Narrative vs Story
Humans have the ability to make sense of the world around them through logic and reasoning. Even a child can arrange sentences in a logical sequence, as if they have occurred in a timeline. When you recount events that you have experienced, the way you do so is called a narrative. Storytelling is a similar human ability to recount past events, whether fictional or non-fictional. Despite the similarities, there are differences between narrative and storytelling that will be discussed in this article.
Key Takeaways:
- Narratives and stories are meant to be recounted to others, but while narratives mostly reconstruct the past, stories can be completely fictional.
- A story needs to have basic features like setting, characters, plot, episodes, and a climax, while a narrative is simply a recount, whether exciting or boring.
- Movies on channels like National Geographic and Discovery are mostly narrative while a grandmother recounting an event from folklore to her grandchildren is storytelling.
Narrative
If you went to the woods last night and had some memorable experiences, you would most likely want to tell your friends. The manner in which you recount the sequence of events and what those experiences meant to you is called a narrative. Human beings are inherently storytellers.
Even in ancient times, kings at war with another kingdom appointed people who acted as storytellers and recounted or narrated the whole events of a day of the war to the king through their intelligence and imagination. They did it in a style that was meant to excite and interest the king, concealing some of the bad events in the process and glorifying the bravery of their own soldiers in the process of narration.
Survivors of a natural calamity or an accident are heard with rapt attention as they begin to narrate the sequence of events leading up to the tragedy. A little bit of glorifying one’s bravery and exaggeration of events to make it really look miserable for the person involved is a common phenomenon in narration.
Narration could be of any event, and even a child who is back from their first day at school tries to narrate what happened to them at school to their mom. Narration could be in the form of a great movie involving a tiger family, a nature lover shoots with their movie camera in the jungle adding their commentary in between to explain the events.
Story
A story has basic features like setting, plot, characters, and a sequence of events in a logical manner, etc. There are various episodes that may appear independent of each other but are connected to each other to allow for the build-up of a story.
The characters have their own dreams and desires and their actions have an impact on the sequence of events that build up the tension and excitement. When the story reaches a crescendo, listeners have a deep desire to see the resolution of the problems faced by the characters. This resolution comes in the form of a climax which may bring the story to an end, whether it is happy or sad.
What is the difference between Narrative and Story?
• Narratives and stories are meant to be recounted to others. But while narratives are mostly a reconstruction of the past, stories can be totally fictional, as are prevalent in different cultures.
• A story needs to have some basic features like setting, characters, plot, episodes, and a climax, while a narrative is just a recount, whether exciting or boring.
• Movies on channels like National Geographic and Discovery are mostly narrative, while a grandmother recounting an event from folklore to her grandchildren is storytelling.
• A story is a type of narrative that is made emotionally compelling and interesting to capture the imagination of the people.
