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You should be wary of narrative.
For the reader, narration often feels like the writer is popping his head into
the story to give information, which slows down, or stops the action. Since
narration is by nature telling instead of showing, the reader is given
information instead of discovering it for himself. If the reader is given too
much information, the story becomes boring.
That
doesn’t mean that narrative doesn’t have its place. If a writer showed every
detail and bit of necessary information, the simplest of stories would be
likely be longer than War and Peace.
There are several ways to correctly use narrative.
It
can act as a bride between scenes.
Scene
One: “If you don’t get rid of that woman, you can count yourself unemployed!”
“Yes
sir.”
James
left the office and went to his favorite café across the street. The waitress
brought him his usual order of tomato soup and he ate it slowly, dreaming about
Elaine. At 1 o’clock he was back at in his boss’s office, all daydreams pushed
aside, his expression serious and business like.
Scene Two: “Have you thought about what I’ve said James?”
“Yes
Mr. Cabin. I know exactly what I’m going to do.”
It can also
cover the parts of the story that the reader needs to know but does not deserve
to be dramatized.
James spent the rest of the morning
shuffling though papers, answering the phone and entering information in the
archaic database.
Using narrative can allow you to cover long amounts of time
in a few sentences.
The
next two weeks James tried not to think about Elaine. He filled his after work
hours with movies, plays and even a ballet.
Finally, you can use narrative to
show the reader that something is not as it appears. When the characters say
one thing, but something else is really going on, then the narrative voice can
step in and makes things clear.
“You’ve talked to that girl,
James?”
“Oh yes, Mr. Cabin. We cleared
things up.” He knew that he would never work up the guts to talk to Elaine, at
least not about that.
Just remember, the best narration
is short and sweet, and interwoven with action and dialogue. Look over all your
exposition sections and ask yourself the function of each. Could you give the
same information through dialogue or action? If you removed a section would the
story still make sense? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then
you need to either remove the exposition section or convert it to a scene.
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