Purpose
of a Narrative Essay
A narrative essay is a story
written about a personal experience. Writing a
narrative essay provides an opportunity to get to know and
understand yourself better. One of the best ways to
reveal who you are is to write about how you became aware of
something, gained a new way of seeing the world, a new
insight. While such awareness can occur for apparently
unexplainable reasons, it most often happens when you
encounter new ideas or have experiences that change you in
some way. During the process of writing a narrative,
you will learn ways to articulate personal experience to
inform and entertain others. Narratives provide human
interest, spark our curiosity, and draw us close to the
storyteller. In addition, narratives can do the following:
- Create a sense of shared history, linking people together.
- Provide entertainment. Most people enjoy a thrilling movie or an intriguing book.
- Provide psychological healing. Reading or listening to the narrative of someone who faced a life crisis similar to one you are experiencing can help you through the crisis. They can also help the writer deal with the crisis.
- Provide insight. Narratives can help you discover values, explore options, and examine motives.
Characteristics
of the Narrative
Narrative essays
describe specific experiences that changed how you felt,
thought, or acted. The form of a narrative is similar
to a story in that it describes how your character is feeling
by "showing" through his/her actions, rather than
by coming right out and "telling" your readers.
However, a good narrative isn't just an entertaining story,
but has a point to make, a purpose to convey. In writing a
narrative essay, your purpose is not to merely tell an
interesting story but to show your readers the importance and
influence the experience has had on you. This experience may
be used as a springboard for reflection.
A good narrative:
- involves readers in the story. It is much more interesting to actually recreate an incident for readers than to simply tell about it.
- relates events in sequence. The creation of specific scenes set at actual times and in actual places. Show, don't tell. Re-create an event by setting it in a specific time and space.
- includes detailed observations of people, places, and events. Do you recall sights, sounds, smells, tactile feelings, and tastes? Use actual or re-created dialogue? Give actual names of people and places.
- presents important changes, contrasts, or conflicts and creates tension. Do you grow from change? Is there a conflict between characters? Is there a contrast between the past and the present?
- is told from a point of view--usually the author's point of view.
- focuses on connection between past events, people, or places and the present. How relevant is the event today? How relevant will it be in your future?
- makes a point, communicates a main idea or dominant impression. Your details, specific scenes, accounts of changes or conflicts, and connections between past and present should point to a single main idea or dominant impression for your paper as a whole. While not stating a flat "moral" of the story, the importance of your memory must be clear to your reader.
Planning the Narrative Essay
To plan a narrative, your job is:
- first, select an incident worthy of writing about,
- second, find relevance in that incident (writers might ask themselves what about the incident provided new insights or awareness),
- finally, dredge up details which will make the incident real for readers.
Good stories occur everywhere and can be told about anything. They are as likely to occur in your own neighborhood as in some exotic locale. Potential stories happen daily; what makes potential stories actual stories is putting them into language, recounting them, orally or in writing. Good stories are entertaining, informative, lively, and believable; they will mean something to those who write then as well as to those who read them. Subjects for good essays have no limits. You already have a lifetime of experiences from which to choose, and each experience is a potential story to help explain who you are, what you believe, and how you act today. When beginning, you might want to ask yourself:
- Did you ever have a long-held belief or assumption shattered? Can you trace the change to one event or a series of events?
- Is there a particular experience that you observed that has had a profound influence on your life?
- Is there a person that who has greatly influenced you?
- Is there a decision that you had to make, or a challenge or an obstacle that you faced?
- Was there ever a moment in your life when you decided to reform, to adopt a whole new outlook?
- How would you characterize your attempt? (Successful? Unsuccessful? Laughable? Painful?)
Here are some
subject suggestions:
Winning
and Losing
Winning something-a
race, a contest, a lottery-can be a good subject, since it
features you in a unique position and allows you to explore
or celebrate a special talent. The truth is that in most
parts of life, there are more losers than winners. While one
team wins a championship, dozens do not. So there is a large,
empathetic audience out there who will understand and
identify with a narrative about losing. Although more common
than winning, losing is less often explored in writing
because it is more painful to recall. Therefore, they are
fresher, deeper, more original stories to tell about
losing.
Milestones
Perhaps the most
interesting but also the most difficult experience to write
about is one that you already recognize as a turning point in
your life, whether it's winning a sports championship, being
a camp counselor, or surviving a five-day solo camping trip
in mid-winter. Writers who explore such topics in writing
often come to a better understanding of them. Also, their
very significance challenges the writers to make them equally
significant for an audience that did not experience them.
When you write about milestones, pay special attention to the
physical details that will both advance your story and make
it come alive for readers.
Daily Life
Commonplace experiences
make fertile subjects for personal narratives. You might
describe practicing, rather than winning the big competition,
or cleaning up after, rather than attending the prom. If you
are accurate, honest, and observant in exploring a subject
from which readers expect little, you are apt to pleasantly
surprise them and draw them into your essay. Work experiences
are especially fruitful subjects, since you may know inside
details and routines of restaurants and retail shops that the
rest of us can only guess.
More Narrative writing prompts
Writing the Narrative Essay
A few things to remember when writing a narrative essay:
- Narratives are generally written in the first person, that is, using I. However, third person (he, she, or it) can also be used.
- Narratives rely on concrete, sensory details to convey their point. These details should create a unified, forceful effect, a dominant impression.
- Narratives, as stories, should include these story conventions: a plot, including setting and characters; a climax; and an ending.
More information about writing a narrative essay
-
Narrative and Descriptive Composition Patterns
Good discussion of the descriptive details required for an effective narrative. Includes examples of narrative essays by Jeffrey Taylor and Mark Twain. - Washburn University Writing Center Handout on Narration
-
Writing Skills: Narrative Essays
Basic explanation of narration includes a sample essay. -
Descriptive Detail
Excellent explanation of descriptive detail in writing including the uses of descriptive details and various types.