Narrative explores a range of written, spoken, literary and non-literary narratives. It shows what systematic attention to language can reveal about the narratives themselves, their tellers, and those to whom they are addressed. Topics examined include plot structure, time manipulations, point of view, oral narratives and children's stories. This classic text has been substantially rewritten to incorporate recent developments in theory and new technologies, and to make it more usable as a course book. New materials include sections on film, surprise and suspense, and online news stories. The section on children's narratives has been updated, and the discussion of newspaper stories incorporates contemporary examples. There are new exercises which relate closely to the chapter content and new sections on further reading.