Editing Narration (section)

{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2022}}
{{short description|Written or spoken commentary}}
{{about|using a commentary to present a story|other strategies used to present stories|Narrative technique}}
{{redirect|Narrator}}
'''Narration''' is the use of a written or spoken commentary to [[storytelling|convey]] a [[narrative|story]] to an [[audience]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Narration in Poetry and Drama|author-last1=Hühn|author-first1=Peter|author-last2=Sommer|author-first2=Roy|work=The Living Handbook of Narratology|year=2012|publisher=Interdisciplinary Center for Narratology, University of Hamburg|url=https://www-archiv.fdm.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/article/narration-poetry-and-drama.html}}</ref> Narration is conveyed by a '''narrator''': a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the [[Plot (narrative)|plot]]: the series of events. Narration is a required element of all written stories ([[novel]]s, [[short story|short stories]], [[poems]], [[memoirs]], etc.), presenting the story in its entirety. It is optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other means, like dialogue between characters or visual action.

The '''narrative mode''', which is sometimes also used as synonym for [[narrative technique]], encompasses the set of choices through which the creator of the story develops their narrator and narration:
* ''Narrative point of view, perspective,'' or ''voice'': the choice of [[grammatical person]] used by the narrator to establish whether or not the narrator and the audience are participants in the story; also, this includes the scope of the information or knowledge that the narrator presents
* ''Narrative tense'': the choice of either the past or present [[grammatical tense]] to establish either the prior completion or current immediacy of the plot
* ''[[Narrative technique]]'': any of the various other methods chosen to help narrate a story, such as establishing the story's [[Setting (narrative)|setting]] (location in time and space), [[characterization|developing characters]], exploring [[Theme (narrative)|themes]] (main ideas or topics), [[Narrative structure|structuring the plot]], intentionally expressing certain details but not others, following or subverting [[Literary genre|genre]] norms, employing certain linguistic styles and using various other storytelling devices.

Thus, narration includes both ''who'' tells the story and ''how'' the story is told (for example, by using [[stream of consciousness (narrative mode)|stream of consciousness]] or [[unreliable narrator|unreliable narration]]). The narrator may be anonymous and unspecified, or a [[Character (arts)|character]] appearing and participating within their own story (whether fictitious or factual), or the author themself as a character. The narrator may merely relate the story to the audience without being involved in the plot and may have varied awareness of characters' thoughts and distant events. Some stories have [[multiperspectivity|multiple narrators]] to illustrate the storylines of various characters at various times, creating a story with a complex perspective.