It explains a state of affairs blow by blow, and aims for maximum clarity at every stage. A neutral, matter of fact presentation probably maintains a chronology of events. In this sense, a narrative is effectively the opposite of an account or a report.Ī report presents information in order to be understood by the audience immediately, as it is being related. Such deliberate authorial obfuscation creates a sense of mystery or tension, and creates a desire in the audience to find out what is happening in the story and why.
A storyteller arranges the items of knowledge in such a way that they are revealed gradually, which implies initially obscuring the truth behind what is told. Each story event is a unit of knowledge the audience requires.Ī narrative is paradox, because it seeks to convey truth by hiding it. Narrative turns story into information, or better, into knowledge for the recipient (the audience or reader). A new event order means you have a new narrative of the same story. The easy way to remember the difference between story and narrative is to reshuffle the order of events. Narrative is the choice of which events to relate and in what order to relate them – so it is a representation or specific manifestation of the story, rather than the story itself.
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