Wednesday's Writer's Tip - Narration - Getting from Here to There #MFRWauthor #amwriting

Narration is sort of like speed dating. Writing the details or every moment of every day of a character's life could be boring to the reader. There are times when you want to move a character from one scene to another without writing a paragraph like this.

Greg woke up. The sun was shining. He went to the bathroom to shower, brush his teeth and shave. Then he returned to put on jeans, a tee shirt, shoes and socks. He went downstairs etc. You want to take Greg from home to school. So you write a write a short narrative.

The sun woke Greg. After his morning routine, he headed for school. The reader can fill in the blanks but getting to the action is what the reader really wants.

So narration bridges a bit of time and place with a few hints as to what's happening, especially if nothing exciting or meaningful happens during that time. Narration can keep the story moving forward. Narration can also be used to characterize a character.

If you've written a scene and it sounds almost ridiculous when spelled out in detail, Narration can help the reader believe in the event. You can also take the reader into the past with a short bit of narration.

So use narration with care or readers will think you are telling the story rather than showing what's important to be blocked out in full.

Writing Tip - Using Narrative

When writing, narration and action are two vital ingredients. So just what is narration? Conveying in few words a period of time only suggesting what happened during that time. Rather than giving a minute by minute description of what happened during a time when little happened such as itemizing a person's day use narration as a short cut. This can keep the story moving forward. Narration can be used to characterize. If you must speak of an event that seems unbelievable using narration can help give a sense of believability. This can be useful when a character is acting differently than the way he is expected to behave. Because narration should be short this is a good thing to use when you must reach into the past. A fleeting thought can tell a lot and also remind the reader of somthing they had read before.