Structures and Techniques Narrative Texts: Structures and Techniques

Structures in Narratives The narrative is divided into three sections or a three-act structure: Setup – Also known as act one, this introduces the characters, the setting, the time period, etc. Conflict – Act two. This is the middle of the narrative in which the characters face a particular situation. Resolution – Act three. This is where the conflict wraps up and the narrative ends.

Non-Linear Narrative A non-linear narrative does not involve events occurring in sequential order (e.g. author may create the ending before the middle is finished). Medias res – in the middle of things - has been used in Indian narratives as well as some of the Arabian Nights tales such as “Sinbad the Sailor.” Author Joseph Conrad also experimented with nonlinear narratives.

Narrative Techniques There are several techniques authors put in their narratives in order to create interest. Here are a few examples: Repetition – May involve repeating certain statements or themes. E.g. the repetition of dreams in the Joseph story of the Bible) Timing – Having an event occur at the right time (e.g. The little girl’s father found her just as her fingers were numbing from the frigid air.) Cliffhanger – A narrative that is unresolved, leaving the audience to wait for the next part (e.g. some comics may run in serials, in which one issue continues from where the last one left off).

Back Story – This precedes the events of the actual narrative Back Story – This precedes the events of the actual narrative. It will generally give the history of an establishment or a character (e.g. Will Eisner’s Fagin the Jew gives a backstory on the life of Fagin from Oliver Twist).

Look at the excerpts from three narratives Look at the excerpts from three narratives. What types of techniques do they use? In walk these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before. - John Updike, “The A&P”

 "Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.    "They were dying slowly -- it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now -- nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. Continued on Next Slide

These moribund shapes were free as air -- and nearly as thin These moribund shapes were free as air -- and nearly as thin. I began to distinguish the gleam of the eyes under the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. The man seemed young -- almost a boy -- but you know with them it's hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede's ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and held -- there was no other movement and no other glance. He had tied a bit of white worsted around his neck -- Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge -- an ornament -- a charm -- a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? It looked startling around his black neck, this bit of white thread from beyond the seas. - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

When all the people had assembled in the galleries, and the king, surrounded by his court, sat high up on his throne of royal state on one side of the arena, he gave a signal, a door beneath him opened, and the accused subject stepped out into the amphitheater. Directly opposite him, on the other side of the enclosed space, were two doors, exactly alike and side by side. It was the duty and the privilege of the person on trial to walk directly to these doors and open one of them. He could open either door he pleased; he was subject to no guidance or influence but that of the aforementioned impartial and incorruptible chance. If he opened the one, there came out of it a hungry tiger, the fiercest and most cruel that could be procured, which immediately sprang upon him and tore him to pieces as a punishment for his guilt. Continued on Next Slide

-Frank Stockton, “The Lady or the Tiger?” The moment that the case of the criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells were clanged, great wails went up from the hired mourners posted on the outer rim of the arena, and the vast audience, with bowed heads and downcast hearts, wended slowly their homeward way, mourning greatly that one so young and fair, or so old and respected, should have merited so dire a fate. -Frank Stockton, “The Lady or the Tiger?”

Now it is your turn Think of the writing techniques we covered in this presentation. On a separate sheet of paper try writing your own narrative, about a paragraph long. It can be fiction or non-fiction.