Download Narrative

Narrative for Business and
Professional Use
Dr. Stephen Ogden
LIBS 7001
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NARRATION
• Presents a series of real or imagined events
– Events = Action : Action = drama (Gr. Dram—’to do’)
– Series of actions = (lit.) PLOT.
• Narration:
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tell what happened
explore motive
give insights and lessons (= ‘the moral’)
frame—highlight or diminish—events in accordance with …..
….audience and purpose.
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Narrative:
Many Non-Literary Applications
• Work, School, Personal:
– Reports
• lab repots
• inspection reports
• work trial reports
• project reports
• shift reports
• research reports
• work history problem
reports
• Phone calls & social media
• minutes oif meetings
• Politics: ‘narrative’ is
now an essential tool
– Create a partisan story
about society, selves &
opponents
• Journalism:
– news stories just are
narrative
• Reality TV, e.g.
• Myths of the Tribe
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Elements of Narration
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Six elements together produce strong narration:
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6.
purpose
action
conflict
point of view
key events
dialogue
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1. Purpose
• = audience (obviously)
• Stated or unstated, always shapes the writing
• Examples:
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tell what"plot
happened
is the origin and as it were the
establish a useful fact
soul of tragedy
delve into motives
condemn or exculpate
create doubt and suspicion
offer lessons or insights
create memory (narrative is a fundamental mnemonic
technology)
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1. Purpose, con’t
MYTHOPOEIA: the creation of myth
• Myths are the underlying stories that define, unite, and direct
civilistations
• Western Civilisation myths
1.
2.
Eden and the Fall of Man
The Hero’s Journey: the Epic Quest
•
3.
humble origin > tasks & trials > conquest > return with boon
Sin -> Redemption -> Salvation
•
(Condemnation then Evangelisation)
• Frame narrative according to the master myths
– POLITICS: environmentalism; multiculturalism; capitalism; etc.
– PERSONAL-PROFESSIONAL: victim (incl, victim of circumstance); hero; ally; etc.
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2. Action
• Aristotle: “plot [= sequence of action=narrative] is the
origin—as it were, the soul—of [drama].”
• Sequence can be organised in a choice of ways:
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Chronological
Emotional
Nostalgical
Memorable
Moral (as they should have happened)
Planned (as they would have happened)
Lawyerly or Political (as they might have happened)
Polemical (as the reader can be convinced they happened)
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Action, cont.
• Use Devices (Yorke “What Makes a Great Screenplay?”)
– Foreshadow
– Create Expectation and Hope
– Create suspense
• Fear + Delay
– Create Excitement
• Spectacle
– Climax
– Deliver Emotional Reward
• connect the reader-listener to the action (allow him to identify)
• Think visually (cinematically) when writing a narrative.
• Many experiences are action: e.g. thinking, feeling, deciding, etc.
– Pekar’s A Hypothetical Quandary.
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3. Conflict
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Real, imagined, anticipated conflicts shape our lives; see
Gk. agon - meaning “contest”
Some varieties of conflict:
1.
2.
3.
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between an individual and outside circumstances:
between group members
between__________________________
between__________________________
within____________________________
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4. Point of View - types
1.
First person: one of the participants tells what happened.
– uses I, me, mine, we, ours
– limited to what that person knows; narrator can be
unreliable because of incomplete knowledge
2. Second-person: less often used
– you is used or understood
– imperative & directive; or conversational
3. Third-person: distanced “narrator” recalls.
– uses he, she, it, they
– narrator can be omniscient, intrusive, or limited in
knowledge, deliberately misleading
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5. Key Events
• Strong narratives are built around key events
bearing directly on purpose.
• Memorable: emotional, universal, spectacular
• Be economical: “Less is More”
• ‘Chekov’s Gun’:
– never put a loaded gun on stage in Act One that you
won’t fire during the drama
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6. Dialogue
• Conversation animates narrative:
– Indirect: reported - narrator strongly controls presentation
and mood; reader is distanced from the scene
• “..called me up to tell me how busy she was.”
– direct - generally more vivid; leaves scope for
interpretation:
• narrator in strong control: “… the days when ‘Let’s have lunch’
meant something other than ‘I’ve got more important things to
do than to talk to you now’…” (E,9)
• integrated into narrative: “and then she said, “It’s like…” and I
said “I’m all…you know… like…”
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