List of narrative techniques

Literary technique. Novels and short stories do not simply come from nowhere. Usually the author employs some general literary technique as a framework for artistic work.

Annotated List of Literary Techniques

• author surrogate, a character who acts as the author's spokesman.
• autobiographical novel, tales of the author's life as seen by the author in fictional form.
• Breaking the fourth wall is acknowledging to the reader or audience that what is being presented is fiction.
• Constrained writing, in which artificial constraints, such as "no words containing the letter 'e'", are imposed.
• Epistolary novel, novel in the form of letters exchanged between the characters. Examples include Samuel Richardson's Pamela, Tobias Smollett's Humphrey Clinker, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
• False documents, fiction written in the form of, or about, apparently real, but actually fake documents.
• Flashback, general term for altering time sequences, taking characters back to the beginning of the tale, for instance.
• First-person narrative, the narrator tells her own tale
• Historical novel, story set amidst historical events, pioneered by Sir Walter Scott in his novels of Scottish history. Protagonists may be fictional or historical personages, or a combination.
• Magic realism, Latin American form, popularized by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, events are described realistically, but in a magical haze of strange local customs and beliefs.
• Narrative, fiction written as if it were related to the reader by a single participant or observer.
• Omniscient observer, particular form of narrative in which the narrator sees and knows all
• Parody, ridicule by imitation, usually humorous, such as MAD Magazine
• Pastiche, using forms and styles of another author, generally as an affectionate tribute, such as the many stories featuring Sherlock Holmes not written by Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Picaresque novel, episodic recounting of the adventures of a rogue (Spanish picaro) on the road, such as Tom Jones or Huckleberry Finn.
• Satire, "An attack on wickedness and folly", as Samuel Johnson called it, such as 1984 or Brave New World. Not necessarily humorous.
• Stream of consciousness, an attempt to portray all the thoughts and feelings of a character, as in parts of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.
• Word play, in which the nature of the words used themselves become part of the work