I’ve put some thought lately into the idea of incorporating more narrative text in my documentation. I’m a fan of stories myself—aside from the fact that I enjoy adventure books. When I’m listening to a speaker or reading an article, I mentally perk up when what is apparently a narrative comes along. Narrative grabs my attention.

Why couldn’t I do the same thing in my technical writing? I have, to some extent. One manual I’ve written contains examples that are set apart in the text rather than being introduced with wording like “For instance.” I did it as a mechanism to show how a possibly real-world situation applies to the software I documented. I wasn’t really thinking about the narrative itself, though.

When I was a writing tutor in college (Look! There’s some narrative now…. Come to think of it, the previous paragraph had some, too….), I’d tell students that narrative is an effective writing tool because people identify closely with it. It’s a core part of our linguistic abilities. Whenever your colleague asks you what you did over the weekend and you tell him, you engage in narrative.

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