(TUM) Thematic Unit: Memories - Short Stories: Narrators & Points of View Lesson

Every short story is different. However, authors follow a pattern when writing a short story. When writing the story, authors must choose a narrator for the story, and must decide from what point of view that narrator will speak.

The 'narrative mode' is the set of methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses to convey the plot to the audience. Narration, the process of presenting the narrative, occurs because of the narrative mode. It encompasses several overlapping areas, most importantly narrative point-of-view , which determines through whose perspective the story is viewed and narrative voice, which determines a set of consistent features regarding the way through which the story is communicated to the audience.

The narrator may be a fictive person devised by the author as a stand-alone entity, or may even be a character. The narrator is considered participant if an actual character in the story, and nonparticipant if only an implied character, or a sort of omniscient or semi-omniscient being who does not take part in the story but only relates it to the audience.

Take a look at the presentation below that discusses types of narrators and points of view.

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