Once the reader gets beyond the first story, "The Kiss," hardly anything in the others, all densely packed with narrative invention, fails to ring true.

It is possible that the painting was commemorative in purpose, and that the child was a narrative invention intended to emphasize the man's beneficence.

Almost nothing in Hollywood is resistant to narrative invention, so an inevitable frustration arises when real life presents, say, a problem in Act Three.

True fans can tell you something else as well: Poverty of narrative invention has nothing to do with predicting the success or failure of any "Star Trek" film.

You write as if formalistic narrative invention had never existed before!

Another fairly recent narrative invention, professional wrestling, is even predicated on the idea that it is deliberately and shamelessly plotted.

Ms. Walsh is interested in both documentary and in work that combines aesthetic quality with narrative invention.

Baillie's own gift for narrative invention revealed itself early in stories told to her companions or acted out in impromptu amateur dramatics.

Tumminia writes that they used "adaptive storytelling and continuous narrative invention" to explain the failure of the prophecy.