Hello! Welcome to my Ted Talk: Narrative and Story are not the Same Thing.
Story is the things that happened.
Narrative is the order and the way in which those things that happened are conveyed.
Fairytale retellings generally keep the same plot, but they’re told in different ways. The story is the same but the narrative is unique.
You ever see a movie or read a book and think that there are some really compelling points hidden in there, but the narrative isn’t doing them justice?
You ever have someone tell a story you love and they just do a terrible job explaining? That is the narrative’s fault, not the story’s. You could say that the person did a bad job telling it.
You ever play a video game where the story was compelling and you’re very interested, but the order in which the events are presented robs it of all suspense? It’s not that the story isn’t interesting. The story has a lot to offer. It’s that there was (drum roll) bad writing.