What is narrative?
(And why is it so difficult to get a clear answer?)
Everyone knows what a story is.
But if you’ve ever tried to define what makes it a story — or even what makes something not a story — you realize that defining stories isn’t as easy as recognizing them. Even more so, if you tried to find out the difference between narrative and story you probably found yourself quickly confused: answers range from “something with a beginning, middle and end” to “deep themes” or “they mean the same thing”.
Why?
Simply put: different people are using terminology differently. But it’s not as haphazard as it sounds… there’s a story to it.
Today, there are three main groups using narrative terminology:
Scholars of Literature. Includes narrative theorists and narratologists.
Interdisciplinary scholars.Academics outside the humanities, from disciplines including medicine, mental health, human cognition and wellness.
Practitioners of Communications, PR, Journalism+ Media. People who produce narrative texts as a business activity (operations) or business product (to be sold).
Literary scholars were the first to take a closer look at narrative — and are the original creators of the lexicon; they looked at narrative texts and asked questions like “what is it made of?” and “what makes it good?” When they started doing this the only texts were live performances: in an amphitheater, on a stage or in the town center. Over time the texts expanded — to include books and novels and radio and film — and the types of texts evolved, reflecting narrative inventions and changes in human society. This group of scholars invented new words to describe the parts of narrative they observed (metalepsis, anyone?), new types of storytelling as technology created new mediums, and the techniques and inventions that emerged within new mediums. And that’s still going on today.
The second group — interdisciplinary scholars — came during a period called the Narrative Turn which started around the 1960s. Essentially, people who were not studying literature, became interested in some of the concepts coming out of literary studies — or narrative theory. If narrative is how people make sense of the world, it made sense that narrative might be relevant to other studies in the humanities — such as history and sociology — and even outside the humanities including medicine, cognition and psychology. Turns out — it was. Interdisciplinary scholars borrowed narrative terminology developed by narrative theorists, but new applications meant the meaning is sometimes stretched beyond its original use: for example, in neuroscience “narrative” refers to a brain function — organizing information — which is different from — but related to — the structure of a text.
The third group is where terminology differs the most. Web 2.0 changed the media landscape and storytelling shifted from (mostly) the entertainment industry into business operations and products. Practitioners borrowed language from narrative theory, but when the text is a business product, it’s a fundamentally different thing. As a result, some narrative terms have a completely different meaning when used within a communications/public relations context.
As someone who has worked in communications for 20 years, I’ve mapped the connections — and departures — that I’ve come across, below. The definitions in Shared Terminology are mine: my goal is to describe the differences, not define the term, so my definitions are over-simplified. Other Definitions are included to demonstrate the diversity of definitions that are discoverable. Feedback is welcomed.
(The definitions I use are those I find useful for my work, and discoverable here.)How is “narrative” being used?
Narrative: A type of text
This is the original meaning, dating back to around 1450, and is used to describe a type of text that tells a story: it has a beginning, middle and end, characters, setting etc (you know the drill). In this use, you could use “narrative” to differentiate between a book that tells the story of the restaurant The French Laundry and a book that contains recipes from the chef.
This use — describing a type of text — also uses “story” interchangeably: describing a text as a “narrative” or a “story” means the same thing. It would be more helpful if “narrative text” was used in this context, rather than just “narrative”, but as the original use was always describing a type of text it makes sense that this use doesn’t add “text” to clarify.
Narrative: Something we do
This use refers to a way of thinking common to all humans: a cognitive process also called “narrative cognition” or “narrative thinking”. It refers to the way we process information in order to make a decision, especially under complex conditions, and is why people say “we think in narrative” or “we think in stories”. In this case, a story is the result — or product — of narrative — a cognitive process.
Narrative: A point of view
This use could be replaced with “point of view” to avoid a lot of confusion, and is mostly used within Media & Communications to distinguish different points of view on an issue or event. This use has becoming more popular as we see increasing distance between reports on the same event by different media publications: their “narrative” (or point of view) explains how the same event could be described vastly differently. Increasing social division has made this concept more relevant, in particular in relation to texts published by political groups.
Another way to describe this would be to say “the story, as narrated by the media” to draw attention to the different narrator in each version of a story. However, it’s usually just said as “the media narrative”.
Narrative: A belief system
This use could be replaced with “belief system” or “worldview”, and is mostly used by nonprofit or social change organizations conducting persuasion. This use is typically referring to personal (or shared) beliefs that influence a personal (or shared) point of view, and “narrative change” is an area of work that has emerged within social change organizations.