In addition to fictional writing such as short stories, novels, and plays, different kinds of nonfiction writing also involve narrative; these include narrative essays, biography, autobiography, history, and process analysis. Any of these forms of narrative may serve as evidence in an appropriate context.

We most often think of a narrative as being a fictional creation, or a story. In fiction, the sequence of events is structured by the writer and is called a plot. When used as evidence, a story should have a point. An author may sometimes state the point explicitly at the beginning, sometimes at an appropriate point within the story, or sometimes at the end as a moral.

However, works of fiction most often stand alone without any explicit statement of meaning, leaving the reader to infer the main idea. Then too, many stories are made up simply for entertainment, and the interest is centered on vivid characters and dramatic action with no thought given to meaning. But even when this is the case, a reader with a creative imagination, or a strongly biased world view, can impose an interpretation to suit his predilections.

Narrative essays also tell a story, but in this case, the story is based on the actual experiences of the author. Although the essay has a narrative structure, the final interest is not in the story itself but rather in the point that the story illustrates. For the author to make his point clear, the essay often includes a large proportion of comment and reflection on the events and their significance. In a narrative essay, the main idea is more often explicitly stated than is the case with fiction. However, authors of essays may also leave the main idea implicit allowing the reader to infer a meaning.

In addition to fictional writing and narrative essays, autobiography, biography, and history also involve narrative. Autobiography is the story of a person's life written by that person, and like the narrative essay often includes not only a chronology of events but extensive reflection on the events. It may also include justifications for actions, criticisms of other people, comments on contemporary social and political events and the like. A biography is the story of a person's life written by another. It too has a narrative structure and may include interpretive remarks and criticisms as well as background on social or cultural settings.

The assertions made by authors of biographies and autobiographies can be checked against sources such as public records, letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, and the comments of contemporaries to determine the accuracy of the facts and to evaluate the opinions of the writers.

History tells the story of the past and interprets the events. The narrative is usually subordinated to the analysis, and so the story may unfold very slowly. The validity of a history as evidence depends on the scope and depth of the author's research as well as the author's objectivity. Most historians provide notes and a bibliography to establish their credibility, but a reader must still be sensitive to the nature and degree of bias that may have influenced the interpretation of the facts.

Another form of narrative is process analysis. It belongs to a category of writing called exposition which also includes comparison and contrast, division and classification, cause and effect, and definition among others. The various forms of exposition have the primary purpose of giving information.

Where process analysis is concerned, the writing may tell how to perform an action, produce a product, or follow a procedure to realize a goal like getting a loan, buying a house, or obtaining a divorce. Process writing is also used in scientific discourse to explain natural phenomena such as the life cycles of animals or plants or the formation of geologic features.

Narrative is valuable as evidence because it shows rather than tells what happened. Abstractions and generalizations are made concrete and specific. People and events are made real through descriptions of their appearance and actions. Such visual definition conveys emotional force.

It is impossible to conceive of a human creature more wholly desolate and forlorn than Eliza, when she turned her footsteps from Uncle Tom's cabin.

Her husband's suffering and dangers, and the danger of her child, all blended in her mind, with a confused and stunning sense of the risk she was running, in leaving the only home she had ever known, and cutting loose from the protection of a friend whom she loved and revered. Then there was the parting from every familiar object, -- the place where she had grown up, the trees under which she had played, the groves where she had walked many an evening in happier days, by the side of her young husband, -- everything, as it lay in the clear, frosty starlight, seemed to speak reproachfully to her, and ask her whither could she go from a home like that?

But stronger than all was maternal love, wrought into a paroxysm of frenzy by the near approach of a fearful danger. Her boy was old enough to have walked by her side, and, in an indifferent case, she would only have led him by the hand; but now the bare thought of putting him out of her arms made her shudder, and she strained him to her bosom with a convulsive grasp, as she went rapidly forward.

The frosty ground creaked beneath her feet, and she trembled at the sound; every quaking leaf and fluttering shadow sent the blood backward to her heart, and quickened her footsteps. She wondered within herself at the strength that seemed to be come upon her; for she felt the weight of her boy as if it had been a feather, and every flutter of fear seemed to increase the supernatural power that bore her on, while from her pale lips burst forth, in frequent ejaculations, the prayer to a Friend above --"Lord, help! Lord, save me!" (774)

Stowe's novel gave powerful evidence against slavery during the national debate that raged before the Civil War. The novel presents a vivid picture of the evils of slavery by detailing the lives of Eliza and Uncle Tom. It is representative of what is called didactic art because the primary purpose of the novel is to instruct and by so doing to effect "a meaning or a result outside itself" (Harmon 151). In other words, its purpose is not just to entertain the reader, or even to inform him of the evils of slavery, but to arouse him to active opposition. Today the novel would be called a work of propaganda because it advocates an ideological position and is intended to affect public policy.

The economic depression and political rancor had already turned Germany into a quasi battlefield. "Berlin was in a state of civil war," wrote Christopher Isherwood. "Hate exploded suddenly without warning, out of nowhere; at street corners, in restaurants, cinemas, dance halls, swimming-baths; at midnight, after breakfast, in the middle of the afternoon. Knives were whipped out, blows were dealt with spiked rings, beermugs, chairlegs or leaded clubs; bullets slashed the advertisements on the poster-columns, rebounded from the iron roofs of latrines." (355).

However, Toland also takes into account the historical facts against which Hitler operated. The second paragraph quotes from Christopher Isherwood, an English novelist who lived in Germany during the 1930's and "brilliantly described the social corruption and disintegration in his Berlin Stories" (Benet 505). The details of this paragraph convey the social conditions in concrete and specific terms. Toland provides copious notes and an extensive bibliography, making this book a good source of evidence on topics related to Hitler and the Second World War.

But, alas! this kind heart had but a short time to remain such. The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work. That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon.

The food given the pearl divers is codfish, not very nourishing, and the bread made of maize, the bread of the Indies. At night the pearl divers are chained so they cannot escape.

Often a pearl diver does not return to the surface, for these waters are infested with man eating sharks of two kinds, both vicious marine animals that can kill, eat, and swallow a whole man.

In this harvesting of pearls let us again consider the Spaniards preserve the divine concepts of love for their fellow men, when they place the bodies of the Indians in such mortal danger, and their souls, too, for these pearl divers perish without the holy sacraments. And it is solely because of the Spaniards' greed for gold that they force the Indians to lead such a life, often a brief life, for it is impossible to continue long for long diving into the water and holding the breath for minutes at a time, repeating this for hour after hour, day after day; the continual cold penetrates them, constricts the chest, and they die spitting blood, or weakened by diarrhea.

The hair of these pearl divers, naturally black, is as if burnished by the saltpeter in the water, and hangs down their backs making them look like sea dogs or monsters of another species. And in this extraordinary labor, or, better put, in this infernal labor, the Lucayan Indians are finally consumed, as are captive Indians from other provinces. And all of them were publicly sold for one hundred and fifty castellanos, these Indians who had lived happily on their islands until the Spaniards came, although such a thing was against the law. But the unjust judges did nothing to stop it. For all the Indians of the islands are known to be great swimmers.