narrative style
How stories unfold
Narrative style is the distinctive way a story is told—the choices a writer makes about voice, tone, pacing, and perspective.
It encompasses everything from sentence structure to how much the narrator reveals.
Her spare narrative style contrasts with his ornate prose.
A writer's narrative style often becomes recognizable across works, like a signature.
- first-person"I" as narrator
- third personGrammatical category for others
- point of viewOne's particular outlook
- dry witUnderstated, ironic humor
- unreliable narratorStoryteller whose credibility wavers
lyrical prose · colloquial language · tone · frame story · foreshadowing · diction · show don't tell · telling detail · flashback · register · storytelling · interior monologue · in medias res · perspective · voice · descriptive · omniscient · prose
- Italian LiteratureDante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Dante Alighieri
- Stylisticsdiction, word choice, register, formality, tone
- Writing & Filmscreenwriters, scriptwriters, playwrights, novelists, literary adaptations
- writing stylediction, tone, prose, flair, word choice
- FieldingTom Jones, Amelia, plays, Eurydice, The Lottery
- fictionfiction, novel, novels, novella, novellas