A religious man in local story (9)
I believe the answer is:
narrative
'story' is the definition.
(I know that story can be written as narrative)
'a religious man in local' is the wordplay.
'a religious man' becomes 'arr' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'local' becomes 'native' (similar in meaning).
'arr' put inside 'native' is 'NARRATIVE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for narrative that I've seen before include "Story recounting events" , "Report" , "Storyline" , "Story line" , "relation" .)