Even fiction usually has elements of or grounding
in, truth. The distinction between the two may be best defined from the
perspective of the audience, according to whom a work is regarded as
non-fiction if its people, places, and events are all historically or
factually real, while a work is regarded as fiction if it deviates from
reality in any of those areas. The distinction between fiction and
non-fiction is further obscured by an understanding, on the one hand,
that the truth can be presented through imaginary channels and
constructions, while, on the other hand, imagination can just as well
bring about significant conclusions about truth and reality.
Literary critic James Wood, argues that "fiction is both artifice and verisimilitude", meaning that it requires both creative inventions as well as some acceptable degree of believability, a notion often encapsulated in poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's term: willing suspension of disbelief.
Also, infinite fictional possibilities themselves signal the
impossibility of fully knowing reality, provocatively demonstrating that
there is no criterion to measure constructs of reality.
A narrative, story or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.).
Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken
words, still or moving images, or any combination of these. The word
derives from the Latin verb narrare (to tell), which is derived from the adjective gnarus (knowing or skilled). Along with argumentation, description, and exposition, narration, broadly defined, is one of four rhetorical modes of discourse. More narrowly defined, it is the fiction-writing mode in which the narrator communicates directly to the reader. The school of literary criticism known as Russian formalism has applied methods used to analyse narrative fiction to non-fictional texts such as political speeches.
Oral storytelling is the earliest method for sharing narratives.
During most people's childhoods, narratives are used to guide them on
proper behavior, cultural history, formation of a communal identity and
values, as especially studied in anthropology today among traditional indigenous peoples.
A
narrative is a telling of some true or fictitious event or connected
sequence of events, recounted by a narrator to a narratee (although
there may be more than one of each). A personal narrative is a prose narrative relating personal experience.
Narratives are to be distinguished from descriptions of qualities,
states, or situations, and also from dramatic enactments of events
(although a dramatic work may also include narrative speeches). A
narrative consists of a set of events (the story) recounted in a process
of narration (or discourse), in which the events are selected and arranged in a particular order (the plot,
which can also mean "story synopsis"). The term "emplotment" describes
how, when making sense of personal experience, people structure and
order personal narratives. The category of narratives includes both the shortest accounts of events (for example, the cat sat on the mat,
or a brief news item) and the longest historical or biographical works,
diaries, travelogues, and so forth, as well as novels, ballads, epics,
short stories, and other fictional forms. In the study of fiction, it
is usual to divide novels and shorter stories into first-person
narratives and third-person narratives. As an adjective, "narrative"
means "characterized by or relating to storytelling": thus narrative technique is the method of telling stories, and narrative poetry
is the class of poems (including ballads, epics, and verse romances)
that tell stories, as distinct from dramatic and lyric poetry. Some
theorists of narratology
have attempted to isolate the quality or set of properties that
distinguishes narrative from non-narrative writings: this is called narrativity.
History
In India, archaeological evidence of the presence of stories is found at the Indus valley civilization site, Lothal.
On one large vessel, the artist depicts birds with fish in their beaks
resting in a tree, while a fox-like animal stands below. This scene
bears resemblance to the story of The Fox and the Crow in the Panchatantra.
On a miniature jar, the story of the thirsty crow and deer is depicted,
of how the deer could not drink from the narrow-mouth of the jar, while
the crow succeeded by dropping stones into the jar. The features of the
animals are clear and graceful.
Human nature
Owen Flanagan
of Duke University, a leading consciousness researcher, writes,
"Evidence strongly suggests that humans in all cultures come to cast
their own identity in some sort of narrative form. We are inveterate
storytellers." Stories are an important aspect of culture. Many works of art and most works of literature tell stories; indeed, most of the humanities involve stories.
Stories are of ancient origin, existing in ancient Egyptian, ancient Greek, Chinese and Indian cultures and their myths. Stories are also a ubiquitous component of human communication, used as parables and examples to illustrate points. Storytelling
was probably one of the earliest forms of entertainment. As noted by
Owen Flanagan, narrative may also refer to psychological processes in
self-identity, memory and meaning-making.
Semiotics begins with the individual building blocks of meaning called signs; semantics is the way in which signs are combined into codes to transmit messages. This is part of a general communication system using both verbal and non-verbal elements, and creating a discourse with different
modalities and forms.
In On Realism in Art, Roman Jakobson
attests that literature exists as a separate entity. He and many other
semioticians prefer the view that all texts, whether spoken or written,
are the same, except that some authors encode their texts with distinctive literary
qualities that distinguish them from other forms of discourse.
