NARRATIVE GENERATION GUIDE

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Objectives:
Know the general characteristics of the narrative genre
Know the main elements and concepts related to the narrative genre.
Know the subgenres of the narrative genre
Reinforce previous content.

Skills

The narrative is defined as a form of literature where the narrator is the one who tells us about the represented world. That
the world is full of characters and places; and also full of action.
Predominantly in narrative, such elements are represented sequenced in a spatio-temporal order.
However, the sequentiality of stories is not always presented to us in a linear order, and the reader is the
in charge of organizing the narrative.
To narrate means to recount an event or a series of events. History, journalism, and literature
narratives recount events, understood as facts that occur in a temporal succession, in a theoretical space or
determined geographic and with the participation of characters of the most diverse kind.
What is, then, the fundamental difference between narrative literary discourse and the discourses of history and the
journalism? The events recounted in historical and journalistic speeches truly occurred, that is,
they belong to the real world. The narrative literary discourse, on the other hand, recounts real or imaginary events, shaping
a fictional world.

So, we can say that: A narrative work has someone who tells (narrator) something that is told.
(events, characters, space-time) and someone for whom it is being told (a fictional reader), so that these three
factors create an imaginary reality or a fictitious world.

General characteristics of the narrative genre:

It has a narrator, who makes us part of the events.

The events are related to each other and located in a specific space and time.
The stories must present characters, characterized by physical and psychological traits.
The narration must present an evolution of the events.
The action is the set of facts or events through which the plot unfolds.
-The argument is presented in three instances: 1) presentation (initial situation)
2) plot and development
3) outcome (final situation)

Characters
Action/
event Narrator
s Space
Time
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Elements and concepts of the narrative genre:

Action:

It is the sequence of events, facts, or anecdotes that the narrator is recounting. The action is based on,
Traditionally, in the following structure (although there are countless novels and stories that break this order):
 Climax and resolution: the climax is the point at which the conflict has reached its highest tension. After that
follow the outcome, which resolves the conflict in a positive or negative way according to the objectives of the
protagonists.

Narrador:

According to the level of knowledge:

Omniscient: Knows, masters, and interprets everything that happens. Knows the feelings and ideas of the characters.
besides making judgments. He is a kind of little god, as he has control even over time. He narrates in
third person grammatical.
Objective: like a movie camera, it does not penetrate the psyche of the character. It tries to be objective. It tries not to
interpret thoughts. Does not know the future or the past.
Of relative knowledge: He only knows external facts, does not know the inner workings of the characters nor their
thoughts.

According to the degree of participation in the story:

Protagonist: Corresponds to a character in the narrative work who tells their own story or part of it. It is known
the protagonist's intimacy without mediations. Use the 1st person grammatical.
Witness: Narrate in 1st person or in 2nd. Relate the events only by having witnessed them, even if not.
participated in them, that is to say, their knowledge of the world and facts varies depending on how involved they feel in them.

characters

According to the hierarchy:

Main or protagonists: They are those around whom the story revolves from beginning to end.
Secondary characters: They help the story develop but are not fundamental to it.
Tertiaries: They serve to complement and set the ambiance of the stories, having little participation.

According to their level of complexity:

Plans: They are those that have a well-defined psychological characteristic and maintain it throughout.
narration
Round characters: They have greater depth and complexity, they are more ambiguous. In this sense, they are closer to the
people in real life

According to its development:

Dynamic: They evolve throughout history, change during it.
Static: They remain the same throughout the story, with no changes in their psychology.

Another classification:
Character types: represent a characteristic of a social sector.
Caricatured characters: used to make a critique of some aspect of reality.

Time:

Time of the story: refers to the real time when the events occur, the linear and sequential progression of the
history, in which events follow an unalterable chronological order.
Time of the narrative: it corresponds to the way in which events are arranged within the narrative, that is, how
the narrator tells us about the events.

Ways of arranging events:

Chronological: Events are presented from beginning to end in a sequenced or linear manner. Therefore, the narration
it coincides with the temporal succession of events (the time of history).
Retrospective (analepsis): The narrator presents the events as a memory, that is, occurrences that have already happened.
what has happened to the characters, but that the reader does not know. Here we find the flashback (long memory, encompasses
various events) and the flashback (short memory, for example: when a character remembers something)
Anticipatory (prolepsis): The narrator foreshadows events, so that the reader no longer has an expectation of
to know what will happen next. This mode serves to give more importance to how events are treated, 'it matters
In Media Res: the starting point is set in the middle of the story, which causes an alteration in the temporal sequence.
(there are jumps to the past).
In Extremis: the starting point is the end of the work.

Space:

Physical space: where the narrated events occur

Social space: it refers to the characteristics of the society where the narrated events occur (customs,
culture, morals, socioeconomic status, etc.
Psychological space: it relates to the inner world of the characters and their emotional conflicts, which helps to
create what is known as the atmosphere or environment of the story.

