Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use narrative in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Narrative means telling a story. Example: “The plot is full of holes, but the narrative is extremely compelling.”

Examples of narrative by meaning

adjectiveOf or relating to narration.

  • the narrative thrust of a film
  • On one side, the narrators: those who are indeed intensely narrative, self-storying, Homeric, in their sense of life and self, whether they look to the past or the future.2004 January 10, Galen Strawson, “Review: Making Stories by Jerome Bruner”, in The Guardian

nounA representation of an event or story in a way to promote a certain point of view.

  • changing, controlling the narrative
  • The posters quickly became embroiled in the interminable battle over narrative in the Israel-Palestine conflict.2023 November 10, Chris McGreal, “‘It’s like a fire in the world’: how the Israeli ‘kidnapped’ posters set off a phenomenon and a...

nounA manner of conveying a story, fictional or otherwise, in a body of work.

  • The plot is full of holes, but the narrative is extremely compelling.

More sentences with narrative

  • I'd forgotten what happened in the first Harry Potter book so I read a summary of the narrative before starting the second one.From the entry summary
  • Her wedding gives her fans the satisfying narrative conclusion that they desire.2026 July 3, Marina Hyde, “The US turns 250 and Taylor Swift gets married. I think we all know which is a bigger deal”, in The Guardian…. From the entry people pleaser
  • Romance relies on familiar narrative formulas, like the guarantee of an “H.E.A.” or “happily ever after.”2026 February 8, Alexandra Alter, “The New Fabio Is Claude”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry hea
  • When told to craft a love scene, the bots usually jumped straight to the obvious narrative climax.2026 February 8, Alexandra Alter, “The New Fabio Is Claude”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry slow-burn
  • The SaaSpocalypse is just a narrative, and leads to all sorts of cloudy thinking.2026 February 21, Mike Pearl, “Obedient Traders Respond to Claude Code Cybersecurity Plugin by Selling Cybersecurity Stocks”, in Gizmodo…. From the entry SaaSpocalypse
  • These narratives began to unravel first in the financial crisis, and once again during the pandemic.2025, Rachel O’Dwyer, “Afterword”, in Tokens: The Future of Money in the Age of the Platform, London; New York, N.Y.: Verso, →ISBN, page 283. From the entry cryptomillionaire
  • Too Cool challenges the dominant narrative of aesthetics from the East as a knock-off derivative.2025 September 12, Men's Folio, Maximalism is back, and this subfaction of the Y2K resurgence is reclaiming Eastern kitsch.. From the entry Too Cool
  • Importantly, deepfakes are perceived as less credible than cheapfakes with a similar de-legitimizing anti-immigration narrative.2024 May 1, Michael Hameleers, “Cheap Versus Deep Manipulation: The Effects of Cheapfakes Versus Deepfakes in a Political Setting”, in…. From the entry cheap fake
  • Now it feels like she’s providing the narrative—so there aren’t any shots to be taken.”2023 December 6, Sam Lansky, “Person of Year 2023 : Taylor Swift”, in Time, archived from the original on 06 Dec 2023. From the entry multihyphenate
  • The redemption arc is a seductive narrative, and many neutrals will wish him well.2023 February 24, Jonathan Liew, “Loris Karius knows only too well how one game can change a career”, in The Guardian. From the entry redemption arc
  • Rowling began making postcanon remarks in interviews that diversified characters at the center of the narrative.2022, Sarah Park Dahlen, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, “Introduction”, in Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Sarah Park Dahlen, editors, Harry Potter and…. From the entry postcanon
  • Now, a long-running Ponzi scheme requires a narrative — and the narrative is where crypto really excels.2021 May 20, Paul Krugman, “Technobabble, Libertarian Derp and Bitcoin”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry Ponzi scheme
  • Ibarra is known for creating narratives about Latino families living in borderland communities, the MacArthur website said.2021 September 28, Amir Vera, “An anti-racist author, a documentary filmmaker and a computational virologist are among the 2021 MacArthur…. From the entry IMDB
  • Listening to autistic narratives reveals possibilities for neuroqueering interpersonal communication theory.2021, Kristen L. Cole, “Neuroqueering interpersonal communication theory: listening to autistic object-orientations”, in Review of…. From the entry neuroqueer
  • One factor is the increasingly immersive power of ideological narratives and virtual realities.2020 November 3, Ross Douthat, “2020 Will Not Be Decisive”, in New York Times. From the entry storyscape
  • The details of their romance are lovingly expanded upon, developing the Naomily narrative in multiple ways.2020, Kate McNicholas Smith, Lesbians on Television: New Queer Visibility & The Lesbian Normal, unnumbered page. From the entry Naomily
  • The throwaway panel cannot contain any information vital to the main narrative of the strip.2020 January 15, Walt Kelly, Pogo: The Complete Daily & Sunday Comic Strips Vol. 6: Clean as a Weasel, Fantagraphics Books, →ISBN, page 333. From the entry throwaway panel
