Dr. Mark Jordan ~ ENGL 1301: Composition & Rhetoric Three-Part Format: Narration The section that follows is another of six sections dealing with essay structure and various modes. This section deals with the Narration mode and is a modification of the essay outline given in the Basic Three-Part Format section. The Narration mode is a simplified version of the Basic Three-Part Format, because narration is essentially telling a story to make a point (the thesis). Because a story carries its own built-in structure--the first event leads to the second, which leads to the next event, and so on--the sequence of events of the story itself takes the place of the Main Body portion of the Basic Format which is needed in the other modes. ~ ~ ~ In order to more easily navigate in the six overall sections dealing with the three-part document structure, use the Modes Navigation Bar below: Modes Navigation Bar Basic Format ~ Narration ~ Classification ~ Comparison/Contrast ~ Definition ~ Cause/Effect In order to return to any of the other main sections of the website, use the general navigation bar below or at the top of this page.

 Using Narrative in Your Writing

A Definition of the Narrative Mode

As mentioned above, narrative is nothing more nor less than telling a story. Telling a story in writing is not all that different from telling a story to your friends orally; in either case, when telling a story about something you are describing a chain of events. This chain of events may be strung out over days or months, or you may be telling of a single incident which occurred in a matter of minutes. But even when telling the story of a brief event, there are lots of details to describe, and these details themselves, even if they happened more or less all at once, must be told one at a time, in a sequence, in order to make sense to someone who wasn't there. So you generally tell about one thing, then about the second thing, and so forth.

The narrative mode can be found in some form within many of the other modes, but it can be used by itself as well. When you use it in this way, your entire essay consists of the story you are telling. However, even then, you normally are telling the story to make some point. In telling a story orally, your point may just be that ". . . a funny thing happened today," but generally if you go to the trouble to write a narrative of some incident you experienced, you likely have some more definite point you're trying to make. That point is called your thesis, which is defined in the Basic Three-Part Format section as your opinion about your topic. In the case of the narrative mode, your topic is the incident you're telling the story of, and your opinion is what the incident taught you, in most cases.

Features of the Narrative Mode

I have already listed several features:

• The narrative mode tells a story by describing a sequence of events or actions. Used in this way, "story" doesn't mean something you have made up, but rather a retelling of events you've experienced.
• Usually the story is told to make some point, often what you learned from the experience you're telling of; this point is called the story's thesis.

Here are several more features:

• Editing. Especially when telling about some experience made of many events, you must edit them--for example, in the story of your Senior year of high school, even telling just what you recall might fill an entire book. So you have to pick and choose the most important things to tell. On the other hand, when telling about a brief incident like an argument with a friend that made you see that person (or yourself!) in a different way, you might tell almost every word and action. But that's still an editing decision, and it's best if you make it consciously, because unconscious editing usually doesn't work too well. Learn to exert conscious control over your writing. Even if you choose first to freely write whatever comes into your mind--and some writers do very well to begin this way--there should be a later stage in which you consciously choose to omit some of the story or add more detail in other parts.
• Summarizing. Summarizing, like editing out parts of an event, is a way of writing briefly about a long chain of actions or events. However, rather than skip parts entirely, you may instead choose to summarize them, which means to tell about those parts in few words--to compress those parts of the story into only several sentences.
• Expanding. The opposite of summarizing is to expand important parts of a story by slowing down, so to speak, and instead of rushing through that part of the story in a sentence or two, you tell all the tiny details--everything you can remember. I find that this is hard for some students to do, so here's an example. Suppose that you are writing about a fight you had with your father, and the point (your thesis) to the story is that it was during this fight that you realized that it's finally time for you to move out on your own. If you write, "My dad jumped on me again about coming home late," that's really a one-sentence summarization of what probably was a fairly lengthy exchange between the two of you that took a lot of words, and maybe included shouting, slamming doors, lots of body language, and so forth. To expand that part of the story so that it's really interesting to a reader, you need to actually get down to the level of repeating, as nearly as you can, what the two of you actually said and did:
  He was pretty mad this time. But he just stared at me, so I finally said "Well, what!?" He started shaking his head and said, "I don't ever want to see you coming home at four a.m. again. Is that clear?" It was clear, but it was also a Friday night, I didn't have work or school the next day, and . . .

