Narrative

In non-technical terms, no matter what the context (whether scientific, philosophical, legal, etc) a narrative is a story, an interpretation of some aspect of the world that is historically and culturally grounded and shaped by human personality (per Walter Fisher). Derived from the Latin word, it came into English via the French language and it is used in a number of specialised applications.

Discussion

Human beings seem to prefer to shape information into the form of a "story". Rather than organising data as facts in logical relationships, most people retain their everyday information as anecdotal narratives with characters, plots, motivations, and actions. At its broadest level, Fisher argues that all communication is a form of storytelling. In his "Narrative Paradigm", he defines "narration" as symbolic actions, words, and/or deeds that have sequence and meaning for those who live, create or interpret them: a definition broad enough to support his claim that all meaningful communication is storytelling.

Related Topics:
Communication - Storytelling

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Fisher suggests that everyone has the same two abilities in judging either the rationality or the modality of the story:

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• to test for narrative coherence and probability, i.e. to see whether the story is "good", it must hold together as a credible sequence of events, and make sense in real world terms: and
• to confirm narrative fidelity, i.e. that it matches the values, beliefs, and experiences common to the audience. If it does, it will be a reasonably faithful portrayal of the real world and it will "resonate" with soundness.