  • The mythologizing, carried out over many decades, granted Italian-Americans “a formative role in the nation-building narrative.”2019 October 12, Brent Staples, quoting Danielle Battisti, “How Italians Became ‘White’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the…. From the entry nation-building
  • Some of them tried-and-true copypasta, these narratives often include images, annotated instructions, or other ostensibly helpful information.2018, Whitney Phillips, Ryan M. Milner, The Ambivalent Internet […] , John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 158. From the entry copypasta
  • Even as an entire privacy invading narrative was being spun unknowingly around them.2018 July 14, Natasha Lomas, “Reminder: Other people’s lives are not fodder for your feeds”, in TechCrunch. From the entry creepshot
  • They are a particular kind of old narratives which form a definite class in Manipuri literature.2018 September 1, Madhu Chandra, “The Effects of the Burning of Meitei Puyas (The Sacred Writings of Manipur)”, in article. From the entry puya
  • American comeback narratives are — customarily — uplifting stories that root for the underdog.2018 August 17, Jenny Lee, “Rudy Ghouliani and the art of the American comeback”, in Financial Times, archived from the original on 20 May…. From the entry zomedy
  • Tracking Quicumque vult poses some difficulties, given the date of the Elyseus narrative.2016, M. Uebel, Ecstatic Transformation: On the Uses of Alterity in the Middle Ages, →ISBN, page 211. From the entry Quicumque vult
  • Marx created a narrative populated by workers, capitalists, officials and scientists who were history’s dramatis personae.2015 February 18, Yanis Varoufakis, “Yanis Varoufakis: How I became an erratic Marxist”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the…. From the entry dramatis personae
  • Abilafia’s article is a classic example of an old-fashioned “Whiggish” narrative.2015 May 15, Rebekah Higgitt, “Beware Eurosceptic versions of history and science”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry whiggish
  • Posthodiernal na- does not appear in my narrative corpus outside of the quoted speech of characters.2015, Doris L. Payne, Shahar Shirtz, Beyond Aspect: The expression of discourse functions in African languages, John Benjamins Publishing…. From the entry posthodiernal
  • That they are being horribly misled by the dominant cultural narratives.2014, Russell Brand, “Serenity Now”, in Revolution, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, →ISBN, pages 16–17. From the entry pie-eyed
  • Thus, a war widely predicted in fiction is only exiguously remembered in post factum allohistorical narratives.2014 October 14, David Malcolm, “The Great War Re-Remembered: Allohistory and Allohistorical Fiction”, in Martin Löschnigg, Marzena…. From the entry widely
  • Books in this category, he wrote, subordinated aesthetic, philosophical, and narrative values to the goal of arousal.2014, Sarah L. Leonard, Fragile Minds and Vulnerable Souls: The Matter of Obscenity in Nineteenth-Century Germany, Philadelphia, Pa.…. From the entry chronique scandaleuse
  • In ancient narrative literature, ethopoeia is a frequently used literary tool.2014, Koen De Temmerman, Crafting Characters: Heroes and Heroines in the Ancient Greek Novel, →ISBN. From the entry ethopoeia
  • A rather simple case of Karmawhoring is embodied in posts providing narrative teasers of possible stories.2014, Annika Richterich, “Karma, precious Karma: 'Karmawhoring' on Reddit and the Front Page's Econometrisation”, in Journal of Peer…. From the entry karma whore
  • They attempt to reclaim the narrative back from those who engage in fat shame.2014, Cat Pausé, “Causing a Commotion: Queering Fat in Cyberspace”, in Cat Pausé, Samantha Murray, Jackie Wykes, editors, Queering Fat…. From the entry fatspo
  • However, Treyarch crafts a narrative of leveling up when a player attempts to prestige.2013, Brent Kice, “Perceptions of Control: Open World Formats v. Online Multiplayer First Person Shooters”, in Matthew Wysocki, editor…. From the entry prestige
  • This animatrix model would resonate better with the medium’s long-established parthenogenesis narratives.2013, Donald Crafton, “Coda: The Shadow of a Mouse’s Tail”, in Shadow of a Mouse: Performance, Belief, and World-Making in Animation…. From the entry animatrix
  • More what I'd call a narrative possibility space bounded by the strategic parameters of the game.”2013, Austin Grossman, You, page 139. From the entry precanon

Meaning of narrative

  1. adjective Telling a story.
  2. adjective Overly talkative; garrulous.
  3. adjective Of or relating to narration.

Full definition of narrative

Questions about narrative in a sentence

How do you use narrative in a sentence?
Narrative is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The plot is full of holes, but the narrative is extremely compelling.”
What is a short sentence with narrative?
“changing, controlling the narrative”
What does narrative mean?
Narrative means telling a story.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: narrative (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use narrative in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/narrative. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.