How do readers/writers alike feel about too much narration in a story?
My question is pretty much summed up in the title. My story includes a lot of narration. Narrating events, narrating character's thoughts. There are several intervals in each chapter where the characters engage dialogue, but most of the story telling is done through narration.
How viable is this for writing an enjoyable story?
Edit: just to clarify what "too much" means, there is generally more narration than actual dialogue.
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1 answer
I don't think this balance matters terribly much.
The more critical measure is whether there is tension due to conflict. If your narration is describing a battle, for example, it can go on for pages without any dialogue. If your narration is describing people at high risk (trying to infiltrate a lair, for example) it can go on for pages.
It is tension that keeps readers turning pages to find out what happens on the next page. The tension is usually caused by conflict, but can also be caused by novelty. Like a character seeing something for the first time, that the reader also finds captivating. A giant alien space station or something. A living dinosaur.
It is easier to create tension in dialogue than in narration, just because the speakers can disagree, misunderstand, get confused or angry or resistant.
Thus a story that is mostly narration is more difficult for the writer to keep interesting, and you risk people getting bored or fatigued by the amount of information they are given without anything happening in the story with the characters. But if you can craft your narrations to engage people's imagination and give them a simulated imaginary "experience" then your story can be fine.
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