Narrative writing is used to tell a story. Narration presents a series of events in order to inform or entertain the audience. Narrative writing can be both fiction and non-fiction. The primary goal of narration is to relate a series of events that occurred to particular characters. However, narrative writing will often incorporate the descriptive mode (when describing setting and characters) as well as the expository mode (when stating background or other information directly to the reader). Within academic essays, narrative writing can be used to relate an anecdote, particularly in an introduction or as part of an example.