A narrative is a story that has a beginning, middle and end. It engages the reader’s mind and heart. It shows actors moving across its stage, revealing their characters through their actions and their speech. At its heart, a narrative contains a mystery or a question-something that compels the reader to keep reading and find out what happens.
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A traditional news feature starts with an anecdote or scene, moves to a nut graph that tells the reader where the story is going and then spends the rest of the piece explaining and supporting the nut graph.A narrative, on the other hand, lets the story unfold through character, scene and action-usually without summing up the story and telling readers what it’s about. A narrative also attaches a little story to a big story — it is built around theme.
In journalism, a Nut graph is a paragraph, particularly in a feature story, that explains the news value of the story. […] ie, “in a nutshell” paragraph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N…
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/…
News Feature v. Narrative: What’s the Difference?
Rebecca Allen — January 9, 2006
In a Nutshell, People like Stories.