Don’t Look Now! Truth, fiction and the art of story-telling.

When describing a narrative, one of the most important aspects is the point of view from which the story is told. Hence, there are two basic forms of narrative. Diegesis implies that there is a personified narrator and mimesis - that a story is told by an omniscient entity.

Another important aspect of a narrative is the mode of time-awareness which listeners are placed.

More specific narrative techniques include:

* False document is a form of narrative that presents a story as a record in some none existant document (diary, letter, video tape, etc.). This is used to create a sense of authenticity beyond the normally expected suspension of disbelief in the reader/audience.
* Frame story is a narrative technique in which a main story is composed, at least in part, for the purpose of organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story. The A-Plot, thus, becomes mere a link between countless subplots, which are then the real focus of the narrative.
* Metafiction is a kind of fiction, which self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, which means that it deliberately denies the suspension of disbelief for itself.
* Pastiche is a term with a double meaning. On one hand, it may describe a respectful imitation of some other author's style of narrative (as opposed to a parody). On the other, it sometimes stands for a narrative that is "cobbled together" in imitation of several original works.
* Serial is the primary technique used in episodic media (see above). It implies that a story is divided into a number of smaller stories (episodes) but unlike a frame story, a serial may have all episodes bound together into one single A-plot.
* Stream of consciousness is a literary technique, which seeks to describe an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes.

Point of View.

* First-person narrative is a point of view for which the narrator is a part of the story (a character). He or she refers to him-/herself as "I". This is a very common technique since it allows inserting more personal feelings and thoughts into the text than others. On the other hand, it is often incapable of giving an objective view on the story.
* Second-person narrative is a point of view within which the narrator is narrating the story to another character through that character's point of view. This character (likely, a protagonist) is referred as "you".
* Third person limited omniscient is a point of view such that the reader and the writer observe the situation from the outside through the senses and thoughts of a single character, although the focal character may shift throughout the course of any given narrative.
* Omniscient narrator is a point of view similar to third person limited omniscient but unlike it, an omniscient narrator shifts the focal character instantly, without any special events causing the change of the viewpoint.
* Unreliable narrator is a narrator who tells the story from his or her personal point of view but who has flaws or makes mistakes. As a result, such narrator cannot give the entire picture of the story and his or her credibility is often put in question.