The Writer's Craft: Modern Insights (Narrative 3) By Olivia Salter | CHAPTER 7

The Writer's Craft: Modern Insights

(Narrative 3)

By Olivia Salter

CHAPTER 7

Technique of Narration 

Narration Methods: The Ordinary vs. The Extraordinary, Vividness, Suspense, and Focus

Once a writer has developed a solid plot and fully understood their concept, writing the story becomes much easier. The real challenge isn’t in writing the story—it’s in writing it well. Simply getting the story down can be straightforward. However, crafting it with precision and impact is where the difficulty lies. Writing for storytelling is easy, but writing with artistry and power is hard work.

This guide focuses specifically on storytelling techniques, not on general writing. While I’ll mention the importance of vivid narration to emphasize key events, I won’t dive into the mechanics of vivid writing itself. That’s a broader subject you’ll find in guides on writing style or rhetoric. In fiction, we emphasize the big moments through vivid details or expansion, and that’s a principle every writer can grasp. The actual execution, however, depends on constant practice and the individual writer’s ability.

The first part of this chapter focused on narration style and mode. This section will cover other key aspects like character development, pacing, and transitions. It’s about how to structure a chain of events in a story. The technicalities of writing and description can be found in style guides, but here we’re diving into the heart of fiction storytelling.

Method

The way you narrate a story is influenced by your writing style, but the two are not the same. Style impacts narration, but they are distinct elements. There are two kinds of incidents we encounter in life, and likewise, two types of stories: the ordinary and the extraordinary. Both types can make for compelling narratives, depending on how they are told and constructed.

For a story about ordinary life—the mundane, everyday details—the approach is simple. The writer can just set down a series of events, and because these events are universally relatable, they’re plausible. Readers recognize the small, familiar incidents and accept the story. In these cases, it’s best to keep the language straightforward and avoid overly elaborate or “literary” writing.

Writing about the extraordinary, however, is a different challenge. The goal remains the same: to make the story plausible. But the method of achieving that plausibility is far more complex.

One method is to frame the strange events through familiar contexts. Writers like Daniel Defoe often use this technique. By grounding the unusual in recognizable details, the reader is more likely to accept the bizarre elements of the story. This technique requires skill, balance, and space for weaving familiar details into the unfamiliar narrative.

Another method relies on vividness. Here, the writer uses strong, precise language to make even the most outlandish events feel real. The vividness of the description becomes so powerful that the reader accepts it without question. This is the method of writers like Stevenson and Kipling. They present events so clearly and dynamically that the reader is swept up in the action, no matter how strange it might be. To succeed in this approach, a writer needs both imagination and technical skill. It’s about more than selecting the right words; it’s about making those words feel alive.

This method works for both ordinary and extraordinary stories, though it’s especially effective in tales where events are the focus. The key to making any story believable—whether ordinary or bizarre—is through either grounding it in the familiar or making the unfamiliar feel real through vivid description.

Suspense

Suspense is often misunderstood as a technical device. In truth, suspense is the result of well-crafted storytelling. It’s not a gimmick but a natural outcome of a compelling story with characters that feel real. If the reader cares about what’s happening and wants to know what comes next, you’ve succeeded in creating suspense. No special trick will achieve this; it’s about building the story carefully and logically. At best, suspense can be enhanced by structuring events in a way that gradually builds toward a climax.

Emphasis and Suppression

A story is made up of both major and minor events. The key is to emphasize the important moments and underplay the less significant ones. You can’t give every event the same level of detail; the story’s impact depends on highlighting the crucial parts. Important events should be described in detail, while minor ones are best glossed over or mentioned briefly.

This balance of emphasis and suppression is essential for pacing. For example, a love scene might require detailed narration to build emotional tension. A brief but pivotal action, like a punch or a sudden decision, may not require many words, but those words need to be powerful and vivid.

The main events should take up most of the story’s space. Writing these scenes should be a natural process, as you are merely describing what happens. But when it comes to the secondary events and transitions—the glue that holds the story together—the process becomes more calculated. These parts need to be handled swiftly and without excess detail, serving only to move the story forward.

Transition

Transitions are essential for moving characters from one event to the next and for maintaining the flow of the story. But they should be brief and unobtrusive. The writer’s job here is to get from one scene to the next smoothly and quickly, without bogging the story down with unnecessary detail. Transitional passages should be handled efficiently to avoid losing the reader’s interest.

Blending the Elements

A story consists of action, dialogue, and description, and balancing these elements is key to a well-crafted narrative. Ideally, action, conversation, and descriptive touches should be interwoven throughout the story rather than presented in large, unwieldy blocks. This variety keeps the reader engaged and gives the story a more lifelike feel.

Though each story is unique and may require different balances, the goal is always to maintain a texture that feels dynamic and engaging. Readers tire of too much of the same, so mixing action with dialogue and description creates a more interesting and believable world.

In summary, the executive technique of narration is about managing pacing, balancing detail, and blending elements to keep the story engaging and the reader invested. The most important events need vivid, detailed focus, while the secondary events and transitions should be handled with efficiency and brevity. Through practice, a writer can master these techniques to craft stories that feel alive and compelling.