Nevertheless, there is a clear trend to address literary narrative forms
as separable from other forms. This is first seen in Russian Formalism through Victor Shklovsky's analysis of the relationship between composition and style, and in the work of Vladimir Propp, who analyzed the plots used in traditional folk-tales and identified 31 distinct functional components. This trend (or these trends) continued in the work of the Prague School and of French scholars such as Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roland Barthes.
It leads to a structural analysis of narrative and an increasingly
influential body of modern work that raises important theoretical
questions:
How is it manifested as art, cinema, theater, or literature?
Why is narrative divided into different genres, such as poetry, short stories, and novels?
Literary theory
In
literary theoretic approach, narrative is being narrowly defined as
fiction-writing mode in which the narrator is communicating directly to
the reader. Until the late 19th century, literary criticism as an academic exercise dealt solely with poetry (including epic poems like the Iliad and Paradise Lost, and poetic drama like Shakespeare). Most poems did not have a narrator distinct from the author.
But novels, lending a number of voices to several characters in
addition to narrator's, created a possibility of narrator's views
differing significantly from the author's views. With the rise of the
novel in the 18th century,
the concept of the narrator (as opposed to "author") made the question
of narrator a prominent one for literary theory. It has been proposed
that perspective and interpretive knowledge are the essential
characteristics, while focalization and structure are lateral
characteristics of the narrator.
The role of literary theory in narrative has been disputed; with some interpretations like Todorov's
narrative model that views all narratives in a cyclical manner, and
that each narrative is characterized by a three part structure that
allows the narrative to progress. The beginning stage being an
establishment of equilibrium—a state of non conflict, followed by a
disruption to this state, caused by an external event, and lastly a
restoration or a return to equilibrium—a conclusion that brings the
narrative back to a similar space before the events of the narrative
unfolded.
Other critiques of literary theory in narrative challenge the
very role of literariness in narrative, as well as the role of narrative
in literature. Meaning, narratives and their associated aesthetics,
emotions, and values have the ability to operate without the presence of
literature and vice versa. According to Didier Costa, the structural
model used by Todorov and others is unfairly biased towards a Western
interpretation of narrative, and that a more comprehensive and
transformative model must be created in order to properly analyze
narrative discourse in literature.
Framing also plays a pivotal role in narrative structure; an analysis
of the historical and cultural contexts present during the development
of a narrative is needed in order to more accurately represent the role
of narratology in societies that relied heavily on oral narratives.
Types of narrators and their modes
A
writer's choice in the narrator is crucial for the way a work of
fiction is perceived by the reader. There is a distinction between first-person and third-person narrative, which Gérard Genette
refers to as intradiegetic and extradiegetic narrative, respectively.
Intradiagetic narrators are of two types: a homodiegetic narrator
participates as a character in the story. Such a narrator cannot know
more about other characters than what their actions reveal. A
heterodiegetic narrator, in contrast, describes the experiences of the
characters that appear in the story in which he or she does not
participate.
Most narrators present their story from one of the following
perspectives (called narrative modes): first-person, or third-person
limited or omniscient. Generally, a first-person narrator
brings greater focus on the feelings, opinions, and perceptions of a
particular character in a story, and on how the character views the
world and the views of other characters. If the writer's intention is to
get inside the world of a character, then it is a good choice, although
a third-person limited narrator is an alternative that does not require the writer to reveal all that a first-person character would know. By contrast, a third-person omniscient narrator
gives a panoramic view of the world of the story, looking into many
characters and into the broader background of a story. A third-person
omniscient narrator can be an animal or an object, or it can be a more
abstract instance that does not refer to itself. For stories in which
the context and the views of many characters are important, a
third-person narrator is a better choice. However, a third-person
narrator does not need to be an omnipresent guide, but instead may
merely be the protagonist referring to himself in the third person (also
known as third person limited narrator).
A writer may choose to let several narrators tell the story from
different points of view. Then it is up to the reader to decide which
narrator seems most reliable for each part of the story. It may refer to
the style of the writer in which he/she expresses the paragraph
written. See for instance the works of Louise Erdrich. William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is a prime example of the use of multiple narrators. Faulkner employs stream of consciousness to narrate the story from various perspectives.
In Indigenous American communities, narratives and storytelling
are often told by a number of elders in the community. In this way, the
stories are never static because they are shaped by the relationship
between narrator and audience. Thus, each individual story may have
countless variations. Narrators often incorporate minor changes in the
story in order to tailor the story to different audiences.
