Tone

• The tone of a narrative is as important and foundational as the plate on which a meal is presented. Tone is the undercurrent theme that flows throughout the story. For example, a narrative may be written with a tone that conveys constant suspicion and mystery, anger and distrust or love and romance. An experienced narrator establishes the tone of his story early in the piece and keeps it consistent throughout.
  
  

Movement

• That certain something that makes a narrative a page turner is movement. Movement is like the fresh ingredient in a mouth-watering meal that makes you go in for just one more bite. When your narrative has movement, everything that is said and done in each scene is progressive. The dialogue between characters, for example, will reveal information. And character actions will be behaviors that build up to the climax of the story.
  
  

Decription

• No one orders a meal from a menu so that the waiter can stand and describe what they're going to eat -- they order a meal because they want to taste it for themselves. The same is true with narratives. A reader doesn't want you to just tell her how the room looks and how the murdering next-door neighbor appears, she wants you to show her. Description gives narratives life and a sense of realism. At the same time, too much description can stifle movement and become boring. Don't give painstaking artistry details on a coffee table that has no significance; use your descriptive skills for things, places and people that you want the reader to remember and experience for herself.
  
  

Point of View

• A point of view is like the waiter who serves you during a dining experience -- it's the voice that guides the reader through the narrative journey. The person who is telling the story may have a point of view that is from the first-person perspective, where everything is stated as " I heard" or "I saw." Or the point of view may be from a third-person perspective, where everything is written as "She was saying," or "He picked up." Just as a bad server can ruin a pleasant dinner, the wrong perspective can stifle a story. For instance, some narratives would read too distant, cold or not compelling in a third-person narration, while another narrative may read too fantastical and unreliable in first person. A technique to help you select an angle is to read a crucial section of your narrative in one perspective and then re-read it from another perspective. The one that reads more true for the story is the one in which you should write.