Subgenres of the narrative genre:

Novel: It is an extensive narration, generally in prose, with real or fictional characters and situations, that involves
a much more developed argument than the story and whose conclusion is resolved positively or negatively. There is a
central action but there are many side or secondary ones. Unlike what happens with the story, the reader cares
not only what happens to the characters, but also what they think and feel, how they evolve spiritually and how
The society they live in influences them.

Story: It is a brief narrative that develops a central theme, resorting to settings, times, and characters. The
essential characteristics by which the short story is distinguished from both the epic poem and the novel are: brevity,
the conciseness and concentration of the narrative. There are very short stories that do not exceed two lines and are called
microstories. One example is The Dinosaur by Guatemalan writer Augusto Monterroso, which says: 'When he woke up, '
the dinosaur was still there.

Fable: a brief narrative, in prose or verse, whose characters are personified animals that represent vices and
virtues. It contains a moral lesson at the end of the story, in which a moral teaching is presented.

Parable: brief and allegorical narratives, with deeper teachings than the fable, that base their argument on
human life. Some of the most well-known parables are in the Gospels, such as the Good Shepherd and the Prodigal Son.
Prodigal.

Legend: A narrative of events based on oral tradition, based on historical facts or popular traditions.
created by the imagination and fantasy of a people that serve to explain a particular event.

Myth: a narrative of extraordinary events in which gods and men intervene, describing the origin of the
land, of man, of the gods, of nature, etc.
Epic: a narration in prose or verse that tells the deeds or exploits of heroes or popular warriors, who
they represent the ideals of a specific time and society. It is extremely objective in nature. It recounts deeds
heroic with the purpose of glorifying the homeland. Under the concept of epic are epic poems, saga songs and
some romances. The epic will encompass all kinds of stories that recount the actions of heroes who represent the
ideals of a warrior or aristocratic class and of an entire society that associates these heroes with their origins and
destination as a town. Epic compositions or epics are distinguished from any other narrative by two
characteristics:
1.- The heroic character of the actions narrated and the exaltation of them.
2.- The versified form.

Epic: A lengthy narrative poem of high style that recounts actions and human characters worthy of being
remembered by a specific community or by all of humanity.

Epic songs: medieval literary works that tell the heroic stories of a people. Their main
characteristics are:
Lacks any critical trait.
It is transmitted orally through the minstrel or bard, who is generally its author.
They are anonymous, they were not meant to be read, but to be recited.

Romance: Narrated in verse. A series of eight-syllable verses with assonant rhyme in the even lines, describing actions.
warriors and chivalrous.
 It has a narrator who presents this world to us.
It is written in prose (except for epic, romance, and songs of deeds)
It presents a predominance of the representative or referential function of language.

NARRATIVE TEXT: oral or written text that tells, in the voice of a narrator, events protagonized by
characters (or personified beings). It is characterized by the temporal succession of one or several sequences and
A specific structural organization composed of an introduction, a development, and an ending.

Narrative Genre Activities

1) Read the following fragment:

But what Gigi liked most was telling stories only to Momo, when no one else was listening.
they were always stories that were about Gigi and Momo themselves. And they were only meant for the two of them and were
totally different from what Gigi had told on other occasions.
Michael Ende
Momo

Summarize the previous fragment and indicate who tells the story; does it do so in the first or third person?
What characters appear in the text and what do we know about them?
To which part of the narrative structure (introduction, plot, or conclusion) does the fragment belong?
Reread your answers to the previous questions and justify why we are facing a narrative text.
2) Read the following novel excerpts and analyze what type of narrators they have:

I sat by the banks of the Piedra River and cried.

Paulo Coelho.

It is necessary to seek love wherever it is, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.
Because at the moment we set out in search of love, it also comes to meet us. And it saves us.

The House of the Spirits

Isabel Allende.

_ Come, I want to show you something _ said Pedro Tercero.

He took her by the hand. They walked savoring that dawn of the world, dragging their feet in the mud collecting
tender shoots to suck on their sap, looking at each other and smiling without speaking until they reached a distant pasture. The sun
It appeared above the volcano, but the day had not yet finished settling in and the earth was yawning. Pedro indicated to him that
he will throw himself to the ground and remain silent. They crawled closer to some bushes, took a short detour, and then
Blanca saw her. She was a beautiful bay mare giving birth alone on the hill.

"Through time"
Brian Weiss.

After falling into a relaxed trance, Alberto discovered two past lives in which he had suffered injuries.
mortals on the back. One was particularly revealing. When I was a soldier several centuries ago, I had died.
painfully in a European battlefield; recalling it he once again experienced the numbing pain of the
fatal wound. The situation of that wound corresponded exactly with the source of her current pains. After
from the regression, her pains and spasms improved quickly