The use of multiple narratives in a story is not simply a
stylistic choice, but rather an interpretive one that offers insight
into the development of a larger social identity and the impact that has
on the overarching narrative, as explained by Lee Haring.
Haring analyzes the use of framing in oral narratives, and how the
usage of multiple perspectives provides the audience with a greater
historical and cultural background of the narrative. She also argues
that narratives (particularly myths and folktales)
that implement multiple narrators deserves to be categorized as its own
narrative genre, rather than simply a narrative device that is used
solely to explain phenomena from different points of view.
Haring provides an example from the Arabic folktales of A Thousand and One Nights
to illustrate how framing was used to loosely connect each story to the
next, where each story was enclosed within the larger narrative.
Additionally, Haring draws comparisons between Thousand and One Nights and the oral storytelling observed in parts of rural Ireland, islands of the Southwest Indian Ocean, and African cultures such as Madagascar.
"I'll
tell you what I'll do," said the smith. "I'll fix your sword for you
tomorrow, if you tell me a story while I'm doing it." The speaker was an
Irish storyteller in 1935, framing one story in another (O'Sullivan 75,
264). The moment recalls the Thousand and One Nights , where the story
of "The Envier and the Envied" is enclosed in the larger story told by
the Second Kalandar (Burton 1 : 113-39), and many stories are enclosed
in others."
Aesthetics approach
Narrative
is a highly aesthetic art. Thoughtfully composed stories have a number
of aesthetic elements. Such elements include the idea of narrative structure,
with identifiable beginnings, middles and ends, or
exposition-development-climax-denouement, with coherent plot lines; a
strong focus on temporality including retention of the past, attention
to present action and protention/future anticipation; a substantial
focus on character and characterization, "arguably the most important
single component of the novel" (David LodgeThe Art of Fiction
67); different voices interacting, "the sound of the human voice, or
many voices, speaking in a variety of accents, rhythms and registers"
(Lodge The Art of Fiction 97; see also the theory of Mikhail Bakhtin for expansion of this idea); a narrator or narrator-like voice, which "addresses" and "interacts with" reading audiences (see Reader Response theory); communicates with a Wayne Booth-esque
rhetorical thrust, a dialectic process of interpretation, which is at
times beneath the surface, forming a plotted narrative, and at other
times much more visible, "arguing" for and against various positions;
relies substantially on the use of literary tropes (see Hayden White, Metahistory for expansion of this idea); is often intertextual with other literatures; and commonly demonstrates an effort toward bildungsroman, a description of identity development with an effort to evince becoming in character and community.
Within philosophy of mind, the social sciences and various clinical fields including medicine, narrative can refer to aspects of human psychology. A personal narrative process is involved in a person's sense of personal or cultural identity, and in the creation and construction of memories; it is thought by some to be the fundamental nature of the self. The breakdown of a coherent or positive narrative has been implicated in the development of psychosis and mental disorder, and its repair said to play an important role in journeys of recovery. Narrative Therapy is a school of (family) psychotherapy.
Illness narratives are a way for a person affected by an illness to make sense of his or her experiences. They typically follow one of several set patterns: restitution, chaos, or quest narratives. In the restitution
narrative, the person sees the illness as a temporary detour. The
primary goal is to return permanently to normal life and normal health.
These may also be called cure narratives. In the chaos narrative,
the person sees the illness as a permanent state that will inexorably
get worse, with no redeeming virtues. This is typical of diseases like Alzheimer's disease: the patient gets worse and worse, and there is no hope of returning to normal life. The third major type, the quest narrative,
positions the illness experience as an opportunity to transform oneself
into a better person through overcoming adversity and re-learning what
is most important in life; the physical outcome of the illness is less
important than the spiritual and psychological transformation. This is
typical of the triumphant view of cancer survivorship in the breast cancer culture.
Personality traits, more specifically the Big Five personality traits, appear to be associated with the type of language or patterns of word use found in an individual's self-narrative.
