Narrative tells a story—that is its defining convention.
Narratives may be long or short, but they always involve characters in conflict.
Subgenres in the narrative genre include, for example, the novel and the short story. Within those examples, one might include further subgenres, usually based on content, such as the science fiction novel or the horror story.
Depending on its perspective, the narrator of the story may be a character within the story or an authorial voice outside of the story.
Conflict
The plot of a narrative is the unfolding of the story’s central conflict, in which the main character, or protagonist, struggles against an opposing force, an antagonist. Sub-plots, or secondary conflicts, may also form part of a narrative. There are five traditionally recognized types of conflict:
Character vs. Character, Character vs. Society, Character vs. Nature, Character vs. Fate, and Character vs. Self.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s character Sherlock Holmes engaged in a battle of wits with his nemesis Dr. Moriarty would be an example of Character vs. Character.
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man struggling against the racial prejudices he encounters might represent a case of Character vs. Society.
Peter Benchley’s Sheriff Brody trying to stop a killer shark in Jaws is Character vs. Nature, while Sophocles’ Oedipus attempting to avoid the terrible prophecy about his life is Character vs. Fate.
Finally, the psychological novel, a fairly modern subgenre, might find Kate Chopin’s protagonist struggling with her own inner desires in The Awakening with a plot driven by Character vs. Self.
Characters, of course, need not be human. A fable, for example, is a narrative that tells a moral story involving a talking animal, such as the stories of Aesop. In Jack London’s novel The Call of the Wild, the protagonist is a dog.
Read on to learn about the next genre, Exposition.
Call me Ishmael.
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
