Narrative Techniques!

When a writer creates a novel, piece of new or an article, he must consider some Narrative Techniques. These techniques are very important because they have a great impact in how the reader understands the book and how his reading develops. The same story may be told in an interesting way or in a boring way, it all depends on the narrative technique, how impressive is that? Within the Narrative Techniques, we can find four components: Point of View, Narration, Speech and Tense.

Point of View: The point of view is related with the person who tells the story (Who is telling the story) It may be the Narrator of the story (First person), the reader of the story or someone else who is witnessing what happens (Third person)

Narration: The narration regards the objective audience of the narrator (Who is the narrator speaking to?). It may be Direct (Directly to the reader), Frame (Narrator talks about someone else) and Indirect (Not referring to the reader).

Speech: The speech involves how the characters and the narrator speak in the story. It may be Direct (Dialogue), Reported (Narrator summarizes what happened) or Free Indirect (Character's thoughts).

Tense: Tense is about when did the story happen. It may be Future, Present or Past tense. Also, when the narrator tells something that happened in the past in a present tense to make it more appealing to the reader, it's called Historical Present.

As you may know, Literature gives a lot of devices and ways to authors to make their stories more interesting and appealing to readers. The writer can also use Flashbacks and Foreshadowing to show the reader the past or to give him some clues of the future. Finally, the writer can also use Omniscient Narrator or Dual Narrator to express himself in a better way.