In other words, language use in self-narratives accurately reflects
human personality. The linguistic correlates of each Big Five trait are
as follows:
Extraversion - positively correlated with words referring to humans, social processes and family;
Agreeableness
- positively correlated with family, inclusiveness and certainty;
negatively correlated with anger and body (that is, few negative
comments about health/body);
Conscientiousness - positively correlated with achievement and work; negatively related to body, death, anger and exclusiveness;
Neuroticism - positively correlated with sadness, negative emotion, body, anger, home and anxiety; negatively correlated with work;
Openness - positively correlated with perceptual processes, hearing and exclusiveness
Social-sciences approaches
Human beings often claim to understand events when they manage to
formulate a coherent story or narrative explaining how they believe the
event was generated. Narratives thus lie at foundations of our cognitive
procedures and also provide an explanatory framework for the social
sciences, particularly when it is difficult to assemble enough cases to
permit statistical analysis. Narrative is often used in case study research
in the social sciences. Here it has been found that the dense,
contextual, and interpenetrating nature of social forces uncovered by
detailed narratives is often more interesting and useful for both social
theory and social policy than other forms of social inquiry. Research
using narrative methods in the social sciences has been described as
still being in its infancy
but this perspective has several advantages such as access to an
existing, rich vocabulary of analytical terms: plot, genre, subtext,
epic, hero/heroine, story arc
(e.g. beginning-middle-end), and so on. Another benefit is it emphasies
that even apparently non-fictional documents (speeches, policies,
legislation) are still fictions, in the sense they are authored and
usually have an intended audience in mind.
Sociologists Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein have
contributed to the formation of a constructionist approach to narrative
in sociology. From their book The Self We Live By: Narrative Identity in
a Postmodern World (2000), to more recent texts such as Analyzing
Narrative Reality (2009) and Varieties of Narrative Analysis (2012),
they have developed an analytic framework for researching stories and
storytelling that is centered on the interplay of institutional
discourses (big stories) on the one hand, and everyday accounts (little
stories) on the other. The goal is the sociological understanding of
formal and lived texts of experience, featuring the production,
practices, and communication of accounts.
Inquiry approach
In
order to avoid "hardened stories," or "narratives that become
context-free, portable and ready to be used anywhere and anytime for
illustrative purposes" and are being used as conceptual metaphors as defined by linguist George Lakoff, an approach called narrative inquiry was proposed, resting on the epistemological assumption that human beings make sense of random or complex multicausal experience by the imposition of story structures." Human propensity to simplify data through a predilection for narratives over complex data sets can lead to the narrative fallacy.
It is easier for the human mind to remember and make decisions on the
basis of stories with meaning, than to remember strings of data. This is
one reason why narratives are so powerful and why many of the classics
in the humanities and social sciences are written in the narrative
format. But humans can read meaning into data and compose stories, even
where this is unwarranted. Some scholars suggest that the narrative
fallacy and other biases can be avoided by applying standard methodical
checks for validity (statistics) and reliability (statistics) in terms of how data (narratives) are collected, analyzed, and presented.
More typically, scholars working with narrative prefer to use other
evaluative criteria (such as believability or perhaps interpretive
validity)
since they do not see statistical validity as meaningfully applicable
to qualitiative data: "the concepts of validity and reliability, as
understood from the positivist perspective, are somehow inappropriate
and inadequate when applied to interpretive research".
Several criteria for assessing the validity of narrative research was
proposed, including the objective aspect, the emotional aspect, the
social/moral aspect, and the clarity of the story.
Mathematical-sociology approach
In mathematical sociology, the theory of comparative narratives was
devised in order to describe and compare the structures (expressed as
"and" in a directed graph where multiple causal links incident into a node are conjoined) of action-driven sequential events.
Narratives so conceived comprise the following ingredients:
A finite set of state descriptions of the world S, the components of which are weakly ordered in time;
A finite set of actors/agents (individual or collective), P;
A finite set of actions A;
A mapping of P onto A;
The structure (directed graph)
is generated by letting the nodes stand for the states and the directed
edges represent how the states are changed by specified actions. The
action skeleton can then be abstracted, comprising a further digraph
where the actions are depicted as nodes and edges take the form "action a co-determined (in context of other actions) action b".
Narratives can be both abstracted and generalised by imposing an algebra upon their structures and thence defining homomorphism
between the algebras. The insertion of action-driven causal links in a
narrative can be achieved using the method of Bayesian narratives.
Bayesian narratives
Developed by Peter Abell, the theory of Bayesian Narratives conceives a narrative as a directed graph comprising multiple causal links (social interactions) of the general form: "action a causes action b
in a specified context". In the absence of sufficient comparative cases
to enable statistical treatment of the causal links, items of evidence
in support and against a particular causal link are assembled and used
to compute the Bayesian likelihood ratio of the link. Subjective causal
statements of the form "I/she did b because of a" and subjective counterfactuals "if it had not been for a I/she would not have done b" are notable items of evidence.
