by Mike Klaassen

Created on: February 15, 2008   Last Updated: January 16, 2009

NARRATION AS A FICTION-WRITING MODE.

Narration in written fiction today has a different role than it has played in the past. As a fiction-writing mode, narration has a much smaller part-and a shrinking one, at that.

As do so many words in the English language, narration has more than one meaning. In its broadest context, narration encompasses all written fiction. More narrowly, narration is the fiction-writing mode whereby the narrator communicates directly to the reader.

Along with exposition, argumentation, and description, narration (broadly defined) is one of four rhetorical modes of discourse. In the context of rhetorical modes, the purpose of narration is to tell a story or to narrate an event or series of events. Narrative may exist in a variety of forms: biographies, anecdotes, short stories, novels. In this context, all written fiction can be viewed as narration. Other than as a means of gaining wide perspective, this definition of narration is of limited value to fiction writers.

Some writing experts describe fiction as having two modes: dialogue and narrative. Such a broad view of narrative may be technically correct, but it ignores the opportunities and challenges presented by more specific fiction-writing modes.

Narrowly defined, narration is the fiction-writing mode whereby the narrator is communicating directly to the reader. But if the broad definition of narration includes all written fiction, and the narrow definition is limited merely to that which is directly communicated to the reader, then what comprises the rest of written fiction? The remainder of written fiction would be any of the other fiction-writing modes. Together with narration, there are eleven fiction-writing modes.

Fiction-Writing Modes (Arranged in order of the anagram D-A-N-C-E S-I-S-T-E-R):

* DESCRIPTION is the mode by which people, things, or concepts are described.

* ACTION is the mode of depicting things happening, in detail, as they happen.

* NARRATION is the mode by which the narrator addresses the reader.

* CONVERSATION is the mode of presenting characters talking.

* EXPOSITION is the mode of conveying information.

* SUMMARIZATION is the mode of restating or recapitulating actions or events.

* INTROSPECTION is the mode of conveying a character's thinking.

* SENSATION is the mode of presenting the five senses, or maybe even six.

* TRANSITION is the mode of moving from one place, time, or character to another.

* EMOTION is the mode of conveying how a character feels.

* RECOLLECTION is

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