A narrative (or story) is any account that presents connected events, such as short stories and novels, and sometimes in poetry and drama, although in drama the events are primarily being shown instead of told). 

but also these narrative stories can be fictionalized accounts of historical events (i.e. anecdotes, myths and legends). 

Narrative is found in all forms of human creativity and art, including speech, writing, songs, film, television, video games, photography, theatre, and visual arts such as painting, with the modern art movements refusing the narrative in favour of the abstract and conceptual) that describes a sequence of events. 

The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, “to tell”, and is related to the adjective gnarus, “knowing” or “skilled”.

The word “story” may be used as a synonym of “narrative”. It can also be used to refer to the sequence of events described in a narrative. More narrowly defined, it is the fiction-writing mode whereby the narrator communicates directly to the reader.