4.2: The Art of Narration

Instructions:

Read the guide below that offers specific instructions and steps you can take to write a powerful, engaging narrative essay. As you read, make note of key points or tips that you can use when you write your own narrative essay this week.

Tell Your Story

Like any good story, a narrative essay needs to engage the audience by bringing an event to life. How do you do this as a writer? Start by choosing a single important moment and "zooming in" on the actions, thoughts, sensations, and feelings you experienced. Map out a beginning, middle, and end in your mind, and turn these into paragraphs that you flesh out with vivid details (sights, sounds, textures, observations, and dialogue engage an audience more than simply telling what happened).

It's generally better to focus in more detail on a smaller time than try to cover too much in less detail. For a 500-word essay, try to narrow your scope to an impactful moment rather than writing about an entire semester or year. You can always give background information as needed to fill in gaps. Finally, be sure you have a strong sense of purpose; you should have learned or realized something valuable as a result of your story- something that is worth passing on to other readers.

The Thesis

Students applying for college are probably familiar with the idea of a thesis -- a clear and compelling assertion or argument introduced somewhere in the beginning of the essay and supported throughout. In narrative writing, the thesis takes on a slightly different role. As many narrative essays focus on personal experience, the thesis then becomes the lesson of that experience. It answers the question of why the experience is important in the first place. According to the Santa Barbara City College Writing Center, this kind of thesis can offer the moral of the story or reveal a universal theme.

Show, Don't Tell

One golden rule of narrative writing is to show rather than tell. This means that the writer should not simply tell the reader what occurred in the story but rather show the reader the events of the story in vivid detail. For example, the narrator of a story about a car accident might say, “I was in a car wreck." Although a complete statement, the telling lacks the visceral emotion of an actual car wreck. A better passage would be, “I awoke in a heap of twisted metal and shattered glass, bleeding from my left shoulder.”

The Plot

After writing a captivating introduction, the writer should develop the plot, or the sequential events of the story. In other types of essay writing, the writer would use the main body of the essay to lay out subtopics, quotes and research that supports the thesis. In narrative essays, the main body should be the experience itself. The writer should unfold events chronologically, using transitions from paragraph to paragraph that don’t halt the reader. The Online Writing Lab of Purdue University urges writers "to evoke specific emotions and senses in the reader."

Climax and Conclusion

As in any good story, the events in a narrative essay should culminate in a dramatic moment of significant change, otherwise known as the climax. In a personal essay about a car wreck, the accident itself may be the climax, or the climax may occur later when the victim passes out or nearly dies on the operating table. The climax should reveal the point where the character changes, for better or worse. It should lead back to the thesis that was touched upon in the introduction, which in turn should be reiterated, even nuanced, in the conclusion. Requirements for narrative essays vary from college to college. The University of Texas at Austin recommends an essay no longer than one page, single-spaced, for basic admission requirements.

See more samples:

The essays here are additional resources you can use to guide your writing. These are written by students, not professionals, so keep that in mind as you read. A good technique is to highlight or underline sensory details, dialogue, and key ideas as you read.