Determine empty template variable in Django
Pipe through length and do your test against that value.
{% if narratives.narrative_text|length > 0 %} {{ narratives.narrative_text }}{% else %} None{% endif %}
Just use {% if narratives.narrative_text %}, I think. It will use Python's implicit false, which applies for empty strings, empty arrays, empty dicts, None, False, 0 etc..
Just confirmed via my own code using django 2.1.3 and python 3.5 and 3.7 that the following works:
{% if narratives.narrative_text %} # do something {{ narratives.narrative_text }}{% else %} # do something else None # displays "None" {% endif %}