This document provides an overview of key elements of narrative structure and techniques, including: - The common elements of a narrative frame: characters, setting, initiating event, internal response, goal, consequence, and resolution. - Important plot elements and techniques such as flashbacks, foreshadowing, multiple plot lines, and how the resolution should reflect the experiences of characters. - Different types of narrators including first person narrators, third person limited and omniscient, and an editorially omniscient narrator. - Examples are given of different narrator perspectives through rewriting a section of the three little pigs story.

1. Narrative Notes

2. Narrative Frame
Commonly found in fiction and contains the following elements:
• Characters
• Setting
• Initiating Event (inciting incident or conflict)
• Internal Response (emotional reaction of main character)
• Goal (reaction to the initiating event)
• Consequence
• Resolution

3. Plot
Duh…probably the most important literary element in a
narrative!
What were those plot elements again…?

4. Narrative Techniques
• Flashbacks
• Foreshadowing
• Multiple Plot Lines (Parallel Plots)
• Resolution of the story should reflect on the experiences of the
characters in the narrative.
• External and Internal Conflicts
• Pacing
• Dialogue
• Narration (first-person, third-person limited, third-person omniscient)

5. Kinds of Narrators
Review and Expanded Definitions
Real People – “First Person”
Omniscient Narrators
I-as-Protagonist I-as-Witness
Third-Person Omniscient
Third-Person Limited
Editorially Omniscient
Tells his/her own story. Tells someone else’s story.
The narrator is a character in the story.
All-knowing, the narrator
sees into the minds of all
characters.
Narrator tells only what
one character thinks, feels,
and observes.
Tells story, but is center of
attention, passes
judgments,
holds/expresses opinions;
privileges authorial voice.

6. • I-as-Protagonist — For this point of view, a character relates events
that occurred to them; the "I" is the main character, telling her or his
own story.
I missed the bus that morning because I couldn't convince myself to get
out of bed. It was just too cozy under the comforter, with the cat curled
up next to me. I was going to have to walk all the way to work.
• I-as-Witness—The story of the main character is told by another
character observing the events.
She missed the bus. She'd probably spent an hour arguing with herself
that she really should get up. I could picture her there, curled up in bed
with the cat next to her. Now she was going to have to walk to work.

7. Editorially Omniscient
If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better
off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy
ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the
middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the
lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny
Baudelaire were intelligent children, and they were charming, and
resourceful, and had pleasant facial features, but they were extremely
unlucky, and most everything that happened to them was rife with
misfortune, misery and despair. I’m sorry to tell you this, but that is
how the story goes.

8. Narrator Activity (10 min)
• Rewrite any section of the story of the three little pigs with your
assigned narrator. The story should only be 50 words long.
1. First-Person – I-as-Protagonist as one of the pigs
2. First-Person – I-as-Witness as the wolf
3. First-Person – I-as-Witness as someone who lived near the pigs
4. Third-Person Limited — in the head of one of the pigs
5. Editorially Omniscient – you love the wolf
6. Editorially Omniscient – you hate the wolf

9. Dialogue
• Dialogue is a conversation between two or more people.
• Dialogue is essential to fictional writing.
• Dialogue brings characters to life and adds interest.
• Dialogue must do more than just duplicate real speech – it must drive
the plot forward.
• Writing dialogue consists of the most exciting, most interesting, most
emotional, and most dramatic words.
• Dialogue uses attributives, or dialogue tags, to indicate who is
speaking (e.g. he said, she said).
• Anytime you change speakers, you must change paragraphs.

10. All Dialogue Has a Purpose
Motivation:
____________________
____________________
Motivation:
____________________
____________________
What are they talking about? What does it accomplish for the story?
Dialogue Activity (10 min):
Write a scene using only dialogue for the picture above. Incorporate at least six
lines of dialogue. Remember to use dialogue tags to indicate who is speaking.