Art of Narration

Most of us know lot of stories and want to write it, but choosing the style of narration is always a problem. How interesting is the  book or a movie depends on the way the story is narrated. There are different styles of narration. Let us first define each style and then understand their importance.

First Person Narration: The narrator is part of story and narrates it as seen by him and experienced by him. The reader/viewer/listener only knows that part of story in which narrator is present. Out of the multiple events that happened at particular time-frame , the viewer can know only the details of the event in which the narrator is present.
Eg. 
        I went to Ram's  house and rang the bell. He opened the door and asked surprisingly.
           "Why did you come so early?"
         "I had no other work at home. So i left the home early."  I replied cautiously.


Third Person Narration:  The narrator tells the story from a general perspective. He has knowledge of all the events happening during that instant. If the narrator in this style of narration is not known, then author himself is considered to be the narrator implicitly.
Eg.
   Sam went to Ram's house and rang the bell. Latter opened the door and asked surprisingly.
           "Why did you come so early?"
         "I had no other work at home. So i left the  home early." was  Sam's cautious reply.

Unreliable Narration: Whenever narrator stops being objective and becomes subjective, then the reliability of his version is under suspicion. Here narrator tells the story from his perspective and expects viewers/listeners too agree with his views.


You people may have doubt in mind regarding the absence of  "second person narration".  First we have to understand who can qualify for the second person from above examples. Ram is the second person since 'I' is the first person.  If you write from the perspective of  Ram then  Ram becomes 'I' and 'I' becomes Sam. So "second person narration" is positively  interchangeable with "First person narration".

Let us answer few questions to understand importance of each style of  "Narration".

 When and how does the "First Person Narration" style helps?
First person narration works in detective stories because it helps to maintain the suspense. Since, whatever is known to the narrator are the only things we are also sure off until the some concrete evidence comes in the hands of narrator. Most famous detective stories about  Sherlock Holmes, Hercules Poirot(few of them) and Byomkesh Bakshi  are the first person narration and narrator is their closest friend and chronicler. The methods of deduction,threads of thoughts and logic application of  these great detectives are unknown  to these narrators most of the times, thus bringing surprise element to the readers when detectives explain their deduction logic to their chroniclers at the end of the stories.

Besides detective stories, "First Person Narration" will be helpful in what other stories?
This type of narration is useful in autobiographical stories where readers can relate to the central character and feel his experiences, both joy and hardships.

When and how does the "Third Person Narration" style helps?
When a story has  multiple central characters and each one's story needs to be told and also when  the story has multiple important events taking place in same time-frame and they need to be told at that moment itself. For these types of stories, "Third person narration" is needed. Third person narration is mostly used, since story-telling gets easier as sudden scenario and time-frame jump  is possible. Some events are purposely left unexplained by author to create environment of  suspense. This methodology sometimes makes us feel that author is cheating us by cutting a scene at important moments though he is aware of all incidents happening at that moment.

 Are there important subdivisions of "Third Person Narration"?
 This narration can be objective as well as subjective. In objective narration, author builds it characters such  that their behaviour and characteristics itself is sufficient for readers to judge personality of characters while in subjective narration, author also judges the personality of the characters.

Which type of narration is suitable for screen?
'Third Person Narration'  is used for writing for plays. For movies, both types of  narration can be used. If 'First person narration' is used in movie, the narrator has to share nearly equal screen-space with protagonist.

Can we use both types of narration is same story?
Yes, In a First Person Narrated story, If there is a scenario where narrator is not present but it is necessary to be explained to readers/viewers, then the author narrates that particular scenario in third person.

Where is unreliable narration style used?
This type of narration is basically used in movies. Subjective narration is sometimes unreliable. Some narrators do it for purpose of introducing comic twists or some want to make viewers think. Some examples of unreliable  narrators are Verbal  Kint, played by Kevin Spacey, in The Usual Suspects, Leonard Shelby, played by Guy Pearce, in Memento and Future "Ted Mosby" in sitcom How I met your Mother.
Viewers know they are unreliable when the scenes or sequence of scenes displayed on screen are contradictory to what they mention in narration, which runs parallel to displayed scenes.
It is difficult to write books using unreliable narration style, unless author mentions both what actually happened and what the narrator wants the reader to believe. Therefore,we can say that this is not impossible but tough style to adapt in books.

How does narrating a story in book different from that on screen?
Third person narrated books can reveal everything without telling anything which is not possible on the screen.
for e.g. consider a scenario in which two persons are discussing about a crime which they are going to commit.
In Books, the particular scene can be written as follows:

   "When should we commit the crime?", asks man in black suit.
   " Tomorrow evening " ,replies other man who is sitting opposite to him.

In another scene of same story, a character called Sam is introduced. The author has liberty to tell when should those two men's identity to be revealed and is one of them is Sam.

Consider same scenario in a movie. If two persons are talking in a particular scene , they are visible on the screen and they are easily identifiable. In later scene, character called Sam is introduced, the viewer can easily identify that Sam is not one of those men. The suspense element in the story which was maintained  in the book is lost in the movie.
 

Importance of  narration is clearly explained by above answers. So whenever we need  to write a book or screenplay, I hope we will chose the style of  narration which will be suitable for our story. Narration is not just a style but also an art of expression.