Many genres of verbal art show indications of the gradual shift from orality to literacy, none more strikingly than the artform of the narrative, Ong claims. Narrative provides an account of events embedded in the flow of time and is the most important and fundamental verbal art form. It factors in to almost all other verbal arts and reflects many influences including and beyond the orality-literacy dynamics of a culture.

Oral cultures cannot preserve knowledge in an abstract or isolated way as literate cultures are capable of doing in writing. In such oral cultures, narrative is imbued with the important function of bonding thought and knowledge into a durable, memorable form. Much knowledge can be stored in the substantial and lengthy bodies of lore that oral cultures are capable of generating and sustaining.

Prior studies of the history of the narrative in Western culture show a striking distinction between the characteristics of narratives in oral and literate cultures. Oral mnemonic structures influence oral narratives and produce stories that are structured very differently to the standard linear climactic plot that literate audiences would be familiar with.