Exercises with descriptive texts and narrative texts in literary writing

9 Março 2020, 16:00 • Cecília Maria Beecher Martins

We did the descriptive writing exercise on p 41 of the manual and examined the descriptive text on page 44. We also examined the structure of narrative texts as presented on page 45

A narrative text is a kind of text where the emphasis in on telling a story. While, it is often presented as the recounting of past events past tenses appear a lot, it should not simply recount the event as it happened because the purpose of narrative texts is to engage the reader in the contemplation of experiences outside their own lived experience as it informs about the story itself.

This can be done in an entertaining/ amusing tone, or a more serious one. It all depends on what type of story you want to tell

 

The generic structure of Narrative text: - when you are writing a narrative text there are a number of questions you have to ask yourself

 

1.Orientation: This answers the questions: who, when, what, and where, and sets the scene while introducing the participants.

2.Complication: One of the central premises of good fiction is that it permits the reader to interact with complex issues and serious problems. The author has to give serious thought to the type of “problems” the story will present and how the main characters will solve them

3.Resolution: In traditional fictional texts the crisis is resolved, for better or worse.

4.Re-orientation: New/different perspectives introduced by the ending of the story.

 

Narrative texts normally make use of the Linguistic features listed below:

1. Use active verbs.

2. Normally use past tense because these can add depth to the story i.e. continuous tenses add life and movement, past perfect tenses add depth of time, past simple transmits continuity and moving forward in time

3. Use conjunction (and, then, after that, next, etc)  As well as Opinion/ Positional and Temporal conjunction, , like: once upon a time, one day, long time ago,

4. The first person (I or We) or the third person (He, She, or They).

5. Use specific nouns

6. Look for strong and appropriate adjective and adverbs

 

Fictional Narrative texts can be written in the 1st person, but they cannot be “my” story

Characters, locations (descriptive) and events (narrative) must have their own life. 

We did the verb tense gap fill exercises on p 46 to illustrate how the use of the different past tenses confer the characteristics illustrated above.