In music
Linearity is one of several narrative qualities that can be found in a musical composition. As noted by American musicologist, Edward Cone, narrative terms are also present in the analytical language about music. The different components of a fugue — subject, answer, exposition, discussion and summary — can be cited as an example. However, there are several views on the concept of narrative in music and the role it plays.
One theory is that of Theodore Adorno, who has suggested that "music recites itself, is its own context, narrates without narrative". Another, is that of Carolyn Abbate, who has suggested that "certain gestures experienced in music constitute a narrating voice". Still others have argued that narrative is a semiotic enterprise that can enrich musical analysis.
The French musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez
contends that "the narrative, strictly speaking, is not in the music,
but in the plot imagined and constructed by the listeners". He argues that discussing music in terms of narrativity
is simply metaphorical and that the "imagined plot" may be influenced
by the work's title or other programmatic information provided by the
composer.
However, Abbate has revealed numerous examples of musical devices that
function as narrative voices, by limiting music's ability to narrate to
rare "moments that can be identified by their bizarre and disruptive
effect". Various theorists share this view of narrative appearing in disruptive rather than normative moments in music.
The final word is yet to be said, regarding narratives in music, as there is still much to be determined.
In film
Unlike
most forms of narratives that are inherently language based (whether
that be narratives presented in literature or orally), film narratives
face additional challenges in creating a cohesive narrative. Whereas the
general assumption in literary theory is that a narrator must be
present in order to develop a narrative, as Schmid proposes;
the act of an author writing his or her words in text is what
communicates to the audience (in this case readers) the narrative of the
text, and the author represents an act of narrative communication
between the textual narrator and the narratee. This is in line with
Fludernik's perspective on what's called cognitive narratology—which
states that a literary text has the ability to manifest itself into an
imagined, representational illusion that the reader will create for
themselves, and can vary greatly from reader to reader.
In other words, the scenarios of a literary text (referring to
settings, frames, schemes, etc.) are going to be represented differently
for each individual reader based on a multiplicity of factors,
including the reader's own personal life experiences that allow them to
comprehend the literary text in a distinct manner from anyone else.
Film narrative does not have the luxury of having a textual
narrator that guides its audience towards a formative narrative; nor
does it have the ability to allow its audience to visually manifest the
contents of its narrative in a unique fashion like literature does.
Instead, film narratives utilize visual and auditory devices in
substitution for a narrative subject; these devices include cinematography, editing, sound design (both diegetic and non-diegetic sound), as well as the arrangement and decisions on how and where the subjects are located onscreen—known as mise-en-scène.
These cinematic devices, among others, contribute to the unique blend
of visual and auditory storytelling that culminates to what Jose Landa
refers to as a "visual narrative instance".
And unlike narratives found in other performance arts such as plays and
musicals, film narratives are not bound to a specific place and time,
and are not limited by scene transitions in plays, which are restricted by set design and allotted time.
In mythology
The
nature or existence of a formative narrative in many of the world's
myths, folktales, and legends has been a topic of debate for many modern
scholars; but the most common consensus among academics is that
throughout most cultures, traditional mythologies and folklore
tales are constructed and retold with a specific narrative purpose that
serves to offer a society an understandable explanation of natural
phenomenon—oftentimes absent of a verifiable author.
These explanatory tales manifest themselves in various forms and serve
different societal functions, including; life lessons individuals to
learn from (for example, the Ancient Greek tale of Icarus
refusing to listen to his elders and flying too close to the sun),
explain forces of nature or other natural phenomenon (for example, the flood myth that spans cultures all over the world), and lastly to provide an understanding of our own human nature, as exemplified by the myth of Cupid and Psyche.
Considering how mythologies have historically been transmitted
and passed down through oral retellings, there is no qualitative or
reliable method to precisely trace exactly where and when a tale
originated; and since myths are rooted in a remote past, and are viewed
as a factual account of happenings within the culture it originated
from, the worldview present in many oral mythologies is from a cosmological perspective—one that is told from a voice that has no physical embodiment, and is passed down and modified from generation to generation.
This cosmological worldview in myth is what provides all mythological
narratives credence, and since they are easily communicated and modified
through oral tradition amongst various cultures, they help solidify the
cultural identity of a civilization and contribute to the notion of a collective human consciousness that continues to help shape our own understanding of the world.
