Where's the narrative?

I'm not reviewing every book I'm reading this year. I've decided if I can't do a positive review, I won't review at all.

But even books I don't love I'm learning something from.

What I've noticed from the last two books I read (SF space opera) is how narrative heavy they are. It makes me realize how little narrative I do nowadays. My books are constructed by scenes, with maybe a little narrative at the beginnings and ends of the chapters.

My first book, written long ago, was almost all narrative. Partly because I hadn't yet learned what the difference was, and partly because I was somewhat uncomfortable with dialogue.

I still am not completely comfortable with dialogue, but if a scene isn't action, then it is probably conversation. If there is information to impart, I try hard to do it out loud.

Makes me wonder if I could write a narrative book anymore. Actually, I'm not sure why I would get away from what I'm doing, but it's an interesting thought.


I wrote the third new chapter today, which started off with a narrative transition. What narrative I have these days is either as a transitional beginning or an ending wrapup. Anyway, with the thought in mind that I don't write narrative anymore, I looked at the transitional beginning and realized I could keep going with it.

So the whole chapter is narrative.

I think it works. It's a bit of an info dump, in that it describes the protagonists past and how he got in such a pickle, at the same time it details the transition from the first two chapters, which are in a sense prologue, to the rest of the book.

It was kind of fun, actually. I think I'm going to try more of that. It might be a bit of a heavy-handed way to add depth, especially to the characterization, but it can be effective for all that.

There is no one way.

Anything goes.