The basic purpose of narrative is to entertain, to gain and hold readers’ interest. However narratives can also be written to teach or inform, to change attitudes / social opinions e.g. soap operas and television dramas that are used to raise topical issues. Narratives sequence people/characters in time and place but differ from recounts in that through the sequencing, the stories set up one or more problems, which must eventually find a way to be resolved. The common structure or basic plan of narrative text is known as the “story grammar”. Although there are numerous variations of the story grammar, the typical elements are:
Settings – when and where the story occurs.
Characters – the most important people or characters in the story.
Plot – the events of the story, consisting of the initiating event–an action or occurrence that establishes a problem and/or goal–one or more attempts by the main character(s) to achieve the goal or solve the problem, and the Resolutions–the outcome of the attempts to achieve the goal.
Conflicts/goal – the focal point around which the whole story is organized.
Theme – the underlying meaning of the story…why the author wrote it…a truth he wants us to learn or realize from the story. Theme isn’t specifically stated–it must be discerned.