Narrative

Early Mornings at Telegraph Cove by Elli Sandberg

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It was an early morning in Telegraph Cove, on the north end of Vancouver Island. It was the middle of summer so the sun had risen already, but it was overcast, so the sky was just a bright, seamless gray. Fog blanketed the view of distant islands, and mist surrounded the nearby waves. My mom and I were being gently rocked about by the ocean, sitting in our little rubber dingy a ways off the shore. We were giddy, loud with our excitement after having caught the first fish of the day so early- our laughter was in sharp contrast with the gentle quietness of the morning. Before too long, though, we quieted down, and cast our lines back out into the water beside the freshly-caught bleeding lingcod dangling by a rope through the gills. Its eyes stared up at the gray sky, glassy and bulging, while its mouth gaped, and teeth- white and jagged like stalactites- caught on the rope. Then, suddenly, there was a loud whoosh- and a towering black fin, nearly six feet tall, rose out of the water not far off the starboard side of our raft. It was probably further away than it seemed, but it left me breathless and more than a little afraid- the fin alone was nearly half the size of our rubber dingy- and another three or four killer whales had already surfaced and disappeared shortly after the first one.

My mom and I could only sit and watch as, for the next several minutes, a pod of over a dozen orcas passed through the cove. Every few seconds there would be that tell-tale whoosh, and a formidably sized black dorsal fin would rise from the water. Every now and then, one of them would heave at least half of their body out of the deep teal waves and into the air, either collapsing with a splash or gliding silently back into the water. For a while, the orcas seemed to be surfacing closer and closer to our dingy. One was even close enough that my mom and I could lean over the side and watch a murky silhouette beneath us- in water we had thought to be fairly shallow- drifting a ways before disappearing into the deep. The whales slowly vanished into the distance- after a while, we could no longer see dorsal fins emerging from the water, and shortly after that, the whoosh of sea spray vanished into the mist as well. It was just us, the gray sky and the blue-green waves in the early morning. 

Narrative Genre Analysis

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When I was writing my narrative about seeing the orcas at Telegraph Cove, I first focused on how I would approach the writing in relation to the genre- I remembered that in our first narrative writing assignment in class, I had a tendency to stray outside of the important moment for the story, elaborating too much about the background and thoughts that didn’t have to do with the narrative’s event. So, while writing about Telegraph Cove, I tried to focus only on briefly setting the scene, and then the important moment. I think I struggled with tying the theme in with this genre. When writing a narrative, since the point of view is important, I put a lot of emphasis on how I felt, or, at least, the specific moments in which I remember feeling something very strongly. Because of that, I feel like I neglected to embellish the details of the orcas, the ocean creatures of this narrative, though I do think that I manage to work the theme into the narrative fairly well with some of the descriptions.

Narrative Genre Sources

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Narrative Genre Featured Image:

“Animals Whales Sea Life.” Animals Whales Sea Life Wallpaper | AllWallpaper.in #4295 | PC | En. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2019.

Narrative Genre Writing Featured Image:

Jacques de Vos. “Freediving With Orcas no. 1.” Freediving with Orcas in Norway, Ikelite, 2017, https://www.ikelite.com/blogs/features/freediving-with-orcas-in-norway.

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The narrative featured on this page was written by me, Elli Sandberg.

Narrative Genre Introduction

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A narrative is literature that tells a story, from the point of view of the narrator. There is generally a single event, or a sequence of connected events, with characters, setting, and plot. All of these things can be real or fictional- the defining characteristic of a narrative is the main character, who serves as the point of view for the story being told.