  It's that level of detail, in which you repeat actual words as closely as you can and describe actions equally closely, which stimulates a reader's interest in your experience.

• Speech, actions, and feelings. As the above example shows, key parts of any story you tell are detailed accounts of what was spoken and what was done, both by yourself and other important "characters" in your story. Equally important, however, is an account of your inner feelings:
  This must've been the thousandth time my dad and I had this same argument. Not really, just dozens maybe, but it feels like that many. Every time he would begin lecturing me about how and where I spend my time, I felt like a twelve-year-old. Sometimes he's right, but other times I don't think he is. And even when he is, maybe it's the situation that isn't right. What was different about this particular fight was that I suddenly realized that what I really needed wasn't the protection of my folks anymore, but the freedom to make my own mistakes, or not.

  You can perhaps see that not only does the telling of the writer's feelings add interest to a story, but that is also a good way to get at the thesis, the main point of the story. In the above example, the writer uses the telling of his feelings to reveal the story's point, which is how this argument made him realize it was time to move out on his own.

  The Narrative Mode and the Three-Part Format

To understand the Three-Part Format structure well, it's best if you read the Basic Format section, but here is perhaps enough for the needs of the narrative mode. The three-part format consists of an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion. The main business of the Introduction is to tell what your topic is and to tell your thesis. The Main Body explains and supports that thesis by focusing on key aspects of the topic, and the Conclusion simply functions to remind the reader what your main point was.

In the narrative mode, then, this Introduction could begin by saying something like,

This is a story about a fight I had recently with my dad which was a real turning point for me.

There are plenty of other ways to say that; what is crucial is that the first few sentences, perhaps a short paragraph, serve to announce the story. Notice that the event gets a brief description--it's about a fight the writer had with his dad. The event is also placed roughly in time--it happened "recently." And the sentence even goes a little ways toward announcing the thesis--the fight "was a real turning point for me." The writer might want to go on to define that turning point better, like this:

This is a story about a fight I had recently with my dad which was a real turning point for me. We'd had the same basic fight a hundred times, but for some reason this time I finally realized that what I needed was freedom to be on my own, even though that means I may have to learn some things the hard way.

Or, the writer might prefer to hold off on completely defining the main point; it might be enough to say at first simply that the fight was a turning point. Either way, the reader's interest can be caught. If the writer does hold off on completely clarifying the thesis to begin with then at the essay's conclusion, he (or she) can perhaps use the second sentence above as the last sentence in the document, the one which nails down the thesis most firmly.

In summary, then, the narrative mode uses an Introduction to announce roughly what the story is about and when it took place, and to either imply the thesis or state it outright. The Main Body is where the story itself is told, perhaps alternating between paragraphs which summarize parts of the story and other paragraphs which slow down and linger over important details. In the Conclusion, the thesis (that is, the main point) is either repeated in slightly different wording or stated in a more precise, clearer way than in the Introduction, depending on what the writer chose to do with the thesis to start with.

An Outline for the Narrative Mode

In the narrative mode, the three-part format might look like this:

I. Introduction

Briefly describe the story and tell when it occurred. Then either clearly state the main point taught by the story, or at least point out that it does have a point.

II. Main Body

Should be multiple paragraphs, but how many, where to break them, and what they contain must all depend on the particular story being told. Use editing, summarizing, and expanding of detail. Especially in your expansion of detail, tell about what was actually spoken, what actions took place (who did what to whom), and what emotions were felt.

III. Conclusion

Very brief in this mode, probably one or two sentences--simply either restate or more clearly state the thesis.

mjordan@odessa.edu work: 432.335.6549 home: 432.332.5847 fax: 432.335.6559 surface mail c/o Odessa College, 201 W. University, Odessa TX 79764