Myth is often used in an overarching sense to describe a multitude of folklore genres,
but there is a significance in distinguishing the various forms of
folklore in order to properly determine what narratives constitute as
mythological, as esteemed anthropologist Sir James Frazer
suggests. Frazer contends that there are three primary categories of
mythology (now more broadly considered categories of folklore): Myths,
legends, and folktales, and that by definition, each genre pulls its
narrative from a different ontological source, and therefore have
different implications within a civilization. Frazer states:
"If these definitions be accepted, we may say that myth has its
source in reason, legend in memory, and folk-tale in imagination; and
that the three riper products of the human mind which correspond to
these its crude creations are science, history, and romance."
Janet Bacon expanded upon Frazer's categorization in her 1921 publication—The Voyage of The Argonauts.
Myth – According to Janet Bacon's 1921 publication, she
states that, "Myth has an explanatory intention. It explains some
natural phenomenon whose causes are not obvious, or some ritual practice
whose origin has been forgotten." Bacon views myths as narratives that
serve a practical societal function of providing a satisfactory
explanation for many of humanity's greatest questions. Questions that
address topics such as astronomical events, historical circumstances,
environmental phenomena, and a range of human experiences including
love, anger, greed, and isolation.
Legend – Bacon aptly describes as such, "Legend, on the other
hand, is true tradition founded on the fortunes of real people or on
adventures at real places. Agamemnon, Lycurgus, Coriolanus, King Arthur,
Saladin, are real people whose fame and the legends which spread it
have become world-wide." Legends are mythical figures whose
accomplishments and accolades live beyond their own mortality and
transcend to the realm of myth by way of verbal communication through
the ages. Like myth, they are rooted in the past, but unlike the sacred
ephemeral space in which myths occur, legends are often individuals of
human flesh that lived here on earth long ago, and are believed as fact.
In American folklore, the tale of Davy Crocket or debatably Paul Bunyan
can be considered legends—as they were real people who lived in our
world, but through the years of regional folktales—have assumed a
mythological quality.
Folktale – Bacon classifies folktale as such, "Folk-tale,
however, calls for no belief, being wholly the product of the
imagination. In far distant ages some inventive story-teller was pleased
to pass an idle hour "with stories told of many-a-feat." What Bacon's
definition assumes is that folktales do not possess the same underlying
factualness that myths and legends tend to have. Folktales still hold a
considerable cultural value, they are simply not regarded as true within
a civilization. Bacon says, like myths, folktales are imagined and
created by someone at some point, but differ in that folktales' primary
purpose is to entertain; and that like legends, folktales may possess
some element of truth in their original conception, but lack any form of
credibility found in legends.
Structure
In the absence of a known author or original narrator, myth narratives are oftentimes referred to as prose narratives.
Prose narratives tend to be relatively linear regarding the time period
they occur in, and are traditionally marked by its natural flow of
speech as opposed to the rhythmic structure found in various forms of literature such as poetry and Haikus.
The structure of prose narratives allows it to be easily understood by
many—as the narrative generally starts at the beginning of the story,
and ends when the protagonist
has resolved the conflict. These kinds of narratives are generally
accepted as true within society, and are told from a place of great
reverence and sacredness. Myths are believed to occur in a remote
past—one that is before the creation or establishment of the
civilization they derive from, and are intended to provide an account
for things such as our origins, natural phenomenon, as well as our own
human nature.
Thematically, myths seek to provide information about ourselves, and
many are viewed as among some of the oldest forms of prose narratives,
which grants traditional myths their fascinating and life defining
characteristics that continue to be communicated today.
Another theory regarding the purpose and function of mythological narratives derives from 20th Century philologistGeorges Dumézil and his formative theory of the "trifunctionalism" found in Indo-European mythologies.
Dumèzil refers only to the myths found in Indo-European societies, but
the primary assertion made by his theory is that Indo European life was
structured around the notion of three distinct and necessary societal
functions, and as a result, the various gods and goddesses in Indo
European mythology assumed these functions as well. The three functions
were organized by cultural significance—with the first function being
the most grand and sacred. For Dumèzil, these functions were so vital,
they manifested themselves in every aspect of life and were at the
center of everyday life.
These "functions", as Dumèzil puts it, were an array of esoteric knowledge and wisdom that was reflected by the mythology. The first function being sovereignty—and
was divided into two additional categories: magical and juridical. As
each function in Dumèzil's theory corresponded to a designated social
class in the human realm; the first function was the highest, and was
reserved for the status of kings and other royalty. In an interview with
Alain Benoist, Dumèzil described magical sovereignty as such,
"[Magical
Sovereignty] consists of the mysterious administration, the 'magic' of
the universe, the general ordering of the cosmos. This is a
'disquieting' aspect, terrifying from certain perspectives. The other
aspect is more reassuring, more oriented to the human world. It is the
'juridical' part of the sovereign function."
