Narration

Narration is the process of using spoken or written commentary to convey a story to an audience. This process is facilitated by a narrator. A narrator is a specific person or an unspecified literary voice created by an author. This voice delivers essential information to the audience, specifically regarding the plot. The plot is the defined series of events that make up the story. Narration is a mandatory element in all written stories, including novels, short stories, poems, and memoirs. In other formats like films, plays, or video games, narration is optional. These media can use dialogue or visual action to tell the story instead.

Creators manage narration through a set of choices called the narrative mode. This mode encompasses various narrative techniques used to develop the story. One major choice involves the narrative point of view. This determines the relationship between the narrator and the audience. Another choice is the narrative tense, which establishes the timing of the plot. Creators also use techniques to establish setting, which is the location in time and space. They also use narration to develop characters and explore themes, or main ideas. Some creators even use specific linguistic styles, such as stream of consciousness, to shape the experience.

Point of view is often categorized by the grammatical person used. In a first-person point of view, the narrator is a participating character. This narrator uses pronouns like "I," "me," "we," or "us." This method creates a close relationship between the narrator and the reader. Second-person narration uses the pronoun "you" to recount experiences. While it can feel like a direct address, it is often used to add ironic distance. Third-person narration refers to characters using pronouns like "he" or "she." This mode can be further divided into different types of perspectives.

Within third-person narration, creators choose between omniscient and limited views. An omniscient narrator has an overarching perspective. They know everything happening in the story world, including every character's thoughts and feelings. This style was very common in nineteenth-century fiction by authors like Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy. A limited or close third-person point of view is confined to one character's perspective. Some authors also use multiple points of view within a single work. This can be done through discrete chapters to show different characters. Examples include the "Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R. R. Martin.

Scholars have developed complex theories to explain how point of view works. The Russian semiotician Boris Uspensky identified five planes of point of view. These planes are spatial, temporal, psychological, phraseological, and ideological. The psychological plane focuses on the behaviors of characters. The ideological plane is considered the most basic but hardest to formalize. It focuses on the norms, values, and worldview, or "Weltanschauung," of the narrator. American critic Susan Sniader Lanser also studied these categories. She examined how a narrator's distance or affinity to a character affects the text.

Narration also relies heavily on the choice of narrative tense. The past tense is the most common choice for storytelling. In this mode, the events of the plot occur before the narrator's present moment. Present tense narration depicts events as they occur in the narrator's current moment. The "Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins is a notable example of this. There is also a style called the historical present, which is common in spontaneous conversation. A very rare choice is the future tense. This portrays events as occurring some time after the narrator's present.

Storytelling traditions also show how narration can be a social and flexible act. In many Indigenous American communities, narratives are often shared by several elders. Because stories are shaped by the relationship between the narrator and the audience, they are not static. Each individual story may have countless variations based on the audience. Some traditions use framing to connect different stories together. The Arabic folktales in "One Thousand and One Nights" use this technique. Each story is enclosed within a larger narrative structure. This allows for a complex, interconnected way of sharing information and culture.