This module discusses the stories we tell to make sense of the world. The importance of  storytelling to human existence is explained. Narration is then introduced as another word for  this storytelling, and its connection to other academic writing and description is discussed.  Examples are provided of perspective and point-of-view, and the primary components of  narrative writing (characters, conflict, and purpose) are introduced to help writers begin  constructing their own stories. Chronological order, the ordering of events through time, is  explained, as is the concept of the flashback, jumping backwards in time. The prewriting  strategies of questioning and freewriting are introduced as ways to generate ideas for a  narrative. Outlining is emphasized as necessary for the construction of logical, cohesive papers.  Finally, the importance of using transitions (joining words) to connect ideas when composing  is discussed. (1)

Objectives

Upon completion of this module, the student will be able to:

Explain what narration is and why it is central to human life

Identify fiction and nonfiction writing, as well as the complications involved in such  distinctions

Explain the problem of perspective

Identify the primary elements of a narrative: character, conflict, and narrative purpose

Use chronological order and flashbacks to organize events in time

Use questioning and freewriting to generate ideas

Use outlining to prepare a narrative paper

Compose a narrative piece of writing

Use transitions to tie events together (1)

Our Selves, Our Stories

Human beings are fundamentally storytelling creatures. Of all the ways we use words, perhaps  the most important (and most typical) is to communicate who we are, where we have been, and  where we are going. Think of all the times you use words to convey what has happened to you  in a single day, even a single hour! Indeed, we spend most of our lives using our words to spin  stories about ourselves; even our own sense of identity is a kind of story we tell ourselves to  make sense of the world!

Because using words to tell stories is so fundamental to our everyday experience, narration, a  fancy word for storytelling, is the perfect place to start our composition course in earnest. For

many students, a narrative essay, one which requires to writer to tell a story of some sort, is the  most comfortable and enjoyable kind of assignment to tackle. This is especially true if you are  interested in creative writing or have aspirations of publishing short stories, screenplays, or  novels. Aside from being a familiar and creative kind of writing, narration is also a key  component in many other kinds of essay writing, and as the course continues you’ll see that  narration comes in handy when you are trying to come up with interesting hooks to start papers  or are looking to explain specific points about a topic with examples that help your reader  understand your point of view. Finally, the kind of writing we did in the last module,  description, the translation of the senses into words, plays a key part in all types of narrative  writing; after all, to tell a good story, you have to provide details that help your reader become  immersed in the world you are creating. (1)

Fiction, Nonfiction, and the Problem of Perspective

Before we begin discussing how to construct an effective narrative, we need to consider an  important distinction that humans have to make when it comes to storytelling: the difference  between nonfiction, or writing that purports to be true or “real,” and fiction, or writing that  announces itself as a fabrication, a “made-up” story told by the author to entertain or to make  a hypothetical (believable yet fictional) point.

At first glance, this distinction might seem easy to make. However, the words we use are never  equivalent to the world we experience; in some sense, whenever we tell a story, we are  fabricating what happened. If we could simply communicate events as they happened, we  wouldn’t need words at all! This is why there are so many arguments about news stories and  the meaning of current events; we all recognize that any act of recalling what has happened is  fraught with the problem of perspective, the point-of-view or position of the storyteller.

As we’ll see in later modules, the problem of perspective is something that always haunts the  composition classroom and writing in general, so it’s important that we recognize the issue  here at the beginning.

Philosophers have argued about the problems of language and truth since the dawn of  civilization, and their battles rage on to this day. For the purpose of this module, however, we  will have to accept that what we mean by nonfiction writing is storytelling that presumes to  adhere to the world as it happened to the author or other humans and fiction writing as  storytelling that makes no such presumptions about its literal truth.

Because all storytelling, be it fiction or nonfiction writing, is always caught up in the problem  of perspective, the point-of-view of the writer, it is important to clarify exactly how this  positioning makes itself known in a piece of writing.