This
implies that gods of the first function are responsible for the overall
structure and order of the universe, and those gods who possess
juridical sovereignty are more closely connected to the realm of humans
and are responsible for the concept of justice and order. Dumèzil uses
the pantheon of Norse gods as examples of these functions in his 1981 essay—he finds that the Norse gods Odin and Tyr
reflect the different brands of sovereignty. Odin is the author of the
cosmos, and possessor of infinite esoteric knowledge—going so far as to
sacrifice his eye for the accumulation of more knowledge. While Tyr—seen
as the "just god"—is more concerned with upholding justice, as
illustrated by the epic myth of Tyr losing his hand in exchange for the
monster Fenrir
to cease his terrorization of the gods. What this tells us is that
through these myths, concepts of universal wisdom and justice were able
to be communicated to the Nordic people in the form of a mythological
narrative.
The second function as described by Dumèzil is that of the proverbial hero, or champion.
These myths functioned to convey the themes of heroism, strength, and
bravery and were most often represented in both the human world and the
mythological world by valiant warriors. While the gods of the second
function were still revered in society, they did not possess the same
infinite knowledge found in the first category. A Norse god that would
fall under the second function would be Thor—god
of thunder. Thor possessed great strength, and was often first into
battle, as ordered by his father Odin. This second function reflects
Indo-European cultures' high regard for the warrior class, and explains
the belief in an afterlife that rewards a valiant death on the
battlefield; for the Norse mythology, this is represented by Valhalla.
Lastly, Dumèzil's third function is composed of gods that reflect
the nature and values of the most common people in Indo-European life.
These gods often presided over the realms of healing, prosperity,
fertility, wealth, luxury, and youth—any kind of function that was
easily related to by the common peasant farmer in a society. Just as a
farmer would live and sustain themselves off their land, the gods of the
third function were responsible for the prosperity of their crops, and
were also in charge of other forms of everyday life that would never be
observed by the status of kings and warriors, such as mischievousness
and promiscuity. An example found in Norse mythology could be seen
through the god Freyr—a god who was closely connected to acts of debauchery and overindulging.
Dumèzil viewed his theory of trifunctionalism as distinct from
other mythological theories because of the way the narratives of
Indo-European mythology permeated into every aspect of life within these
societies, to the point that the societal view of death shifted away
from our primal perception that tells us to fear death, and instead
death became seen as the penultimate act of heroism—by solidifying your
position in the hall of the gods when you pass from this realm to the
next. More interestingly, however, Dumèzil proposed that his theory
stood at the foundation of the modern understanding of the Christian Trinity,
citing that the three key deities of Odin, Thor, and Freyr were often
depicted together in a trio—seen by many as an overarching
representation of what would be known today as "divinity".
In cultural storytelling
A
narrative can take on the shape of a story, which gives listeners an
entertaining and collaborative avenue for acquiring knowledge. Many
cultures use storytelling as a way to record histories, myths, and
values. These stories can be seen as living entities of narrative among
cultural communities, as they carry the shared experience and history of
the culture within them. Stories are often used within indigenous cultures in order to share knowledge to the younger generation.
Due to indigenous narratives leaving room for open-ended
interpretation, native stories often engage children in the storytelling
process so that they can make their own meaning and explanations within
the story. This promotes holistic thinking among native children, which
works towards merging an individual and world identity. Such an
identity upholds native epistemology and gives children a sense of
belonging as their cultural identity develops through the sharing and
passing on of stories.
For example, a number of indigenous stories are used to illustrate a value or lesson. In the Western Apache
tribe, stories can be used to warn of the misfortune that befalls
people when they do not follow acceptable behavior. One story speaks to
the offense of a mother's meddling in her married son's life. In the
story, the Western Apache tribe is under attack from a neighboring
tribe, the Pimas. The Apache mother hears a scream. Thinking it is her
son's wife screaming, she tries to intervene by yelling at him. This
alerts the Pima tribe to her location, and she is promptly killed due to
intervening in her son's life.
Indigenous American cultures use storytelling to teach children the values and lessons of life.
Although storytelling provides entertainment, its primary purpose is to educate.
Alaskan Indigenous Natives state that narratives teach children where
they fit in, what their society expects of them, how to create a
peaceful living environment, and to be responsible, worthy members of
their communities.
In the Mexican culture, many adult figures tell their children stories
in order to teach children values such as individuality, obedience,
honesty, trust, and compassion. For example, one of the versions of La Llorona is used to teach children to make safe decisions at night and to maintain the morals of the community.
