* Selecting The Appropriate Narration

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This is one of the major problems writers face on Wattpad. The appropriate narration. Many authors can't decide how to present their story and in what narration.

Narration is the voice of your story, the voice with which you convey the story to your readers.

Narration is always a very important aspect of writing a story. If you have selected the right narration, your story can leave a long lasting impact on your readers but if the narration is not appropriate with respect to the type of book you are writing, then things can take an opposite turn.

Note that this is not always the case but mostly those books are widely acclaimed which have an appealing narrative style.

As we are talking about fanfiction writing, we know that even in this genre, there are a lot of sub-genres.

In Harry Potter fanfictions, the main sub-genres are:

Fantasy

Mythopoeia

Magical Realism

Romance

Young Adult

And other such related genres.

In this chapter, I will share with you all how to select the appropriate narration for your story according to the genres it fits in.

There are three basic types of narration. The first person, the second person and the third person.

Obviously all of you are familiar with the types of speech, similarly these narrative styles are quite similar to that concept as well.

1. First Person Narration:

The first person narration is the type of narration in which the person who communicates with the readers is the main character itself. This type of story is written from the " I " perspective.

The main character supplies the voice of the story and the story itself is written entirely from the main character's point of view. Therefore, the author gets a chance to present the whole story in a slightly biased perspective.

From biased, I mean focused on a few points while the rest of the points are ignored. For instance, the whole plot revolves around the character and you get to know all about the main character, his/her likes or dislikes, his/her view on other people's personalities etc etc. Basically in this narration, the reader finds himself/herself in the main character's shoes.

The reader gets to connect with the story, more so through the main itself, and nowadays this narration is the most used narration all over the world of online writing.

2. Second Person Narration:

The second person narration is the type of narration in which the reader itself is the part of the story and involved in the action. Such stories are written from the " you " perspective.

The reader is the focus of the story since the story revolves around a sort of make believe or roleplay in which the reader is invested.

For instance, consider this piece of writing for clearance of concepts:

"The wind was howling loudly and the windows were opening and shutting by themselves with the sheer force of the storm. You were all alone, trembling in the basement. You had no idea what to do, where to go and how to escape from the horror of the night. The only thing you could think of was somehow get out of the basement in which you were trapped. Suddenly, you heard the lock twisting in the door that jammed your exit from the basement. The door creaked open and what you saw, was something you were not expecting in the least. "

Okay so, I guess I got a bit too carried away and the example turned out much larger than preferable. Anyhow, I hope you get the idea on how these stories work.

People feel most connected to such stories because the main point of focus in these books are the readers themselves.

3. Third Person Narration:

From general publishing point of view, this narration is the most favorable. It is the most flexible type of narration in literature and can perfectly cope up with any type of story. And hence it is most preferable too.

The third person narration is the type of narration in which the author (or some third person) is the voice of the story. Such stories are written from the " he/she " perspective.

This story is written from the author's point of view and hence the author gets a full hold on all situations. Even though this narration is difficult to write but stories following this narration are most likely to be free of flaws since everything is taken into consideration.

And by difficult, I meant that you have to keep the whole story unbiased. You have to show things exactly as they took place. You get the freedom of hiding a side of the picture when writing from the first person narration, but in the third person narration you have to show both faces of the picture.

Such stories deal with all characters and should not be biased at all. The story should provide a general outlook on what's going on with the characters and how the plot is shaping up.

Selecting The Narration With Respect To Genres:

Even though you can use any narration in any genre, it is still preferable if you use them accordingly.

First Person Narration:

The first person narration can be used with a lot of genres. The appropriate genres for which it can be used are given below:

Romance

Vampire

Werewolf

Adventure

Humor

Spiritual

Fantasy

Teen Fiction

Chicklit

Second Person Narration:

The second person narration though is a bit limited. There are very few genres in which you can accurately use it. The appropriate genres for which it can be used are given below:

Action

Horror

Adventure

Roleplay

Third Person Narration:

The third person narration is the general and oldest form of narration. It can be used anywhere and is not seasonal. It can provide any story with a fitting voice. But there are a few genres which should strictly abide by this narration and they are given below:

Mystery/Thriller

Historical Fiction

***

Hope this chapter helped. Go pick out the best narration for your story and start writing straight away.

See you soon.

And thanks for supporting this book.

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