Every theory has its pet names. What does Narrative Theory think of literature, authors, and readers?
What is literature?
Literature is a written text that is founded on its narrative structure. There are different types of texts, and the author can make all kinds of artistic choices, but it's the narrative that provides the building blocks. Within this school of criticism, a text is of interest first and foremost for its narrative structure: How does it depicts the passage of time? What are its plot points, and in what order to they occur? Whose perspective are we getting?
What is an author?
The author is the person who creates a narrative, taking the basic story and then deciding how to present it to the reader. This involves making choices about how to structure the text (like whether it's going to follow a conventional structure or play around with time and space), as well as about stuff like language, tone, and characterization.
What is a reader?
The reader is the real-life person who reads and makes sense of a narrative. Academic types often used to see readers as receivers of texts: it was all about the text and the author, but rarely about any readers. Narrative theorists were no exception at first, but many have come to see the reader as playing an active role in the process, too. Sure, some texts are more "open" than others, but it's ultimately the reader who interprets a text.