Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. It is the act of telling a story, usually in some kind of chronological order. Narration is a required element of all written stories, such as novels, short stories, poems, and memoirs, presenting the story in its entirety. However, narration is optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows, and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other means, like dialogue between characters or visual action.

Narration includes both who tells the story and how the story is told. The narrative mode encompasses the set of choices through which the creator of the story develops their narrator and narration. This includes narrative point of view, perspective, or voice, which is the choice of grammatical person used by the narrator to establish whether or not the narrator and the audience are participants in the story. It also includes the scope of the information or knowledge that the narrator presents.

The different kinds of narration are categorized by each ones primary grammatical stance: either the narrator speaks from within the story and, so, uses "I" to refer to him- or herself (first-person narration), or the narrator speaks from outside the story and never employs the "I" (third-person narration) .

In summary, narration is the act of telling a story, usually in chronological order, through a written or spoken commentary. It includes who tells the story and how the story is told, and it is a required element of written stories.