Setting the text of a CCLabelTTF in Cocos2D

I'm trying to create CCLabelTTF where the text changes as the story progresses, but I'm having trouble setting a simple piece of text to it. The label currently displays (null) and I can't seem get it to display "This is text". NSLog returns it properly, but the label won't display it. I also made sure the label wasn't destroyed. Here is the code:

    CGSize narrativeTextSize;
    narrativeTextSize.width=740;
    narrativeTextSize.height=60;

    CCLabelTTF  *narrativeTextLabel =[CCLabelTTF labelWithString:[NSString
                                                                   stringWithFormat:@"%@", narrativeText]
                                                       dimensions:narrativeTextSize
                                                       hAlignment:UITextAlignmentLeft
                                                    lineBreakMode:UILineBreakModeWordWrap
                                                         fontName:@"Helvetica"
                                                         fontSize:20];

    narrativeTextLabel.position =  ccp(255,60);

narrativeText = @"This is text";

//NSLog(@"%@", narrativeText);

[gameMenu addChild:narrativeTextLabel];

Just write

narrativeText = @"This is text"; above CCLabelTTF *narrativeTextLabel ... line.