Narrative Framing

Have you ever wondered how an author gets you to fall in love with certain characters and hate others? Or how they can take a character you hate and slowly make you love them by the end of the book?

That, my friend, happens in narrative framing, and it’s the secret ingredient in how authors expertly manipulate reader emotion, and it’s critical to understand not only if you want to understand the stories you read more deeply, but if you want to protect your subconscious mind from the wrong kind of manipulation.

Because narrative framing happens in every form of storytelling, from journalism to film and visual arts.

So, what is narrative framing, how does it work, and why should you care?

Narrative framing refers to the way a story treats and positions characters, events, and decisions through tone, point of view, and consequences. It is the lens through which the story is told, guiding the reader's emotional and moral responses…often without the reader realizing they are being guided at all.

Tone

Language shapes emotion. The words and rhythms of words an author chooses create the lens through which a character, event, or location is seen. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

1. The ruined chapel squatted on the bare hilltop like a toad, glaring down at the village through empty-eyed windows.

2. The bare bones of the chapel stood sentinel on the empty hilltop, watching over the village huddled beneath it.

Both sentences are structured in almost the same way, and both describe the ruins of a chapel, but they do so in wildly different tones. Sentence 1 evokes a sense of loathsome foreboding, making the chapel feel almost malevolent. But sentence 2 imparts an almost noble sense of protectiveness to the ruins.

Let’s try another example and dive even deeper.

1. There sat a poor stray, huddled beneath the only street lamp, shivering. Rain plastered his brown hair to his body and showed every rib as he took a deep breath to howl his suffering into the night.

2. A howl echoed through the night air, the hungry voice of a stray lurking beneath the only street light. It turned it’s muzzle to the sky, revealing a row of white teeth.

The narrative framing of the dog tells the reader not only how to think and feel about the animal, but how the point of view character sees it.

Sentence 1 personalizes the dog, calling it a “he.” It uses words like poor and stray, which elicit sympathy, describe the wasted form, and show pathetic body language that the reader will immediately empathize with, given their experience with animals. It frames the howl as suffering and further isolates the dog by putting it beneath the only street lamp.

Sentence 2 frames the dog as an “it” which makes the animal less personal and more other. It suggests the howl is more dangerous, a hungry sort of howl. Lurking frames the dog not as a poor victim, but as a potential predator inhabiting what might be the only light in the dark. And instead of focusing on the dog's weakened stage, the sentence highlights the dog's teeth.

Through framing, the same dog can either be a victim to be pitied, or a potential predator to be wary of. And when the authors add in character POV and voice, the framing becomes even clearer.

1. There sat a poor stray, huddled beneath the only street lamp, shivering. Rain plastered his brown hair to his body and showed every rib as he took a deep breath to howl his suffering into the night. He looked so much like Rocket, the dog my father bought when I was 10, that my heart climbed up into my throat.

Now we have not only the textual framing with word choice, but the point of view character adding the context of their memory to increase the reader's pity and empathy.

Which leads us to the second aspect of narrative framing: point of view.

Point of View

The closer the reader is to the point of view character, the tighter the narrative distance, the more the reader will naturally empathize with their thoughts and actions. Evolution has primed humans for empathy, as being in community is our main survival strategy. So decreasing the narrative distance makes readers more likely to see the actions and thoughts of the main character as something to empathize with rather than something to critique.

The more intimate the narrative, the more sympathy the character gets, the more likely the reader is to give the character their unconscious allegiance.

We take the truthfulness of their observations for granted and find it much harder to recognize when they are biased or mistaken. This is what makes narrative framing techniques such as The Unreliable Narrator so interesting, because they subvert our expectations and challenge our instincts.

The Unreliable Narrator controls the lens, but not the truth, which is exposed through the text via consequences and the reactions of other characters, and encourages the reader to do something rare: interrogate the narrative.

So let’s look at what happens when consequences come into play.

Narrative Consequences

The narrative can either protect or punish characters via the consequences of their actions and how other characters relate and react to them. When a character makes a moral decision, how does the narrative treat them?

Do other characters applaud or justify their actions? Are they forgiven or forced to admit their failures? Do they suffer any real consequences, or only earn sympathy?

Let’s look at a literary example from Jane Austen’s Emma.

During a picnic, the main character, Emma, thoughtlessly insults Mrs. Bates, an older woman who is beneath her both in class and wealth. Emma does so out of reaction because she is already emotionally overwrought, but her words wound the beloved Mrs. Bates deeply.

How does the narrative treat this action? With sound judgement. Emma’s closest friend, Mr. Knightly, scolds her as only a close friend could do.

“Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do: a privilege rather endured than allowed, perhaps, but I must still use it. I cannot see you acting wrong without a remonstrance. How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her character, age, and situation?—Emma, I had not thought it possible. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was badly done, indeed! You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her—and before her niece, too—and before others, many of whom (certainly some,) would be entirely guided by your treatment of her.—This is not pleasant to you, Emma—and it is very far from pleasant to me; but I must, I will,—I will tell you truths while I can; satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now.”

What’s more, Emma feels the truth of this reprimand and then actively changes her behavior and tries to make amends. Mrs. Bates avoids her for a time as well, increasing Emma’s textual punishment.

While her behavior might be understandable, the text implicitly critiques and condemns it, making Emma suffer for her behavior and grow through it.

Narrative framing through consequences can either condemn character behavior or justify it, excuse it, or expose it. The same framing also applies to themes and ideas.

When themes are introduced, how are they handled? Are they addressed in the text or ignored? Are they explored via the characters, condemned, or applauded?

 These literary decisions, if they are done subtly by the author, will almost unconsciously guide the reader’s emotional and intellectual reactions and opinions of the themes, characters, and ideas presented in the book.

When characters, thoughts, or ideas are protected by the narrative–when their behavior goes unexamined, that should lead readers to ask the final question of Narrative Framing: who or what gets the benefit of the doubt?

Benefit of the Doubt

How characters and ideas are framed by the narrative can lead readers to accept them without examination, giving the character or idea the textual benefit of the doubt.

If a character is charming, attractive, or clever—which often applies to the love interest in romance or romantic subplots—the framing makes the reader less likely to critique their behavior and more likely to accept the actions or motivations of the character as virtuous than they would be if the character were less likable.

The ethics are passively absorbed rather than actively criticized.

An example of this in literature:

Edward watches Bella sleep, controls her actions despite her wishes, and makes decisions for her without consulting her. These actions are romanticized both by the characters and by the text. His actions are seen as protective and motivated by love, quickly forgiven, and never meaningfully punished via textual consequences not inflicted by his own guilt. He is never asked to address these issues or change his character to receive Bella’s love.

The same applies to themes or ideas. How a theme or idea is framed by the narrative gives it moral weight. Think of some of your favorite stories and ask yourself how they frame ideas and concepts.

What does The Hunger Games say about justice in a corrupt system? How can you tell by the way the text treats these ideas through the consequences and behavior of the characters?

What does V for Vendetta say about the same question?

Popular tropes can also be tools of narrative framing. What does “fated mates” say about the nature of love, and what happens when we believe love isn’t earned or given but assigned?

Why Framing Matters

Narrative framing is not neutral. It is either a conscious decision on the part of the author or an unconscious action shaped by their own biases and beliefs. But it always exists. By manipulating emotion and interpretation through tone, point of view, narrative distance, and consequences, it can shape reader's values, normalize behaviors, and communicate morals and ethics.

An author can frame obsession as love and make the reader believe it. They can frame control as protection or revenge as justice and if the reader is not aware of what they are doing, they will believe it.

This is why growing beyond simple, functional literacy and into critical literacy is so important. Critical literacy provides readers with a surgical toolkit to dissect any story and discover how the author is manipulating them.

Now, if you’re paying attention, you may have realized that, through tone and example choice, I am subtly suggesting this manipulation is a bad thing. Why would I do that? 

Because the danger of being manipulated into believing harmful things without your active consent is the greatest danger of storytelling. It is what makes propaganda so powerful. And it is why storytellers have such a massive responsibility to their craft.

The manipulation of thoughts and emotions through narrative framing in storytelling is not inherently bad. In fact, that manipulation is the great power of storytelling. It makes us FEEL, helps us empathize, lets us live lives outside of our own and explore ideas, themes, and people who actively make our lives richer, make us ask questions, and engage with our experience of reality on a whole different level.

But if we aren’t aware of how storytelling works, how authors can convince us that revenge was justified, or make us love the bad guy instead of rooting for his downfall, we cease to become active participants in a conversation and become passive consumers. Instead of choosing to believe, can be subtly convinced. We lose out on the richness of the craft of storytelling.

So the next time you pick up a book and fall in love with a character, ask yourself who gave them the spotlight and why. Who got the benefit of the doubt? Who was protected by the narrative, and who was condemned by it? What ideas were given space, and which were dismissed? How did the author handle the themes they introduced?

In short: what did they actually say, and is that a truth you want to internalize, a question you want to ask, a lesson you want to learn? And do you really agree, or did they just convince you that you do?