Narratives are considered by the Canadian Métis community, to
help children understand that the world around them is interconnected to
their lives and communities.
For example, the Métis community share the "Humorous Horse Story" to
children, which portrays that horses stumble throughout life just like
humans do. Navajo stories also use dead animals as metaphors by showing that all things have purpose. Lastly, elders from Alaskan Native
communities claim that the use of animals as metaphors allow children
to form their own perspectives while at the same time self-reflecting on
their own lives.
American Indian
elders also state that storytelling invites the listeners, especially
children, to draw their own conclusions and perspectives while
self-reflecting upon their lives.
Furthermore, they insist that narratives help children grasp and obtain
a wide range of perspectives that help them interpret their lives in
the context of the story. American Indian community members emphasize to
children that the method of obtaining knowledge can be found in stories
passed down through each generation. Moreover, community members also
let the children interpret and build a different perspective of each
story.
In the military field
An
emerging field of information warfare is the "battle of the
narratives". The battle of the narratives is a full-blown battle in the
cognitive dimension of the information environment, just as traditional
warfare is fought in the physical domains (air, land, sea, space, and
cyberspace). One of the foundational struggles in warfare in the
physical domains is to shape the environment such that the contest of
arms will be fought on terms that are to one's advantage. Likewise, a
key component of the battle of the narratives is to succeed in
establishing the reasons for and potential outcomes of the conflict, on
terms favorable to one's efforts.
Historiography
In historiography, according to Lawrence Stone, narrative has traditionally been the main rhetorical device used by historians. In 1979, at a time when the new Social History
was demanding a social-science model of analysis, Stone detected a move
back toward the narrative. Stone defined narrative as organized
chronologically; focused on a single coherent story; descriptive rather
than analytical; concerned with people not abstract circumstances; and
dealing with the particular and specific rather than the collective and
statistical. He reported that, "More and more of the 'new historians'
are now trying to discover what was going on inside people's heads in
the past, and what it was like to live in the past, questions which
inevitably lead back to the use of narrative."
Some philosophers identify narratives with a type of explanation. Mark Bevir
argues, for example, that narratives explain actions by appealing to
the beliefs and desires of actors and by locating webs of beliefs in the
context of historical traditions. Narrative is an alternative form of
explanation to that associated with natural science.
Historians committed to a social science approach, however, have
criticized the narrowness of narrative and its preference for anecdote
over analysis, and clever examples rather than statistical regularities.
Storytelling rights
Storytelling
rights may be broadly defined as the ethics of sharing narratives
(including—but not limited to—firsthand, secondhand and imagined
stories). In Storytelling Rights: The uses of oral and written texts by urban adolescents,
author Amy Shuman offers the following definition of storytelling
rights: “the important and precarious relationship between narrative and
event and, specifically, between the participants in an event and the
reporters who claim the right to talk about what happened."
The ethics of retelling other people's stories may be explored through a number of questions: whose story
is being told and how, what is the story's purpose or aim, what does
the story promise (for instance: empathy, redemption, authenticity,
clarification)--and at whose benefit? Storytelling rights also
implicates questions of consent, empathy, and accurate representation. While storytelling—and retelling—can function as a powerful tool for agency and advocacy, it can also lead to misunderstanding and exploitation.
Storytelling rights is notably important in the genre of personal
experience narrative. Academic disciplines such as performance,
folklore, literature, anthropology, Cultural Studies and other social sciences may involve the study of storytelling rights, often hinging on ethics.
Other specific applications
Narrative environment is a contested term that has been used for techniques of architectural or exhibition design in which 'stories are told in space' and also for the virtual environments in which computer games are played and which are invented by the computer game authors.
Narrative film
usually uses images and sounds on film (or, more recently, on analogue
or digital video media) to convey a story. Narrative film is usually
thought of in terms of fiction but it may also assemble stories from
filmed reality, as in some documentary film, but narrative film may also use animation.
Narrative history is a genre of factual historical writing that uses chronology as its framework (as opposed to a thematic treatment of a historical subject).
Metanarrative, sometimes also known as master- or grand narrative, is a higher-level cultural narrative schema
which orders and explains knowledge and experience you've had in life.
Similar to metanarrative are masterplots or “recurrent skeletal
stories, belonging to cultures and individuals that play a powerful role
in questions of identity, values, and the understanding of life.”
Narrative photography is photography used to tell stories or in conjunction with stories.
